By and large, local breweries have proven to be extremely resilient over the past few years, employing ingenuity and elbow grease to weather a host of storms which have included a global pandemic, government-mandated shutdowns, labor shortages, rising costs, inflation and a looming recession. Even with all that grit and determination, not every San Diego County brewing company has made it through. For reasons that are different in every case, several breweries and brewery-owned venues have shuttered in recent months, some on a temporary basis and others permanently. The following is a rundown of recent closures not already covered by San Diego Beer News.
TEMPORARY
Last October, brothers Ryan and Jeff Talbert soft-opened their nano-sized San Marcos operation, Ten-75 Brewing. They did so with a small, temporary public space while working to construct a street-facing forever tasting room between two and three times the size of the stopgap sampling space. Business was chugging along until December when Ten-75 closed, providing notices on its Instagram account that it would reopen in 2023. The Talberts say that’s still the plan, but that they won’t be able to welcome back patrons until work is completed to make the parking lot at their industrial park home ADA-compliant.
Last summer, a restaurateur from Hawaii named Rhett Terrebonne teamed with Miramar’s Setting Sun Sake Brewery to have its owner, Josh Hembree, serve as the brewmaster for his suds start-up, Niuhi Brewing. The company produced several batches of beer using the production facility at Mission Brewery Plaza in Middletown. Those early offerings made their way to the public via several local beer festivals. The eventual goal was for Terrebonne to install a kitchen for his culinary concept, Ono Kine Grindz, at Setting Sun’s headquarters in the Miralani Makers District, then offer Niuhi beers from the companies’ shared tasting room. That plan was laid to waste last December when Setting Sun’s landlord ordered the company to vacate the premises by year’s end. The sake producer complied, but it’s not the end for Niuhi. Though his partnership with Setting Sun is no more, Terrebonne is making repairs at Mission Brewery Plaza so he can ramp up for a relaunch and open a small tasting room in which to showcase his work-in-progress company’s eventual beers.
Last month, the downtown Chula Vista tasting room operated by Attitude Brewing abruptly closed its doors. Due in part to the fact that Barrio Logan-based business had recently exited its supplementary brewing facility at North Park’s Brewery Igniter facility by subleasing it to newcomer GOAL. Brewing, some speculated the company was ceasing operations in Chula Vista, as well. According to Attitude owner Kurt Bach, the closure is only temporary. He expects to be back up and running this month after making upgrades to fire-wall doors and lighting, which are required as part of a recent plan change implemented by his landlord.
INDIVIDUAL LOCATIONS
The county’s only tribal-owned-and-operated beermaking interest, Rincon Reservation Road Brewery (AKA: 3R Brewery), will be shuttering its Ocean Beach tasting room, but it’s for a good reason. A new location which is equipped with a kitchen—a value-added Rincon Economic Development Company (REDCO) initially sought when looking for a tasting room—has become available sooner than expected. Following Oceanside-based Belching Beaver Brewery‘s decision to move out of its Newport Avenue satellite in 2020, the Newport Avenue space was taken over by REDCO, which fully revamped the venue, outfitting it with mural work that pays homage to the tribe’s heritage and stocking it with beers brewed on the reservation at 3R’s production facility at Harrah’s Resort Southern California in Valley Center. The last day of service for 3R’s OB tasting room, which opened last March, will be Sunday, May 21.
Earlier this year, the team behind Ebullition Brew Works went to work resetting and vacating the industrial suite where its brewery and tasting room had operated out of since the company’s inception. This was done so that the space could be taken over by a new non-brewing business. Meanwhile, it’s business as usual at the company’s restaurant in Carlsbad’s Bressi Ranch development, Ebullition Brew Works & Gastronomy.
Lesser-known local beer interest Piston Pete’s Brewery & Distillery has closed the south Vista facility it operated out of over the past four years, relocating to San Marcos. The company has transported its auto-industry motif to a public tasting room at 1265 Stone Drive a block north of San Marcos Boulevard and just south of Dos Desperados Brewery and the aforementioned Ten-75.
PERMANENT
Last August, Mikkeller Brewing San Diego announced it would be ceasing operations at its Miramar brewery, which it acquired from AleSmith Brewing in 2015. Through the lengthy wind-down process, the company kept its tasting room in downtown’s Little Italy neighborhood open, but last month that venue was shuttered. It was its last remaining Mikkeller outpost in the U.S., marking the end of an era for the Denmark-based entity.
While unconfirmed despite numerous inquiries, Bay Ho’s Bitter Brothers Brewing has been closed since last August. Upon announcing the closure, the seven-year-old company—which was active as a contract-brewing consultant on top of producing its own beers—noted it was temporary. Nine months later, the tasting room remains shuttered and the company’s website no longer contains any information about the company.