L[/]ittle Miss Brewing has been a big player in the San Diego beer scene, most notably by opening up more tasting rooms than any other beermaking interest in the county. In addition to its Miramar headquarters, the company boasts six locations, spanning to and from further-flung locales such as Escondido, Poway and Lakeside, with two more satellites preparing for launch. Despite all that real estate, Little Miss is a lesser-known local business, mostly because almost every drop of its beer is sold across its own bars.
It’s not that owners Greg and Jade Malkin wouldn’t like to have beer in kegs and cans out on the open market, but a brewery’s best margins come from sales at its own venues and, currently, Little Miss can only produce enough beer for those spots (even with a contract-brewing agreement with Mission Brewery in place). Fortunately, the answer to the Malkins’ prayers—a new, 30-barrel, four-vessel brewhouse—is in their possession and waiting to fulfill its destiny. All it needs is a permanent home, and all the Malkins think they need is another brewery to help provide that.
“I know there are other local breweries that, like us, want or need to increase their production capabilities. I’ve actually had conversations with some of them,” says Malkin. “I’d like to partner with such an operation so that, in helping ourselves, we can help out another brewery and reduce risk, exposure and additional expenses for both of us.”
Once the 30-barrel system is sited in a workable space—it’s currently shrink-wrapped in plastic, with its vessels taking up space in Little Miss’ Miramar tasting room—it will allow the Malkins to move forward with plans for increased distribution. This will include packaging its product with the assistance of mobile-canning vendors.
Little Miss produced roughly 1,400 barrels in 2019. That year—the last one untouched by the pandemic—about 40% of the company’s beer was distributed to outside accounts. In 2020, when Little Miss had five tasting rooms, it produced 1,800 barrels, with just 5% going beyond its venues. In 2021, production rose to 2,400 barrels with less than 2% heading to accounts. Once the new system is installed and operational, Malkin expects to work toward increased production between 18,000 to 36,000 barrels of beer annually.
“We are looking to partner with another brewery, either by taking over 5,000-to-8,000 square feet of unused space at their facility or by entering into an alternating proprietorship and finding a space that’s anywhere from 8,000-to-10,000 square feet, which we can lease together,” says Malkin. “If we have to do this on our own, we’ll do it, but I’d like to avoid that if possible. The last thing we want to do is bite off more than we can chew.”
When asked about his risk aversion, Malkin points to 2017, when Little Miss secured what then would have been its third tasting room. Located on Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach, the space was built out nearly to completion, equating to a crippling financial loss when the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, influenced by the City of San Diego, refused to issue the Malkins a license, forcing them to walk away with nothing for all their investment. Since then, they have made a fruitful practice of setting their sights on communities in need of a local craft-beer presence rather than looking to join neighborhoods already flush with brewery-owned venues and bars.
Malkin welcomes any brewery owners who would be interested in the above scenarios to email him, and would also be happy to hear from realtors who may have leads on available industrial-zoned properties that would fit his criteria.
Little Miss Brewing’s headquarters is located at 7949 Stromesa Court in Miramar