Last December, La Mesa welcomed its very first craft brewing company via the second coming of Bolt Brewery. By the end of the year, the municipality (which until recently prohibited the manufacture of alcoholic beverages within city limits) will have two brewing companies to call its own…and a distillery. Scheduled to open its doors in December, Depot Springs Beer Company is a work-in-progress within a shopping center at 9176 Fletcher Parkway.
It’s a large and ambitious project. In addition to a 15-barrel brewery, Depot Springs’ 20,000-square-foot footprint will include a full-scale restaurant as well as a distillery. The trio working to breathe life into this multi-faceted interest are real estate professional Aaron Dean, brewer Stuart Long and distiller Phillip Soto Mares. Dean’s family has owned the Depot Springs property for more than 50 years. After meeting Long and Mares, they decided to put the site to use on their joint venture.
Long homebrewed for several years before getting his professional start at Port Brewing Company / The Lost Abbey. From there, he moved to Bend, Oregon to become head brewer at Silver Moon Brewing. While there, he was responsible for a number of beers that medaled at the Great American Beer Festival. While he will be chiefly responsible for brewing Depot Springs’ line of “flavor-oriented American ales,” his distilling counterpart may prove a useful conspirator.
Long and Mares previously teamed to create two styles of agave beer that earned awards at the Spirits of Mexico tasting competition. Taught how to distill by his uncle at his hacienda in Jalisco, Mexico back in 1994, Mares has gone on to amass an impressive pedigree. He is a certified Master Distiller as well as a Maestro Catador (expert tequila taster) who has consulted on production of several tequila and mescal brands currently on the open market, and also logged time distilling rum.
On the restaurant side, Depot Springs will focus on fare that is competitively priced so as not to fall into the same trappings as restaurants with higher price points that have unsuccessfully attempted to enter the La Mesa market. The eatery will feature 30 taps serving a “limited” core lineup that will allow Long to experiment with a wide variety of rotating styles that will eventually include barrel-aged beers as well as sour ales.
Depot Springs’ annual beer production target is 6,000 barrels, with the majority of that inventory being sold on-site plus a small bit of nearby distribution. As the company grows, it will explore off-site brewing options to meet capacity issues that come about as it considers increased distribution via bottled or canned beer.
But there’s more to Depot Springs than homespun consumables. If executed as planned, it will provide more entertainment options than any brewery-owned venue in San Diego County. Aiming to be family-friendly, the business will feature a game room as well as a courtyard with a capacity of 500 and a stage on which to feature local music acts, show movies and display the works of local artists.