About a month ago, Latchkey Brewing shut down its tasting room in Mission Hills. Some speculated that the company had gone out of business, or the closure was only temporary, a measure inspired by the pandemic. While it is a permanent shuttering, Latchkey is still in operation, but moving on from the only home its known.
With the four-year-old company’s lease coming to an end, ownership decided not to continue operating its brewery and tasting room units at Mission Brewery Plaza, and instead set out on a search for a new location in which to grow the Latchkey brand. Company co-founder Matt West and company are in the process of securing a site they are excited to take over, but it will be a matter of months before it will be fully ready for them.
This leaves Latchkey without a brewhouse at which to maintain beer production for a significant span. As is so often the case in the San Diego brewing industry, they’ll be getting by with some help from their contemporaries.
“Our friends at Viewpoint Brewing are helping us out and allowing us to temporarily transfer our license to their facility so we can brew under an alternating proprietorship,” says West. “They’re doing us a big favor. Our license would have been lost if we’d had no place to brew.”
Viewpoint Brewing is located in Del Mar along the San Dieguito Lagoon and adjacent to the Del Mar Fairgrounds. The brewpub has been in business since 2017 and has collaborated with numerous brewing interests over that span. In addition to allowing Latchkey to keep its license, the Viewpoint deal will allow them to keep beer in kegs and on shelves at retail establishments while the company transitions to its next phase.
West says he has been contacted about Latchkey purchasing and taking over Viewpoint Brewing, but says that, much like the rumors about his company being done for, this is untrue.
“Despite peoples’ interest in digging into our license reassignment, this is the actual story,” says West. “Latchkey is still very much alive, and we’ll be brewing and distributing all through this gap period.”