Sometimes hometown pride can exist on a micro-regional level. Just ask Trevor Whitehead and Joel Steinmetz, the entrepreneurs putting the finishing touches on a love letter to the community they reside in, South O Brewing. Named for Oceanside’s southerly expanses, the business is the first tenant at developer H.G. Fenton’s fourth and newest lease-to-brew Brewery Igniter location on South Coast Highway. This will be the homebrewing duo’s first foray into commercial brewing, and while they are doing it for themselves on some level, they are also driven to provide something their neighbors can enjoy.
“We wanted to own a brewery in our community which people could be proud of; a brewery that our neighbors could point to and say, ‘Yes, that is our brewery, we drink there and they support the community in an integral way,’” says Whitehead. “The Brewery Igniter space was a perfect situation for us as first-time brewery owners. Forward-thinking local builders, CLTVT, had designed the space, and that gave us the confidence to move forward given the production success of other Igniter designs.”
Whitehead says that he, a manager of pubs and bars in Canada, Australia and aboard ships in the Silver Sea Cruise Lines fleet, and Steinmetz, who managed wineries in Napa and Santa Rosa and has an electrical-engineering degree, began homebrewing together on a weekly basis during the pandemic. As is common with recreational brewers, the pair wondered what it might be like to open their own beer-production interest. At the time, South Oceanside was without a brewery. (Municipal Taco, which includes an in-house beer-making operation, Municipal Beer, opened this May.) Thirsty for a neighborhood brewery and energized by positive feedback from family and friends, they signed on with H.G. Fenton and have been hard at work on their passion project ever since.
South O’s facility comes in at 3,300 square feet. Of that total area, 900 square feet are devoted to the tasting room, which will seat around 50 people. As with all Brewery Igniter suites, tenants are allowed to convey their brand however they like from an interior-design standpoint. Being the first company to lease the space, Whitehead and Steinmetz are working with a completely blank slate.
“Our tasting room will have a modern industrial feel with a tribute to local and historic South Oceanside. We hope to bring a relaxed, laid-back atmosphere those in the area are accustomed to; someplace locals can stop in to after a long day at work or to meet up with friends,” says Whitehead. “We have a good-sized bar for guests to sit at and will have several small tables set up inside. The covered patio space out front will afford us with additional seating. Thanks to a pair of roll-up doors, there isn’t much separation between inside and outside.”
South O’s 10-barrel brewhouse will be the charge of Maurey Fletcher, who served as head brewer for Vista-based Booze Brothers Brewing, where he worked for six years. His résumé also includes three years at Oceanside’s Golden Coast Mead. Fletcher will put his experience to use crafting the array of lagers, IPAs and other assorted ales (plus hard seltzers) to fill the tasting room’s taps. Once they find a groove at home, Whitehead and Steinmetz intend to start looking for retail accounts beyond their four walls. This will include on-premise bars and restaurants in and beyond San Diego County.
For now, it’s all about getting up and running in the brewery. Brewing began in late-October, and if all goes as planned, South O will be ready for its public debut on Saturday, December 4.
In other Brewer Igniter news, Attitude Brewing officially debuted the brewery and tasting room it installed at H.G. Fenton’s North Park facility last month. That suite was previously operated by hard-kombucha company JuneShine, which is now operating out of the suite on the opposite side of the building that was vacated by Eppig Brewing when that company moved to a larger manufacturing facility in Vista back in 2019.
South O Brewing is located at 1575 South Coast Highway in Oceanside