Recently, word trickled to my neck of the social-sphere that long-time Green Flash Brewing Company brewer Joe Liscia had a new gig as the head fermentation specialist for a start-up venture. He’d spent the past five years working for San Diego County’s third-largest craft-brewery (preceded by four years at Oggi’s in Carmel Mountain Ranch and a prior stint helping out Green Flash’s bottling line in 2007), but like many brewers, had dreams of heading his own operation. That opportunity was presented to him in the form of Little Miss Brewing (7949 Stromesa Court, Suite Y, Miramar).
Located a skootch north of Mikkeller Brewing San Diego, AleSmith Brewing Company and Mike Hess Brewing Company’s original nanobrewery, Little Miss has secured a 4,700-square-foot facility. But despite it being somewhere geographically advantageous from a beer-touring perspective, don’t plan on stopping by. This will be a production-only site. Eventually, the familial owners (who own multiple bars), Valerie Fuller, Greg and Jade Malkin, hope to open the brewery to visitors, but their immediate plan is to set up tasting rooms throughout San Diego proper. Those sampling venues are projected to be between 800 and 1,500 square feet and equipped with fun activities (think projector-screen Nintendo, life-size kid’s classics, card and board games).
Liscia plans to begin brewing in five weeks and says a significant portion of his portfolio will be “transitional beers”; the type that non-craft people can get their heads around while developing a taste for something more complex. There will also be an India pale ale (of course) as well as some barrel-aged offerings scheduled for release down the road. These beers will be produced on a 15-barrel steam system and cellared in seven 15-barrel fermenters plus a single 20-barrel tank. Liscia projects Little Miss to produce roughly 1,500 barrels in its first full year, then aim for steady, gradual increases each following year. But the intention with this miss is to stay little (no more than 20 employees).