With over 82 draft accounts (and counting) in San Diego County, Oceanside Ale Works (or OAW for short) currently produces 1200 barrels annually. Mark Purciel and Scott Thomas co-own the brewery along with their wives. Mark, a career teacher, and Jim, a firefighter, tapped into their respective home equity lines of credit to produce the intiial capital to start OAW in 2005. OAW originally opened their doors at a smaller location, 3800 Oceanic Dr. Now, in October, they’ll celebrate one year in their newer, bigger, and current location at 1800 Ord Way.
Mark’s jump into professional brewing wasn’t by accident. An avid homebrewer, once the idea was conceived to open a brewery, Mark decided to test himself and his beers before opening his wallet. He successfully entered and won a homebrewing competition in every state of the union, except Oregon. Now, with five core beers and a team of nine people – OAW eyes are on expanding draft accounts out of Northern San Diego County. Recently, OAW hired a new San Diego sales representative. Currently, the furthest south we’ve seen OAW brews has been at Main Tap Tavern in El Cajon. On the horizon is a bottling line, and their largest seller is the Big Cru Scottish Wee Heavy.
Mark, Scott, and OAW were featured on Bloomberg’s The Mentor last year. During the business-developing reality show, Mark and Scot were flown out to Boston to meet Jim Koch, the CEO of Boston Beer Company. Koch delivered some sage advice: grow slowly and responsibly. The episode is viewable online here (Note! Bloomberg’s video player is a bit odd. Be sure to click over to Episode 1 using the little circles or blue arrow located under the episode description. Still confused? Click here for a visual explanation.)
What surprises me most about OAW is their very devoted and slightly fanatical followers. Come see for yourself. Every Thursday there’s free food at the brewery, and on October 22nd OAW will celebrate their take on Oktoberfest.
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