Oceanside is home to 13 breweries and brewery-owned venues, but before any of them existed, there was Oceanside Ale Works (OAW). That operation was largely brought to life by former high-school teacher, Mark Purciel, who packed in customers with a party atmosphere that afforded many North County denizens their first taste of local craft beer. The operation was successful enough for OAW to move from its original industrial suite to a two-story building all its own in 2012. The weekend ragers continued at that heavily patronized spot before the party came to a screeching halt in January 2018. Legal squabbles between Purciel and his former partner (which stretched into six years of litigation) led to OAW’s closure, which was followed two months later by a false-start sale and revival that never took. It’s been more than three years since Purciel departed the San Diego brewing industry, but he’s been working on getting back into it all along and, now, he’s very close to doing so and bringing OAW back to life at the spot where it met its premature end.
“I’ve been out of commercially producing beer, but have not been out of brewing, per se. I have been working on OAW for two years,” says Purciel. “Needless to say, repairs and maintenance needed to be done. I have replaced all the glycol systems, beer lines, CO2 lines and gaskets, and have been cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. I’ve had the opportunity to visit breweries all over the country, to pick brewers’ minds and amass some great knowledge. Back home, I’ve done small-batch brewing trials and gone out to citrus groves and vineyards to harvest wild yeasts for sours. I’ve had a wonderful and exciting time working with flavor-releasing compounds such as polyfunctional thiols, lactones, furanones and terpenoids.”
While Purciel has always been OAW’s public face and personality, this is the first time he’s been a sole proprietor. That status allows for adjustments to brewing and operational processes as well as the experimentation and portfolio expansion he’s been gearing up for through the above downtime activities. That said, he has no intentions of forgetting the decade-plus of history he’s already forged with the brand. Staples such as Buccaneer Blonde, San Luis Rey Red, Pier View Pale and The Dude Double IPA (a gold medal winner at the 2013 San Diego International Beer Festival competition) will make their return, sharing space with new offerings, including sour beers and hard seltzers.
OAW’s new-old facility comes in at 6,000 square feet, with a sprawling tasting room accounting for half that space plus a veranda out back. The business’ 2,000-square-foot brewery and cellar sidle the public space with barrels housing aging beer in full sight, creating an immersive experience. OAW’s maximum annual capacity comes in at 5,000 barrels, though Purciel does not intend to push production on his 20-barrel brewhouse to the limit. That system has been outfitted with new burners, piping and more, but upgrades extend beyond the brewery.
“My HVAC gurus at All Day Heating and Cooling are going to come in and do their magic on the glycol and cold rooms since those units have been sitting idle for three years,” says Purciel. “They say a brewer’s best friends are his HVAC guys…with welders coming in a close second. I’d have fruity, estery blonde ales if it weren’t for them.”
When asked what he’s most excited about by reentering the San Diego suds scene, Purciel says he’s eager to hang out with customers as well as his contemporaries in the beer industry. As far as the latter contingent goes, he’ll have some new players to acquaint himself with when he does. Since OAW shuttered in 2018, its namesake municipality has welcomed four new brewery venues, including tasting rooms from Kearny Mesa’s Kilowatt Brewing and Vista’s Booze Brothers Brewing, plus a pair of beer-and-Mexican-food concepts, Craft Coast and Municipal Taco (which will open later this month). It’s quite the contrast from 2008.
“I moved to Oceanside three decades ago and in the past. It has been considered the ugly duckling by some, but, dang, it is becoming quite the beautiful swan,” says Purciel. He has marveled at the number of breweries that have opened around him and is eager to rejoin the fold, though his timeframe for doing so, like so many things, is dependent on the novel coronavirus. “Governor Newsom says the state will be fully open by June 15, but I have to see if that holds true. If that’s the case, I will start brewing then, so maybe we’ll reopen in late-June. One thing I can say for sure is that I will not rush the brewing.”
Oceanside Ale Works will be located at 1800 Ord Way in Oceanside