From news about people and places in the local beer community to what may be the very last round of professional brewing awards doled out in 2025, we have plenty to share with you in this latest round of rapid-fire news briefs.
It was 2018 when Daniel Garcia (pictured above) embarked on a brewing career, moving from the taproom to the cellar at Black Market Brewing. Following the pandemic, he moved to San Diego to work at North County businesses Culver Beer Co., Black Plague Brewing and Northern Pine Brewing. He held his first head brewer job with the latter before that company shuttered this April, at which point he was scooped up by Societe Brewing. He served as lead brewer at that Kearny Mesa operation before turning in his two-week notice earlier this month in order to accept a job offer from Artifex Brewing. That San Clemente concern, which also operates a taproom at Oceanside’s Freeman Collective, recently bid adieu to Johnny Johur, a Pizza Port and Mother Earth Brew Co. expat who co-founded Artifex in 2014, after he decided to relocate from coastal North County to Switzerland, where he now works for White Frontier Brewery.
In April, we reported that four San Diego brewing companies combined to win nine medals at the 2025 edition of the Best of Craft Beer Awards. That competition, which takes place annually in Central Oregon, holds off on judging fresh-hop beers until hop harvest season, weighing the merits of early-harvest and late-harvest wet-hop ales and lagers during two individual sessions. Last month, TapRoom Beer Co. was awarded a silver medal in the early-harvest round’s Fresh Hop Lagers category for its West Coast Pilsner, Church of Chill. The North Park brewpub struck again in the late-harvest round, earning another silver, this time in the Fresh Hop Pale or Hazy Pale Ale category for Figures in the Fog. Meanwhile, Carlsbad-based Burgeon Beer Co. nabbed a gold medal in the Fresh Hop Imperial or Imperial Hazy IPA category for its recently released fresh-hop double IPA, Sticky Fingers.
On Thursday, October 2, police officers descended upon Chula Vista Brewery’s (CVB’s) flagship location on Third Avenue in its eponymous city’s downtown area to serve owners Timothy and Dali Parker with a suspension notice from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) mandating the business shut down immediately and remain closed for 45 days. Aware of the date and time officers would arrive, the Parkers and their attorney put out a call to the public and local media, inviting them to be present to support CVB. While the ABC’s suspension cites repeated noise complaints, the Parkers believe they are being singled out, disproportionately punished in comparison to other Third Avenue businesses, and racially discriminated against, referring to what they describe as “racial undertones” and “highly racially stereotyped language” in transcripts from appeals of previous CVB shutdowns over the company’s seven-year history. Those suspensions were also issued in response to noise complaints, but this time Timothy and Dali — who are Black and Hispanic, respectively — say it felt different in that they were denied the opportunity to appeal through the ABC’s standard processes. CVB will be allowed to reopen its Third Avenue location on Sunday, November 16. Meanwhile, the company’s other location in Chula Vista’s Eastlake neighborhood remains open for business. That brewpub is located at 871 Showroom Place, #102.