Like many local brewing operations, SouthNorte Beer Co. was able to pivot during the pandemic, shifting from a draft-heavy concept to a revised, can-focused business model. Doing so has put the three-year-old, Baja-influenced interest in position to reach more consumers than ever before behind recently established distribution contracts and a new brewery partner south of the border. SouthNorte has also bolstered its executive team, adding newly minted President Paul Cummins to assist majority owner John Gallegos in growing the brand.
“We ended 2020 in a stronger position than new started thanks to a stellar craft-beer portfolio and our ability to nimbly switch sales strategies,” says Gallegos. “We are thrilled to have Paul on board to help us expand into new territories and introduce our craft beers to the right audiences. His reputation as a transformational leader will support our growth and drive the business forward.”
Cummins joins SouthNorte with 25 years of sales and marketing experience gained at large corporations, including BP, BakerCorp and, most recently, R.F. MacDonald Co. This is his first beverage-industry position and Gallegos is excited for him to apply his strong functional expertise in sales, marketing, business and brand development skills as well as his international expansion experience. The latter should come in particularly handy, given SouthNorte produces beer in both the U.S. and Mexico.
To date, co-founder and Brewmaster Ryan Brooks has done all of his south-of-the-border brewing at Telefonica Gastro Park, a culinary collective in Tijuana equipped with a 10-barrel brewhouse. Of late, Telefonica’s owner has been so busy producing beer for his own Cerveceria Lírica that there’s been little time left on the brew schedule for anything else. Rather than scrap and claw, Brooks is moving on.
The veteran brewer is has spent roughly a third of his time during the pandemic assisting Tijuana entrepreneur Gerardo Grijalva with readying of a three-story building in a highly trafficked area of Tijuana called La Veinte, near the Xolos soccer club’s home stadium. The building will include warehouse space for Grijalva’s brewing-supply distribution company, his homebrew supply outlet, The Hornbrew Shop, a pizza-kitchen-equipped brewery called Farland Aleworks, a shop for sister coffee entity, Jacu, and rentable second-story business suites. In exchange for Brooks’ engineering expertise and elbow grease, SouthNorte will be able to brew at the facility, including collaboration beers conceived with the popular brewer’s many fermentation-science contemporaries on both sides of the border.
Brooks expects Farland to be operational and pumping out beer in mid-to-late August. That should be right around the time that SouthNorte debuts its new dark lager, Sea Reina. Brooks brewed beta versions of this beer in his previous role as the longtime Director of Brewery Operations for Coronado Brewing. Pouring black with ruby highlights, a bit of caramel sweetness and a dry, crisp finish, it will be a locally produced alternative to similar macro-scale dark lagers such as Modelo Negra.
Other recently introduced offerings from SouthNorte include ¡Ay! Chelita, a 7% alcohol-by-volume West Coast IPA that’s hopped during and post-fermentation with Neomexicanus hops that lend a stone-fruit character to the finished product, and Sea Chelada, an all-natural (tomato purée, lime juice, Mexican sea salt and hot sauce) canned Michelada using the company’s flagship Sea Señor Mexican-style lager as its base.
These beers join a core lineup including the aforementioned Sea Señor, No Guey! mango IPA and Agavamente lager with agave and hibiscus, all of which have seen increased demand is a result of SouthNorte dramatically expanding its distribution footprint. The company’s beers are now available in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties as well as Arizona. The latter follows SouthNorte signing with Scripps Ranch-based Scout Distribution, and a multi-county agreement with Classic Beverage of Southern California. Additionally, the company now boasts a trio of regional sales representatives to help move beers in its suddenly vast network.
“Now we’re getting slammed for kegs. It’s exciting and nerve-racking. We went from thinking we’d do 80 barrels through our contract-brewing agreement with AleSmith Brewing to, no, we need to do 240 barrels,” says Brooks. “We’ve been in San Diego for three years. This is our chance to bloom in a new way and step into other areas.”