Among San Diego craft breweries, few fit the bill as beloved cult favorites like 2kids Brewing. Founded in 2013 by husband-and-wife team Sam and Robert Dufau, the company was a mainstay in the small Mira Mesa industrial complex that has since evolved into the Miralani Makers District. Through that evolution, the Dufaus have been active participants, leaders even, as other beverage producers and craftspeople set up businesses in the area.
This afternoon, the Dufaus took to social media to announce they will be closing 2kids by the end of September. The couple cited the inability to negotiate a lease with their landlord as the reason for shutting down. Fans of the business can take solace in the fact 2kids will still hold its sixth-anniversary celebration on Friday, September 27 and Saturday, September 28. The business will close immediately after.
“While we’re sad that we won’t be able to keep serving you all really cool beers, we are deeply honored to have been welcomed into this truly exceptional community,” the couple wrote on their Facebook business page.
From the beginning, the Dufaus took the road less traveled in the manufacture of their beers. For starters, Sam was the brewer of the two at a time when female beermakers were less represented in San Diego County. Sam and Robert also defied popular beer styles, instead choosing to celebrate less-marketable Old World styles while, almost ironically, testing out new-wave takes on beer that were outlandish and widely lauded.
Production capabilities increased over the company’s lifespan, but the Dufaus did not measure their success solely on production numbers and financial wherewithal. They strove to be more than simply a brewery and had a penchant for doing nice and charitable things. Last year, they started the process of setting up a non-profit called The Brainstorm Society to raise funds to support brain tumor research and help people with brain tumors. And when friend and fellow brewery owner Alex Van Horne shuttered Miramar’s Intergalactic Brewing and moved to Kansas, 2kids began brewing some of that brewery’s most popular beers.
Though small by statistics and figures, 2kids had big heart and will surely be missed by those who came to harbor great affection for this bastion of creativity and the type of heart that defines San Diego’s craft brewing scene.