It’s always heartbreaking when a brewery run by hard-working, passionate people goes out of business. Especially when it’s a local operation that’s been in business for many years. Such is the case for an Oceanside-based brewing company that abruptly closed its doors over the weekend. A clever concern with a purposefully – and playfully – morbid motif, it seems fitting to tell their story in obituary form.
Black Plague Brewing
June 1, 2017 – September 28, 2025
Oceanside, California
In 2016, retired professional skateboarder Jordan Hoffart teamed with career marketer Jarred Doss and other business partners to open a brewing company meant to be simultaneously dark and cheery. Going by the name, Black Plague Brewing, it started out in a 13,000-square-foot facility at the end of a cul-de-sac in inland Oceanside, where despite being tucked out of sight, it quickly became a hit.
Early fans of the business included a mix of North County beer fans and an alternative-minded clientele. The latter were enamored with the business’ playful nods to all things macabre, including its tasting room’s Instagram-ready coffins and black walls adorned with murals of the grim reaper palling around with a circa-1300s plague doctor. Meanwhile, beerophiles were initially drawn in by head-brewing consultant Bill Batten, a veteran with a quality reputation earned during his years working at award-winning Miramar operation AleSmith Brewing. (Later, the brewhouse would be put in the hands of permanent Head Brewer Aeryk Heeg.)
A few years in, Hoffart saw an opportunity to make good on an aspiration of opening a Black Plague tasting room in North Park. Despite a lease being signed to take over a 2,000-square-foot former mattress store on El Cajon Boulevard, the project did not come to fruition. It wouldn’t be until 2022 that the company debuted its first satellite venue, a 2,400-square-foot, kitchen-equipped taproom with a 1,400-square-foot backyard in downtown Escondido dubbed the Purgatory Lounge. Originally opened with longtime collaborators Full Metal Burgers, the culinary program was later headed by Black Plague when that partnership came to an end in 2024.
Buoyed by the success of the Purgatory Lounge, Hoffart and Doss took a second swing at North Park in 2023, when Carlsbad-based Rouleur Brewing moved out of a 1,700-square-foot taproom on the corner of University Avenue and 29th Street. The duo put in an offer and took over the space, reopening – fully remade in the company’s horror-movie image – in a mere matter of days. Going by the name Dearly Departed, the taproom abutted popular live-music venue The Observatory. Hoffart and Doss had hoped to capture showgoers, but later said they were unable to do so, resulting in a location that didn’t bring in enough revenue to be sustainable. That led to Dearly Departed shuttering this spring. (The taproom is now a satellite of Anaheim-based Asylum Brewing).
The problem of profitability did not die with the North Park closure. Despite efforts by ownership and Black Plague’s staff, the company closed its doors on Sunday, September 28. During its eight years in business, the company’s beers earned numerous awards at competitions such as the San Diego International Beer Competition, California State Fair, Brewers Cup of California and U.S. Open Beer Championships.