It’s like the 1960’s sitcom Bewitched. One day you walk into a tasting room and are served by an owner and head brewer named Darren. Then you head back to that same spot and are served by an owner and head brewer named Daren, but he looks markedly different than the guy from before. The setting for this scenario is a Kearny Mesa brewery that operated under Darren Baker as Circle 9 Brewing for the past three-plus years. A few months ago, Baker decided to put his business up for sale and found ideal recipients for his turnkey operation in a pair of entrepreneurs, Alex Kim and Daren Rudy. Kim is a computer engineer and IT project manager with experience launching start-up companies, and “the new Daren” has been with Ballast Point Brewing since 2011, the last seven years as a brewer. Together, they form a business-and-brewing duo that’s making their dream of brewery-ownership come true care of their passion project, Ataraxia Aleworks.
Kim and Rudy started realistically contemplating opening their own beermaking interest in 2017. Initially, they planned to start outside of brewery-saturated San Diego, then opening a second location in their home county. Then Rudy stumbled onto Circle 9’s for-sale listing and the tandem deemed the opportunity on Opportunity Road too good to pass up.
“We did a survey of the Western U.S. market and initially planned to open in Reno, Nevada. In March of last year, we were actually very close to purchasing a property to start our venture when the pandemic hit and put our plans on hold,” says Kim. “Fast forward to November—we met the owner of Circle 9 and seized the opportunity to pick up where we left off. Though Kearny Mesa wasn’t our target neighborhood, we both frequently visit the area and are elated to be in Central San Diego.”
“Selling the brewery was an emotional thing for me. I had some offers from some guys who just wanted to dumb down the beer, make cheap beer and sell it to their dive bars. I had a guy who just wanted to buy it and hand it over to his millennial son who doesn’t know anything about beer. It just didn’t feel right,” says Baker, who is exiting San Diego but has plans to continue brewing outside of California, which he says is cost-prohibitive. “It felt really good to sell it to these guys because they have a passion for the craft and they actually remind me of me when I first started.”
Kim is Ataraxia’s CEO while Rudy is the COO. In addition to heading all brewing operations, Rudy is also in charge of networking with his wealth of connections within the San Diego craft-beer community. He’s forged relationships with many in the industry since entering it as an employee at Linda Vista’s Home Brew Mart, before moving to Ballast Point’s production team in 2014. At Ataraxia, he’ll start as a one-man show operating on a three-and-a-half-barrel system with four seven-barrel fermenters and a seven-barrel bright tanks at his disposal. As the company grows, new, larger-capacity equipment will be purchased, but the initial aim is to keep Ataraxia small for a while.
“The goal is to grow, as any other business, however, history has proven that growing too quickly can be detrimental to new businesses,” says Kim. “As we are still new to owning and operating our own brewery, we would rather stay small to focus on quality and grow organically when the time presents itself.”
The duo intends to keep the layout of the tasting room mostly the same, while replacing the previous operation’s Dante’s Inferno-inspired thematic with that of Ataraxia. That term is ancient Greek for “tranquility,” and Kim says to expect a peaceful, harmonious environment in which to enjoy a fresh pint after a long day. As far as what will go into that pint glass, Rudy plans on having a wide variety of styles available from day one, including three different hoppy options as well as a blonde and amber ale, vanilla porter and lager. Other specialty releases and one-offs will be determined, in part, drawing on customer feedback.
But first things first. Kim and Rudy will spend the next several months brewing and revamping the tasting room, with a projected public debut date of April. That ETA is dependent on licensing and other governmental factors, but tranquility is on the horizon.
Ataraxia Aleworks is located at 7292 Opportunity Road, Suite C, in Kearny Mesa