Many San Diego brewers have been inspired to get into beermaking by local craft beers, but for Ryan and Jeff Talbert, their a-ha moments happened far from home. In 2012, shortly after graduating from college and high school, respectively, the siblings embarked on a trip to Europe. There, they got their first taste for Old World beers and their place in various European cultures. It was intriguing and invigorating enough that, by the time they came home, both brothers had a yearning to learn how to brew.
For most, that would mean a trip to the local homebrew store, but Ryan and Jeff were fortunate enough to have cousins with a stake in Douglas, Michigan’s Saugatuck Brewing. So, instead of reading book after book about the fermentation sciences and spending weekends in their garages erecting the perfect brew sculpture, Ryan quit his job and Jeff left college, and the duo headed to the Wolverine State where they learned brewery operations on a commercial scale through an internship.
After returning home they applied their newly acquired knowledge on a domestic scale, homebrewing numerous recipes for beers they hoped to one day offer to the public at their very own brewery. But before they got that business going, they were presented with the opportunity to be part of another beverage venture. That interest went by the name of Hebe Kombucha and operated out of an industrial suite in San Marcos. Hebe never did pan out, but the Talberts are far from done with the space that housed it. They are in the process of converting the industrial suite into a nanobrewery dubbed Ten-75 Brewing, the name of which mimics the brewery-to-be’s address: 1075 Linda Vista Drive.
“Before we moved in, the space was light industrial warehouse with an office and a lab. It looked like a brewery space from the moment we walked in and we wanted to stay in the area,” says Ryan. “We want to create a destination to visit with a fun environment, food access and open-air patio seating. And we are excited to be in a brewery-hopping destination right down the street from Dos Desperados Brewery. Shout-out to [Brewmaster] Hayden [Weir] and [Sales Manager] Dan [Jackson] over there—as well as Rip Current Brewing and Stave and Nail Brewing.”
Ten-75 figures to be smaller than any of the aforementioned San Marcos operations. The Talberts are currently brewing beer in two-barrel batches and will continue doing so when the business launches. Ryan and Jeff are sharing brewing duties along with longtime homebrewing colleague Luke Martin, and have 20 barrels’ worth of tank space at their disposal.
“We want to have fun and create unique beers on a frequent basis in small batches, which will give us the flexibility to play around,” says Ryan. Despite the playful terminology, the Talberts are serious about making traditional, beer-flavored beer. Their offerings will include various IPAs as well as lighter, more sessionable beers suited for San Diego’s warm-weather climate. “We aren’t really sure what to expect, production-wise, in year one, especially after such a strange year and being brand-new, but we hope to produce as much beer as we can.”
Like many breweries that have opened in recent years, the Talberts’ goals for their family business are far from those of brewing companies that launched from the turn of the century to the early-2010s, when most owners had plans of getting into grocery, retail chains and big-box stores in most U.S. states. Consumers’ increasing support of local small businesses over the past several years has made such lofty goals difficult to achieve, while allowing smaller breweries to make a go of their “very small” and nano-sized operations by attentively and effectively servicing their community’s citizens.
The Talberts want to be a “neighborhood brewery”. Were it not for COVID-19, Ten-75 may already be one, but the pandemic put tasting-room construction on hold. Still, they have made progress, gutting their suite so it can be reborn to include a tasting room that will include long beerhall-style tables as well as a pinball machine inherited from a neighboring business. The business’ current debut timeframe is fall or winter of this year, though the brothers say it may take them until 2022 before they are fully operational.
Ten-75 Brewing will be located at 1075 Linda Vista Drive, Suite J, in San Marcos