Over its ten-year regime, many North County beer fans became very familiar with Iron Fist Brewing’s home base. A family-run operation that specialized in Belgian-style beers before expanding to brew myriad worldly styles, it enjoyed a decade of steady patronage beginning in 2010 but struggled at retail in a crowded craft-beer market, leading to the business shuttering in April 2020. When that happened, the company’s 14,000-square-foot facility became one of the hottest available properties for growing breweries in need of increased manufacturing capability. Numerous breweries inquired about Iron Fist’s spot, with it eventually going to then-Miramar-based Pure Project Brewing.
A five-years-young beer producer born out of developer H.G. Fenton’s original Brewery Igniter campus in Miramar, Pure Project was at capacity despite having taken over additional suites to accommodate greater production and provide additional cellar, storage and administrative space. Over the past few years, the company opened satellite tasting rooms in Bankers Hill and Carlsbad, but with the exception of very limited fouder- and barrel-aging at the latter location, those venues in no way solved production limitations back in Miramar, fueling the all-out efforts to acquire Iron Fist’s vacated facility.
Since taking control of their new Vista headquarters, Pure Project has redone the 1,200-square-foot outdoor patio to fit its sleek-yet-natural thematic, offering a limited number of its beers on-tap care of a rollaway bar, while opening up the parking lot to accommodate as many patrons as possible. While visitors imbibed al fresco, Pure Project’s crew was hard at work converting the interior of the space to best meet the needs of its employees and customers, tearing down walls and repurposing the building to allow for efficient brewing on a 15-barrel brewhouse with room for growth and a single-space, contiguous tasting room driving home the company’s established motif.
“The space was actually three separate units when we moved in,” says partner and Chief Production Officer Winslow Sawyer. “We removed all the dividing walls and created one continuous space that flows from tasting room to brewery and, eventually, cold storage and admin offices. We think the flow will work well for production and admin team members.”
That flow will be on display. The 2,500-square-foot tasting room will include a view into the brewery. Twenty taps of rotating Pure Project beers as well as its popular beer-slushie creations, will be available, and the space will include a closed-off area for events and private parties.
Working within a larger facility that can house so many employees has provided instant rewards for the fast-growing beermaking interest. “Having more staff in one area has been awesome, and we are enjoying seeing our fellow team members and friends more often around the building,” says Director of Operations Robby Baker.
But it’s not all business in Vista. Above all, providing a welcoming, attractive environment for the public was the company’s chief focus, and it shows through in the design, which includes tropical plants, merchandise shelves and bar inserts forged from Guanacaste wood (from a species of trees that grow in Costa Rica, the country where the idea for Pure Project was born), and a concrete bar-top giving way to a cold box clad in wood and steel.
“This is a production facility, but make no mistake, it will still feel like Pure Project when you walk in,” says Managing Partner Mat Robar.
After a string of friends-and-family and private preview events, Pure Project Vista will debut to the public at 3 p.m., this Friday, July 30. Following the public grand opening event, the tasting room’s hours of operation will be 3 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3 to 10 p.m. on Fridays, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturdays and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays.
Pure Project’s headquarters is located at 1305 Hot Springs Way in Vista