Brewery Guide: North San Marcos
An inland North County burg is home to an impressive yet lesser-known brewery trail flush with beer and pedigree
Just north of the Hops Highway (State Route 78) is a murderer’s row of award-winning and otherwise outstanding breweries producing all manner of ale and lager. These local businesses are sources of community pride for San Marcos denizens, beacon-like destinations for beer tourists, solid options for students at nearby Palomar College and CSU San Marcos, and well-deserved post-appointment beverage stops for line-wearied visitors to the local DMV office. No matter what brings you to the area, there will be no shortage of high-quality beer to sate your thirst while you’re there.
BREWERIES & BREWPUBS
Blue Fire Brewing
2892 S Santa Fe Ave
A local family business through and through, Blue Fire Brewing is the shared passion project of brothers who graduated from nearby MiraCosta College’s BrewTech certificate program. That schooling allowed Tommy and Charlie Gordon to take their homebrewing to the next level. In doing so, they have earned a cult following of North County residents who appreciate their ever-changing tap list, which is hand-written on the cold box wall and largely made up of sessionable ales and lagers.
White Sage IPA, a house favorite that’s become something of a calling card, gets earthy funk and forest-floor character from herbs foraged in nearby Oceanside, while a juicy-IPA base serves as an amenable canvass for rotating hops such as Idaho 7. Blue Fire’s simply named, light-drinking Noble-hopped “Lager” is always on tap, sometimes sharing tap space beside a New Zealand pilsner with an herbal midpalate giving way to a tangerine finish. Rounding things out are a mellow, tea-like English-style brown ale called Smashing, a strong blonde ale and an extra-dry, piney San Diego-style black ale called Midnight.
Blue Fire’s tasting room is split into two sections, a taproom with a copper-topped bar, red vinyl booths and a view of the brewery, and a sitting room with roll-up doors giving way to an outdoor patio. Both are softened by succulents and multiple pieces of handcrafted art featuring the brewery’s fiery logo. In the winter months, Blue Fire hosts a disc-golf putting league on Monday nights in addition to year-round Tuesday-night trivia and occasional cooking classes.
Pizza Port Brewing
155 Mata Way
In 2023, the family-run San Diego institution that birthed spin-off operations Port Brewing and The Lost Abbey, took over the industrial-park facility where those brands’ beers were produced. In doing so, Pizza Port Brewing (which now manufactures Port Brewing’s portfolio of beers in addition to its own) closed down its built-in public tasting room, opting to construct a new one in a different location just off the production floor. That space is furnished with Pizza Port’s iconic picnic tables, canary-yellow highchairs, colorful hanging lights and big-screen TVs.