It’s never too early to report on a work-in-progress brewing company. Even when such budding interests have no location, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and, as a journalist, I’ve always enjoyed tapping into aspiring business-peoples’ concepts before masons break out the brick and mortar. Today, I’m providing a very early look at Downbeat Brewing Company, the brainchild of James Ruane, who has been working on this project for nearly a year.
Originally, Ruane envisioned himself opening a café or restaurant, but after catching the homebrewing bug, he shifted his focus to the ale-game. At this point, it’s looking like his operation will become a reality and debut to the public between spring and autumn of next year. First, he needs to find just the right spot, and he has been scouting locations in Rancho Bernardo and the areas around Mission Gorge Road. The opportunity to pull good after-work crowds from surrounding businesses is big to Ruane and his team, which consists of his father, Jim Ruane (a homebrewer and BJCP-certified beer judge), and creative director Natalie Cruz.
Once it’s time to get to producing beer, James will handle the brewing duties. His goal is to make hop-forward, aromatic brews that are very drinkable, while producing a number of easy-going, non-hoppy styles so there’s enough variety to appeal to most potential customers’ palates. As one might expect, beers will have musically themed names like a Mosaic and Citra-hopped Allegro IPA (a tempo reference), Sonata Honey Ginger Blonde, Prelude Oatmeal Coffee Stout and C-Chord Session IPA.
Downbeat will be a relatively small brewery, producing around 500 barrels per-year to start, using a seven-barrel Premier Stainless brewhouse, and double-batching into 15-barrel fermentation tanks. The business-plan has the business bottling within the first six months and distributing 22-ounce bottles and four-packs of 16-ounce cans by Year Three. Of course, quaffing of those ales will also be possible at Downbeat’s tasting room, which will be outfitted with a casual, early-1900s piano-bar feel. Of course, they’d like live-music to be in the cards, City of San Diego willing.
Even this early on, Ruane and company have already received a good amount of help from members of San Diego’s brewing scene, including the owners of Benchmark Brewing Company and Intergalactic Brewing Company, two businesses well-known for consistently lending helping hands to aspiring industry entrants.