As we work our way through the last, fleeting moments of 2025, rocketing toward a brand-new 365-day span, we’re pausing to look back on the year that was. It’s a San Diego Beer News tradition to reveal the 25 news stories that garnered the most engagement among our readership (not including standard fare about events and beer competitions results or features such as our travel guides, Beer of the Week pieces and brewery-staff spotlights). But there was so much going on in the local brewing community over the past 12 months, that we decided to take things further, presenting the top 50 articles. The following are numbers 31 through 40.
40. Two new southerly beer bastions
January 22, 2025
While a steady stream of new breweries have opened in recent years, that has not been the case for bars focused on what those operations produce. Many have lamented the lessening number of craft-beer bars in San Diego County, which made it so significant for two to launch at the start of the year – Barrio Logan’s Tiny Giant Taproom and Lucky’s Irish Beer Garden in Bonita – both headed by beer enthusiasts with a fervent commitment to bringing high-quality ales and lagers to neighborhoods with low exposure to such offerings.
39. Ushering in Quantum Brewing v3.0
November 11, 2025
In 2023, the owner of Quantum Brewing put his Kearny Mesa business up for sale. Two years later, he’s still there, but in a completely different capacity, working as a part-time bartender while providing fermentation and management consultation to the business’ third and current owner, Taylor Scheid. A former homebrewer and U.S. Navy rescue diver, Scheid is being careful to retain the beers and other aspects of the business that longtime fans have enjoyed while also infusing a bit of himself into the 11-year-old nanobrewery.
38. Local product finds his way home
May 6, 2025
In 2020, Dan Anderson, a local brewer who’d cut his teeth working under respected brewers at Rock Bottom, Gordon Biersch and Puesto Cervecería, decided to take his talents to Austin, Texas, where he went on to work as a brewer and process quality manager at Zilker Brewing and Pinthouse Brewing, respectively. After gaining a wealth of experience at both companies, Anderson returned this spring to accept the role of head brewer for Karl Strauss Brewing, San Diego County’s longest-operating post-Prohibition beer company.
37. The Lost Abbey debuts taproom with Duck Duck en route
February 24, 2025
In 2024, The Lost Abbey made a cross-Vista move from Mother Earth Brew Co., where it had temporarily shared a brewery and taproom with its landlords, to Eppig Brewing‘s former HQ. That facility was inherited by the parent company of Mason Ale Works after that entity took over management of the Eppig brand. As part of the new tenancy, The Lost Abbey was able to debut an independent tasting room in the production area just ahead of the release of the company’s award-winning barrel-aged sour ale, Duck Duck Gooze.
36. Northern Pine Brewing out, but not over
April 15, 2025
Launched in Oceanside in 2017, Northern Pine Brewing earned a fast following which allowed it to expand early on as one of three local beverage tenants at the shared Brewer’s Deck rooftop bar atop Del Mar Highlands’ SkyDeck collective. Its beers sold well at both venues, but ultimately, problems with culinary operations at their flagship location (a restaurant partner bailed in 2023 and the brewery’s attempt to manage the on-site kitchen proved unsuccessful) led to a notice to vacate from the company’s landlord. Northern Pine closed in April, but the owners hope to be back in business at some point.
35. Get a peek into Lyons Peak Brewing
November 2, 2025
Well known among recreational and professional brewers, Chad Stevens has spent the last half-decade tending to hundreds of trees he had shipped over from Europe and planted at his estate in Jamul. Those trees bear a rare variety of cherries, which flavor spontaneously fermented lambic-style beer (kriek) that he produces on-site under his Lyons Peak Brewing label. Stevens provided his story and that of the Schaerbeek cherry prior to the fruits of his labor making their debut at O’Brien’s Pub at a kickoff event for San Diego Beer Week.
34. No more namesake beer for Oceanside
February 28, 2025
Oceanside has long been home to a multitude of breweries, enough that for a decade, two of those ale-and-lager operations bore the North County municipality’s name. But last December, 16-year-old Oceanside Ale Works closed its doors. That loss was followed by the owner of Oceanside Brewing’s decision to shutter his communal hub for art, music and beer (perhaps in that order) after 10 years. (Before you email us, yes, South O Brewing is still around and, yes, they’re name is technically eponymous with Oceanside.)
33. New life for Little Miss’ northernmost taproom
May 23, 2025
When Little Miss Brewing pulled the plug after nine years in the beer biz, it not only left behind its Logan Heights brewery, but also nine satellite tasting rooms. It wasn’t long before the company’s vacated Escondido digs were taken over by a trio of individuals who had previously worked there (including a former co-owner of Rip Current Brewing and member of the San Diego Brewers Guild’s Board of Directors). Together they have spent the past seven months converting the space into a craft-beer haven called The Escondido Social Taproom.
32. Brewers Guild director opening his own brewery
July 22, 2025
Few are as in tune with the local brewing industry and have peeked behind the curtains of as many of the county’s breweries as Erik Fowler. The Executive Director of the San Diego Brewers Guild indicated he would use the insights and knowledge he’d gained representing the region’s beermakers when announcing he and his wife were working to start their own craft-beer concern. Going by the name Good Pressure Brewing, their passion project would take the place of Poochie’s Hooch Urban Cidery in Allied Gardens, giving that community its first-ever brewery.
31. One brewery’s loss is another’s gain
January 13, 2025
Prior to being acquired by Maui-based Craft ‘Ohana in 2022, Modern Times Beer did not submit its beers into brewing competitions, but once it started doing so, the company began running the table with its barrel-aged stouts. When the company moved out of its Point Loma production facility and switched to contract-brewing, numerous employees were laid off, including the individual who’d managed the barrel-aged beer program, Kyle Fjalstad. But it didn’t take long for him to find a new home working for North Park brewpub, The Original 40 Brewing, the owners of which were thrilled to land such a proven professional.
Click here to see which of this year’s news stories ranked 41 through 50