A valuable piece of production equipment that’s been sitting in Little Miss Brewing’s Miramar tasting room, practically begging to be used, will soon fulfill its brewing destiny. That 30-barrel brewhouse will significantly increase the six-year-old operation’s capabilities, but finding a place to set it up has proven problematic for co-owner Greg Malkin. So much so that in May he put out a call for inquiries to contemporaries interested in partnering with him to share expenses on a new production facility or set up an alternating proprietorship that would allow Little Miss to site the brewhouse at another company’s facility and brew on it part-time.
Malkin received numerous calls form local brewery owners, but as it turns out, neither of the above scenarios will play out. Instead, Little Miss will move its well-rested beermaking apparatus into a 10,000-square-foot structure in Logan Heights. Located on the corner of Commercial and 32nd Streets, that structure has 25-foot ceilings that will easily allow for installation of cellar tanks.
“This production facility will give us the ability to supply as many tasting rooms that we want to open while also allowing us to distribute beer almost limitlessly to as many accounts as we can acquire throughout San Diego County,” says Malkin. “I believe this facility will also separate us from some of the smaller breweries and put us on equal footing with some of the larger breweries in the county. This same system installed in a lot of major cities throughout the U.S. would possibly make us one of, if not the largest brewery in that city. Here, it means we’re doing pretty well.”
When asked why he selected the project site, which is in a part of San Diego that has never housed a brewing facility of any kind, Malkin points to its size, the presence of sufficient gas and electric on the property, a desirable price-per-square-foot and its distance from not only competing breweries, but Little Miss’ existing venues, of which there are many. Once open, this will be the company’s ninth location. To put that in perspective, 31-year-old Oggi’s tallies eight locations in San Diego County, followed by Stone Brewing with eight, then Karl Strauss Brewing, Mike Hess Brewing, Novo Brazil Brewing and Pizza Port with five apiece.
Malkin says the building’s partial Quonset-hut frame is also a plus. Little Miss’ thematic centers around World War II and U.S. Ally countries, so having a spot evocative of Naval structures will work well aesthetically. While Malkin expects it will take nine months to a year to complete construction of the brewery component, he hopes to open the Logan Heights tasting room within seven-to-nine months.
Back in Miramar, Malkin has struck a deal with the team behind El Cid Brewing wherein that soon-to-open interest will install fermenters at the facility and have Little Miss contract-brew its beer. El Cid is headed by Eric Bridges, a retired Navy veteran who has taken over the North Park space that formerly housed Home Brewing Co. (HBC). Production there is limited to the one-barrel system HBC owner George Thornton sold to Bridges, meaning the lion’s share of El Cid’s beers will be manufactured in Miramar.
Malkin says his team will brew at both facilities for now, with the eventual intent of either subleasing the Miramar brewery or utilizing it for small-batch brewing or, perhaps, barrel-aging.
Little Miss Brewing’s new production facility will be located at 3192 Commercial Street in Logan Heights