In so many ways, 2023 was a big year for the San Diego brewing industry. As we prepare for 2024, we are taking a moment to look back, combing through our daily reporting from the past 365 days to see which stories garnered the greatest interest from you, our valued readers. In doing so, we are omitting sure-fire items like winners from brewing competitions such as the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup, neighborhood brewery guides, beer-centric travel articles and features such as Portrait of a Brewer, Rear View Beer, What’s Tapping and Beer of the Week. What’s left are the news stories that generated the most traffic on our site and sentiment from the local beer community.
10. New owners, new chapter for San Diego Brewing Co.
Wednesday, October 25
Founded in 1993, San Diego Brewing Co. played an important role in the early days of the county’s craft-beer movement but had become staid and sadly irrelevant in recent years. The announcement that new owners were taking over the brewpub with the mission of revitalizing it and bringing it back to its former glory was good news rendered great by their collective pedigree. That quartet includes the husband-wife team behind North Park’s 85-year-old San Diego Chicken Pie Shop and fellow dynamic marrieds Tyson and Kristina Blake, who met working at SDBC and have gone on to own O’Brien’s Pub and two other local beer-centric eateries.
9. Major changes for Eppig Brewing
Wednesday, November 29
Following a cardiac episode leading doctors to instruct Eppig Brewing’s co-founder to take a step back from the business, Todd Warshaw relinquished his CEO duties to executives from Newport Beach brand-building consultancy, West Coast Ventures & Resources. Following a full-scale assessment of the company, WCVR developed a strategic plan to increase production and distribution of the Vista-based company’s beers. It also began searching for locations in which to install additional Eppig tasting rooms and putting in offers on those properties while simultaneously pulling the plug on the company’s 15-month-old La Jolla Bierhaus.
8. Second Chance Beer Co. closing venues
Friday, November 3
Over its eight years in business, Second Chance Beer Co. had displayed exceptional consistency in the medal-garnering quality of its products, which made the sudden news it would be closing its Carmel Mountain brewery and North Park tasting room, selling off its production and cellar equipment, and attempting to forge ahead as a distribution-only brewery all the more surprising. Doing so meant dismissing nearly all of the company’s employees and partnering with other local operations to brew the company’s beers, including San Diego’s biggest winner of all time at the country’s prestigious Great American Beer Festival competition, Tabula Rasa Toasted Porter.
7. Derek Gallanosa returning to San Diego
Wednesday, February 8
In 2017, uber-popular brewer Derek Gallanosa left his hometown and the Rancho Bernardo brewpub he’d helped establish, Abnormal Beer Co., to open a new brewery in the Northern California city of Rocklin just outside Sacramento. In his half-decade there, he willed it into a nationally famous business behind award-winning beers, but he missed San Diego and being part of its brewing community. So he was happy – as were his many friends and fans – when the opportunity to return came in the form of a brewer-partner role at GOAL. Brewing, a craft-beer entrant starting out in a lease-to-brew spot at North Park’s Brewery Igniter facility.
6. The Lost Abbey finds a new home
Wednesday, April 26
An organizational restructure devised to save struggling brewing concern, The Lost Abbey, left managing partner Tomme Arthur with a very short timeframe in which to find a new site to set up shop after 17 years of brewing in the San Marcos facility he took over from Stone Brewing in 2006. Fortunately, he didn’t have to look too long – or too far – for a new place to call home. He got by with help from friends at Vista’s Mother Earth Brew Co. That 13-year-old family-run operation had room for The Lost Abbey at its expansive facility and on its production schedule, welcoming Arthur with open arms and an open brew kettle.