South San Marcos Brewery Guide

San Diego’s expansive North County boasts a wealth of high-quality craft breweries. While it’s easy to gravitate to coastal communities or suds-saturated Vista with its whopping 25 brewing interests, beer tourists would do well to chart a course for San Marcos. This fast-growing community is home to some of the county’s most award-winning breweries. Many are situated along State Route 78—AKA: the Hops Highway—but in recent years, new hop spots have planted their flags further out, including in the quaint southerly community of San Elijo. Join us as we split San Marcos down the middle and take you on a tour of the local beer locales that await south of the 78.

BREWERIES

Dos Desperados Brewery
1241 Linda Vista Dr

In 2013, retirees Steve and Dora Munson hammered down stakes between a pair of San Marcos hot-spots, Restaurant Row and the Grand Plaza Mall. Inspired by a place and time where Spanish garrisons guarded the Camino Real connecting Mexico and New Mexico, their tasting room has an Old West saloon-style motif complete with wanted posters, vintage photos and cowboy miscellany. But this is no place for a dust-up; bartenders and regulars (whose personalized mugs hang from nails beside the taps) are friendly around these parts.

Head Brewer and CSU San Marcos grad Hayden Weir has come into his own over the years, winning high-profile awards, including a Great American Beer Festival (GABF) bronze for Hell Camino, a Belgian-style quad that tastes like raisin- and date-studded banana bread. Of the lighter-drinking fare, a super-clean pair of pale and dark Mexican lagers are tops. Pronounced orange notes and a pithy backend make 100% Citra-hopped Most Wanted IPA a standout, as does tropical-fruit essence from Mosaic and El Dorado hops in its New England counterpart, Hazy Daisy. Meanwhile, fans of both lupulin and capsaicin will adore Habaneeros, a habanero-laced West Coast IPA that’s food-friendly and a great base for the brewery’s house micheladas.

With a wide variety of styles available ranging from brisk and refreshing to dark and malty, first-timers would do well to order a sampler flight served on a circular conveyance crafted to resemble the chamber of a six-shooter.

Pro Tip: Habaneros too tame? Several times a year Dos Desperados taps a version of its Maniac imperial stout infused with ghost peppers.

Double Peak Brewing
1801 Diamond St

Located in the shadow of the mountain with which it shares its name, Double Peak Brewing combines owner Frank Harton’s passions for brewing and adventure. Beers are named for famous mountains and hiking trails, the cold box resembles a wood-slatted hilltop outpost, and the tasting room’s green, beige and brown color palate combines with wood and stone to convey a sense of the outdoors. It’s no wonder this tucked-away spot has become such a popular way station for hikers and mountain bikers.

Named for a climbing route at California’s Tahquitz Peak, Whodunit is a Citra- and Mosaic-hopped double IPA that’s impressively dry with tropical-fruit flavors and a resinous finish. Swallow (orange zest and pith), Whiptail (peachy, woody) and 100% Nelson hazy Walkabout (gooseberry, apricot) are solid single-strength IPAs as is the peppery Riley’s Wild Rye’d, which is named for the dog pictured on its can. Clean and crisp, Day Hike pilsner is perfect for the activity it references, as are lightly acidic rotating fruited goses, including Let’s Gose, which is infused with juniper berries but doesn’t come off like gin. Double Peak’s darker side is presided over by the chocolaty Paranormal Porter, which took gold at the 2020 San Diego International Beer Competition.

In keeping with its thematic, Double Peak serves as the starting line and endpoint for a group of runners in training each Tuesday night. If you prefer sitting to sprinting, the brewery hosts trivia nights on Thursdays.

Pro Tip: Venture beyond the main tasting room into a back room with free billiards, a table-top video-game console and big-screen TVs.

Rip Current Brewing
1325 Grand Ave, Ste 100

In 2012, a pair of homebrewing buddies—one of which, Paul Sangster, was name the best homebrewer in the country at the 2011 National Homebrew Competition—went pro but stayed true to their amateur roots. For them, that meant keeping their tap list static by brewing just about every type of beer imaginable, including obscure and historic styles. Those esoteric offerings were balanced by hoppy beers, Belgian-style ales and a collection of dark beers. This game plan has helped Rip Current Brewing rack up dozens of prestigious awards and led to the company being named Very Small Brewery of the Year at GABF in 2015.

A piney double IPA dubbed Lupulin Lust has been Rip Current’s best-selling beer over its entire lifespan, but it’s far from the brewery’s only high-alcohol heavy-hitter. Rich, bready Black Lagoon is a GABF silver medal-winning Scotch ale, as is the silky, caramely Delaminator Doppelbock. But it’s the latter’s lower-strength companion beer, Breakline Bock, that’s racked up the most awards (16, second only to GABF bronze-winning Rescue Buoy imperial stout with eight), bringing home two GABF golds, a World Beer Cup bronze and Best of Show at the 2019 California Craft Brewers Cup. In recent years, Rip Current has begun releasing some new easier drinking beers, including a pair of balanced Mexican-style lagers, the darker of which, Corriente Negra, already has two gold medals to its name.

Rip Current is well-regarded for its exceptional barrel-aging program, which presents its decorated strong ales in a new light. Often, those beers spend well over a year—and sometimes more than two—sequestered in oak.

Pro Tip: Rip Current typically taps multiple barrel-aged beers at its February anniversary parties and special “kick out the barrels” events.

Ten-75 Brewing
1075 Linda Vista Dr, Ste J

After an unexpected shift, a set of industrial-park suites initially intended to house a kombucha company were eventually converted into a beermaking operation. Proudly bearing Saint Mark’s lion (San Marcos in Spanish) as the centerpiece of its logo and taking its name from its address, Ten-75 Brewing is overseen by brothers Ryan and Jeff Talbert. The pair cut their teeth in the beer industry working at Saugatuck Brewing in Douglas, Michigan, and are now applying what they learned to their family business, which opened in fall of 2022.

Sessionable beers and hops are central to Ten-75’s brewing equation. As such, their offerings come in between 4.5 and 7% alcohol-by-volume and there are numerous IPAs. IPA-Z, a rotator hopped with different varietals each time, provides a fluffy easel on which to showcase the character of a multitude of hops, while papaya tropicality is the hallmark of an IPA called Feazible. An American amber ale named Tiberius packs an assertive, piney, herbal punch, Sink or Swim American stout tastes of cola with an almost smoky finish, and Dove Castle brown ale offers nuances of dried fruit that go beyond the typical profile of this English style.  

Ten-75’s building is being remodeled. Once that work is complete, the brewery will debut a large forever tasting room, but with butcher-block bar tops and plenty of high-top seating, its temporary space is both utile and inviting enough to pass for a permanent fixture.

Pro Tip: Even if you don’t like hard seltzer, give Ten-75’s a try. It’s made using a variety of champagne yeast and you can order it unflavored.

ADDITIONAL VENUES

Creative Creature Brewing
1784 La Costa Meadows Dr.

In 2020, El Cajon-based Creative Creature Brewing set up a second home in the facility previously operated by longtime San Marcos suds interest, Stumblefoot Brewing. Two years in, those beery beasts installed a public tasting room with iconic, purple-and-green mural work from a pair of local artists. It’s a colorful spot from which to sample a wholly unique modern assortment of often-adjuncted kettle and smoothie sours, hazy and milkshake IPAs, pastry stouts and other styles built to mimic candy, desserts and nostalgic treats of yesteryear like Hi-C Ecto Cooler (yes, seriously).

Draft Republic Brewing
Inside Draft Republic San Marcos, 255 Redel Rd

In 2021, San Diego’s famed Cohn Restaurant Group took over the 28,000-square-foot North City brewpub that was formerly home to Urge Gastropub and its brewing arm, Mason Ale Works. Following the acquisition, CRG partnered with the owner and brewmaster of Carlsbad-based Rouleur Brewing to have him run the on-site brewery and produce house beers for Draft Republic and its sister concepts. That brewer has since moved on, but those beers are on tap along with other craft ales and lagers—local and otherwise—at this sprawling, family-friendly bar and eatery featuring games galore, including a six-lane bowling alley with its own dedicated bar.

The Lost Abbey – The Sanctuary
1215 San Elijo Rd

Sidling the town square in the heart of mountainous San Elijo is this outpost of award-winning operation, The Lost Abbey. Decked out in a stone-and-wood motif matching the warm residential community and outfitted with an open-air back patio, it’s the coziest of the stalwart operation’s four tasting rooms. Stocked with The Lost Abbey’s world-renowned American takes on Belgian-style ales, including barrel-aged varieties such as gueuze, framboise and Flemish red, as well as the hoppy hard sparkling teas and Brett beers of its sister brands, Khárisma and Tiny Bubbles, there’s a little something for everyone’s taste.