Many veteran brewers dream of opening their own beer businesses some day, but struggle with the idea of going solo. In many cases, doing so means severing ties with the companies where they’ve spent years gaining experience and building their reputations, and saying farewell to valued colleagues with whom they’ve worked closely to achieve great things. Fortunately, chasing entrepreneurship aspirations doesn’t always mean cutting ties and marching alone into uncharted territory. Such is the case for a quartet of employees at Belching Beaver Brewery, who are not only receiving the full support of their longtime employer, but also a brewing facility and a paycheck, as they stay aboard with the North County brewing company while working on their own brand, Hop Habit Brewery.
The Hop Habit team includes Belching Beaver Head of Production and Quality Manager Thomas Peters (pictured above), Brewer Eric Childress, Director of Sales Marc Truex and Human Resources Manager Diane Magrath. All have been with the Oceanside-based operation – which now boasts four locations – since the early 2010s, when it operated out of a single industrial-park unit on Vista’s Park Center Drive. Belching Beaver owner Tom Vogel and his team have since expanded that location, converting it into a brewery and barrel warehouse with a kitchen-equipped tasting room and outdoor patio dubbed Pub 980. Considering the Hop Habit team’s shared history, it’s fitting this is where they now operate under an alternating-proprietorship agreement.
“We began talking about the project about two years ago and started making beer earlier this year,” says Peters, who serves as brewmaster for the new company. “Tom and I came up with the idea for the brand together. For some time, he’s had the idea of starting a new brewery where he could give equity to those employees who have been here from the beginning and contributed so much to Belching Beaver’s success.”
Belching Beaver opened its doors in 2012 and has quietly grown into one of the largest craft-beer operations in San Diego County. Best known for its peanut-butter-laced stout, terpene-infused IPA and a line of beers crafted in partnership with alternative band, Deftones, the company’s beers are distributed in 14 states in the Western and Midwest U.S. While every bit as respectable, the goals for Hop Habit are less lofty from a market-saturation perspective. Hop Habit is designed to be – and stay – a boutique brewing operation meant to flourish in San Diego County versus grow beyond it.
“We will likely be under a thousand barrels this year,” says Peters, who is splitting time between Hop Habit and Belching Beaver. The latter produced well over 30,000 barrels of beer in 2023. “We once brewed around 12,000 barrels out of the 980 location, but I doubt we want to hit that number any time soon.”
As the company’s name implies, Hop Habit will focus primarily on producing hop-forward beers such as IPAs and pale ales. This is familiar territory for Peters, who has made a name for himself through award-winning performances at the most prestigious hoppy-beer competition in the country, the Alpha King Challenge. Held annually in conjunction with the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), it pits scores of IPAs against one another in a battle for supremacy. Peters’ creations took top honors in 2014 and 2017. He has also developed recipes for numerous beers that have earned medals at GABF, including one in the fresh-hop IPA category.
The first half-dozen beers from Hop Habit’s burgeoning portfolio are…
- Desk Pop (7% alcohol-by-volume): Cold IPA with Citra, Mosaic, Nelson CGX, Mosaic Incognito & Simcoe CO2 Extract
- Hang Dai (7%): West Coast IPA with Mosaic, Cryo Mosaic, Krush, Strata, Idaho 7 & Simcoe CO2 Extract
- El Niño (7.6%): Hazy IPA with Citra, Mosaic, El Dorado & Mosaic Incognito
- Inverted (9%): Double IPA with Citra, Nectraon, Krush, Mosaic CO2 Extract & Simcoe CO2 Extract
- Half Faded (5.5%): Pale Ale with Citra, Cryo Citra, Citra XL-EO & Mosaic
- Acid Trip (4%): Fruited Sour Ale with Apricot & Peach
“Right now, we’re focusing primarily on hoppy styles, but we will have a light lager available, as well,” says Peters. “Our sour ale, Acid Trip, will be part of a rotating fruit-beer series, and we will definitely have more new one-off IPAs along with lagers and Belgian ales as the seasons change. Along with that, I hope to start getting together with my friends in the industry to release more collaborations.”
Hop Habit beers are self-distributed and have begun to trickle into the market, mostly at retail establishments in North County. And this week, a sign with the company’s name went up at the Pub 980 location, where Hop Habit beers are flowing.
The opportunities are endless with Hop Habit. Beer is a unique product, and while the industry is shifting, smaller breweries who make a high-quality product are doing well right now. We’re hoping to make a name for ourselves in that space, and this is an opportunity to get back to our roots, making fun and innovative beers on a smaller scale.”
Thomas Peters, Co-founder, Hop Habit Brewery
Hop Habit’s tasting room is open from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday through Wednesday, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursdays, and 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. An official launch party will take place from 5 to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, October 29, featuring a special Hop Habit short-rib melt with horseradish sauce mirroring the zing of their hop-laden liquid assets.
Hop Habit Brewing is located at 980 Park Center Drive in Vista