Last month, Thorn Brewing’s reach increased with the opening of its Mission Hills tasting room, but the company also employed another method for touching new customers earlier this summer—introduction of two proprietary beers brewed for Sycuan Casino. Those offerings, a 5% alcohol-by-volume (ABV) American blonde ale and a 6% West Coast IPA hopped with Cascade, Chinook and Simcoe, debuted along with the East County resort’s $226 million expansion. They are available at numerous on-property restaurants, including Rank and File, Bull and Bourbon, Viewpoint Neighborhood Kitchen and the lobby bar. “When we were looking for an iconic local brewery to create these beers, Thorn was a natural fit,” says Sycuan executive chef Paul Schwab, who assisted in conceptualization. “Together, I think we have created something very special that will appeal to a wide variety of people.”
Black Market Brewing opened its College Area brewpub in May. Notably missing from its public debut were beers produced using the venue’s 10-barrel brewhouse, as all of the beer that’s been available there has been produced at the company’s Temecula headquarters. Until now. Last week, Black Market tapped its first two beers brewed in San Diego—Bad Actor and Great White Buffalo. The former is a 6.5% alcohol-by-volume (ABV) West Coast IPA brewed with Lemon Drop, Denali and Mosaic hops, while the latter is a 5.5% “white stout” infused with Guatemalan coffee from Augie’s Coffee Roasters in Temecula.
Embarcadero Brewing became National City’s first-ever brewery when it converted its homebrew supply store into a combination retail and tasting room space and began serving beers produced on-site last September. It instantly became popular with locals, but a high level of patronage matched with limited amounts of beer from a small brewing system created an unworkable situation. Ownership recently made the difficult decision to cease tasting-room operations for the time being to focus solely on production.