When Black Market Brewing opened Temecula ten years ago, it followed the standard blueprint for such businesses, installing a brewery and tasting room in a business park. While Black Market has experienced a solid level of success over the past decade, owner Kevin Dyer realizes times have changed. It takes more than an industrial outpost to reach would-be customers, and food and some flair never hurts. That’s why, when it came time to think about expansion, he opted to enter a new market in a different county and go the brewpub route. For that, the San Diego State University alum and San Diego resident opted for the College Area.
“With the landscape of beer changing, we needed a storefront location in a more heavily populated area to reach more people,” says Dyer. “You need to be aggressive in this current market environment in order to stay relevant, so dropping a brewpub in the SDSU area will hopefully expose more people to our brand and allow them to experience a wide variety of styles we will be brewing onsite.”
Scheduled to open in late May or early June, Black Market – SDSU will be located at 4800 Art Street, off El Cajon Boulevard east of its intersection with College Boulevard. Coming in at 4,550 square feet, it will be a brewery-focused brewpub, with a clear view of the production area. Like the Temecula location, the food menu will focus on pizza augmented by salads, wings and snackables like house-made pretzels, chicken wings and mozzarella sticks. The entire menu can be viewed here.
On the beer front, a 10-barrel system will pump out a wide-ranging array of styles that will be available via 24 taps.
“We will, of course, have core offerings that have been a staple of Black Market over the past ten years. Additionally, I anticipate having 10-to-12 one-off SDSU-only beers. We just won gold at the Great American Beer Festival for our imperial hazy double IPA and we’ve spent a couple years really dialing in that process, so I would say we will definitely have some of those,” says Dyer. “We are also really getting into craft lagers, so I anticipate a variety of those as well as some kettle sours.”
Back at Black Market’s Temecula headquarters, construction of a sour facility called Sour Creation in Fermentation is currently underway. That project is on track to be completed by summer’s end.