This weekend, long-awaited international collaborative project Mikkeller Brewing San Diego opened its doors. The place was mobbed, both by everyday customers stopping in for a taste of the numerous beers in the tasting room, and next-level beer geeks assembling in the lot behind the brewery for a beer-festival that included various local interests as well as hard-to-get beers from cult-favorite brewing companies outside San Diego. When the dust cleared, I was left with a sated palate, a bunch of notes and some photos to share with West Coaster readers. Before we get started, skeptics, haters and trolls will be glad to know that I’m leaving my opinions on beer aroma, flavor and quality out of this. It’s only right. While I do not work for Mikkeller Brewing San Diego, I do work for AleSmith Brewing Company, the founder and CEO of which also has a substantial ownership stake in MBSD. So, I’ll share the basics so you know what to expect going in. But I’ll also share a bit of insight from behind this operation, because there are some fun little items that I’m sure San Diego beer enthusiasts will be interested in.
For those who somehow haven’t heard the story of how Mikkeller SD (as we affectionately refer to it) came to be, here’s the basics. After 19 years of brewing in a small, off-the-beaten-path set of business suites on Cabot Drive in Miramar, AleSmith owner Peter Zien signed on the dotted-line for a 105,500-square-foot facility two blocks away on Empire Street (which the City of San Diego later renamed AleSmith Court). That left Zien to decide what to do with AleSmith’s original facility. A number of companies (even those many craft-beer fans would politely refer to as “unsavory”) came knocking, but instead of entertaining the highest-bidder, Zien pursued an idea based on a nearly decade-old friendship with Danish gypsy-brewer Mikkel Borg Bjergso.
Prior to starting the business he would dub Mikkeller, Bjergso reached out to Zien as a homebrewer to a pro and asked for tips on integrating coffee into an oatmeal stout that, after this question was answered, would go on to be Mikkeller Beer Geek Breakfast. That beer made a name for Mikkeller, which has since gone on to become an international force worldwide…despite the fact Bjergso has never had a brewery to call his own. Looking to hand over his spot, turnkey-style, he reached out to Bjergso to see if he had any interest in a brick-and-mortar. The answer is yes and the rest is 15 months of history that consists solely of the duo and the recently assembled Mikkeller SD staff working hard to bring this project to life.
Though installed in the same spot as AleSmith’s former tasting room, Mikkeller’s recognizably quirky artistic stamp is all over the place. The floors have been painted turquoise, a mural featuring two very basic (and very flexible), iconic illustrated characters takes up the west wall of the sampling space with additional print art adorning the walls. AleSmith’s curved orange wall has been replaced with contemporary wooden slats that, when matched with modern light-fixtures, are a bit reminiscent of some of MIkkeller’s bars and bottle-shops, of which there are more than a dozen sprinkled across the globe. Best of all, the smallish space has been added to, care of the conversion of some of AleSmith’s former office-space into an overflow seating area just off the main entrance.
The opening-weekend tap-list consisted of 18 beers. It was important to the team at Mikkeller SD to offer a wide array of beers and styles, but I can say from witnessing what into it that it wasn’t easy. Delayed licensing and permitting alone made for a tough row to hoe, but we’re talking 18 beers here. That’s more than many breweries have to offer after having been open for months. And then one must consider the process of getting these beers dialed in to where Bjergso, who spent the majority of his time 10,000 kilometers away in Denmark but came up with base ideas and recipes for the Mikkeller SD beers, was comfortable with them. Beers would be brewed, fermented, then shipped to Denmark. Three of those initial beers—an American pale ale, India pale ale and porter—went through several iterations and were on at AleSmith’s current tap-room over a span of several months. They took a great deal of time and consideration, leaving a mere 15 beers to be brewed before last weekend’s opening—about six weeks down the road.
This is where the story gets pretty cool and the “creative-partnership” between AleSmith and Mikkeller that this new business is labeled became just that. Zien, who has been instrumental in early recipe-refinement (nobody knows the brewery like the man who built it and worked it up from the day’s when it was comprised solely of dairy equipment), pulled out some homebrew recipes and methodologies. Members of AleSmith’s brewing team collaboratively assisted, most notably on Mikkeller SD’s first bottled beer, an English-style old ale dubbed Ny Verden. Other beers that made it in time for the opening were a Belgian-style blonde ale, saison, trippel and dark strong ale, several more IPAs (including a Brettanomyces-spiked offering that I really enjoyed FWIW), a Berliner weisse, a pilsner (and a version of that beer with blood orange), an imperial stout and numerous members of the Beer Geek family of coffee beers.
Overseeing all of this work and brewing all of these beers (with the help of his crew, of course) was head brewer Bill Batten. After well over a decade with AleSmith, he knows the Cabot Drive system like the back of his hand, so when Mikkeller SD was set to become a reality, both he and Zien knew it made sense for this industrious and adventurous brewer to transfer himself, and with him a ton of history and knowhow, to the new business. While I can’t get too opinionated here, I can share that we at AleSmith are extremely proud of Batten, who went as far as roasting some of the coffee for the Beer Geek beers at his own residence. He is the glue that held together a rapidly developing project with the eyes of beer-obsessed people all over the planet.
And the fact he got by with a little help from his friends just makes the story all that much more San Diego in nature. Such camaraderie and willingness to do whatever it takes to make great beer is what this culture is all about, and it’s a big reason why Bjergso was excited to plunk down his first full-time brewery in America’s Finest City. Kudos to a good decision, cheers to a local beer landmark staying that way via a new identity, and props to the beer-lovers who have made and continue to make San Diego the very special place that it is.