Last week, while touring the operating breweries in San Diego’s South Bay communities, my party and I took a moment to visit the future home of Thr3e Punk Ales Brewing Company. Located on Chula Vista’s downtown thoroughfare, Third Avenue, it is the first brewery located smack dab in the heart of the municipality.
Even gutted and devoid of any resemblance to what it will become—except for the pitch-black exterior, which will remain given how perfectly it fits in with the company’s anarchist, punk-rock motif—it looks darn good, as does its future. A lot of the optimism has to do with the City of Chula Vista and the lengths it is going to help out Thr3e Punk Ales’ ownership.
In addition to welcoming the business with open arms and making the early stages of setting up shop as easy as possible, they have advocated on behalf of Thr3e Punk Ales with the property owner. The landlord has also been extremely helpful, putting a good number of tenant improvements in that will ultimately lead to a better finished product.
The total utilizable square-footage of the building is 5,100-square-feet. This includes a 2,700-square-foot main floor—900 of which will be devoted to the tasting room—and 2,400-square-foot basement (additional area is available one flight above ground-level, but not immediately). The underground section will house a 10-barrel brewhouse, five 20-barrel fermenters, a 20-foot-by-25-foot cold-box, quality-control laboratory, pilot brew system, dry storage and administrative offices. There will also be additional dry-storage and cold-box space upstairs.
As far as public areas go, the front of the building (which used to house numerous businesses including a menswear store, and surf-and-skate shop) currently sports a sign reading The Highlander. The City would like to see that sign preserved and utilized in some way. Thr3e Punk Ales will hang it in an inventive spot inside the tasting room. Holes will be cut in the floor of the main floor, allowing the fermentation tanks to protrude into the side of the room opposite the bar. The Highlander sign will go directly above the tanks.
A portion of the front of the building’s façade on the first floor will be cut-away to create a roll-up entrance looking out onto Third Avenue. And out back is a 30-to-40-space parking lot owned by Thr3e Punk Ales’ landlord—quite the bonus. The plan is to provide a dedicated space for a food-truck in the lot to keep food part of the equation for patrons.
Thr3e Punk Ales is estimating a fall target of September or October for its debut. Currently, its beer is on tap around town, including numerous locations in the South Bay, thanks to an alternating-proprietorship relationship with Santee’s Butcher’s Brewing.