In San Diego County, brewery-touring is such a popular activity that even businesses that are off the beaten path garner a good deal of traffic from fans who seek them out. While our neighbors to the north in Temecula enjoy a burgeoning beer scene as well, it has yet to progress to the point where citizens and visitors chart courses for far-off business parks. Though one of the municipality’s most popular fermentation operations, Ironfire Brewing Company receives zero walk- or drive-by patronage, but it has multiple plans to fix that, and they involve projects in both Riverside and San Diego Counties.
The first—a satellite tasting room in Temecula’s well-traversed Old Town area—is more fleshed out at present. Located at 42081 Third Street, the site is adjacent to the cul-de-sac on the west end of the street backing up to Murrieta Creek, and in immediate proximity to City Hall’s free parking garage. The tasting room will be installed in a brand-new, 2,000-square-foot space that will be outfitted in an old-west motif mimicking that of Ironfire’s original tasting room. The facility will be equipped with two-dozen taps, two of which will be nitro in nature with another devoted to sour, funky beers.
This will be Old Town Temecula’s first brewery tasting room. The brewery will look to team with nearby restaurants to provide multiple food options to patrons. While Ironfire vice president and lead brewer Greg Webb would like to install a pilot system, the site is not zoned for manufacturing. With any luck, the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) will approve plans for an outdoor patio looking out onto Third Street and the hills west of Old Town.
Meanwhile, down in San Diego County’s southernmost city, Imperial Beach, Ironfire has partnered with chef-entrepreneur Steve Brown, who aims to install a large restaurant project called The Shipping Yard on the corner of Date Avenue and Seacoast Drive. Planned as a campus constructed out of repurposed shipping containers, it has yet to take shape. According to Webb, his and Brown’s teams continue to discuss details about the project, but have yet to come to a final determination. The only thing they know at present is that it will be “like nowhere else and all-out epic.”