{"id":22367,"date":"2019-06-18T08:00:42","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T15:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/?p=22367"},"modified":"2019-06-18T15:26:55","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T22:26:55","slug":"going-pro-with-five-suits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/2019\/06\/18\/going-pro-with-five-suits\/","title":{"rendered":"Going pro with Five Suits Brewing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

He\u2019s won countless honors at the country\u2019s and the county\u2019s most prestigious homebrewing competition. He\u2019s graced the cover of West Coaster<\/em> in the process. Now, Nick Corona<\/strong> is transitioning from amateur brewing boss to pro-brew newcomer. His vehicle for doing so will be Five Suits Brewing<\/a><\/strong>, a complex concept that will bring food, spirits, cocktails and mead to downtown Escondido along with Corona\u2019s beers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\ncollective interest started as a purely family affair, with Nick\u2019s wife Kandy<\/strong>, brother Shane Smith<\/strong>, and parents Joe\nand Leslie<\/strong> Corona<\/strong> putting their\nfaith in their son\u2019s abilities. North County residents, Nick and Kandy set\ntheir sights on San Marcos and Vista, communities in close-proximity to their\nhome with histories of supporting small brewing operations. But it was the work\nof the City of Escondido to reinvigorate its downtown core\u2014and a space offering\n14,000 square feet of space split between a ground floor and basement\u2014that\nlured the project team east.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That is a lot of space, and though Five Suits\u2019 10-barrel direct-fire system and quartet of 20-barrel unitanks will take up some of it, Corona will have help from some friends filling it out. That roster is headed by Brian and Julie Gruber<\/strong>, the owners of Carlsbad\u2019s Notorious Burgers<\/a><\/strong>. The pair will bring their focus on fresh, locally sourced, sustainable ingredients to the project via a Mexican street-food concept that will include \u201ccraft tacos\u201d and multiple vegan options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile\nFive Suits planned to open a modest tasting room in a small industrial spot, we\nhave since shifted to a group project targeting a larger retail location,\u201d says\nNick. \u201cWe\u2019ve always felt that, by offering food, we would shift from a stop\ninto a destination.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also helping ensure destination status will be startups Good Omen Mead<\/a><\/strong> and Stoke Distilling Co.<\/a><\/strong> The latter is a work-in-progress gin producer from brothers Jordan and Ryan Kohn<\/strong>, while the former is a startup by Brian LaMere and Marie Newman<\/strong>. An Escondido resident, LaMere has laid much of the initial groundwork for the overall project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back on the beer side, Nick will use a reverse-osmosis water-filtration system to idealize water profiles for his portfolio, which he says will include a variety of IPAs, multiple variations on his Hefeweizen, plus as many different styles as he wants. He says to expect a Belgian golden strong ale, Vienna lager, biere de garde, Irish red ale, American wheat, k\u00f6lsch, Belgian witbier and, with a distiller sharing the property, some barrel-aged stouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Five Suits Brewing founder and head brewer Nick Corona on the brew deck at Gravity Heights with that brewpub’s brewmaster Skip Virgilio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Those\nbeers will be divided into three subcategories based on punching a timeclock. It\nwill be called the Shift Series and include \u201cDay,\u201d \u201cSwing\u201d and \u201cGraveyard.\u201d Day\nwill consist of crushable beers coming in at-or-below 5.5% alcohol-by-volume,\nwith traditional styles above that percent making the Swing shift. Beers that\ngo further outside the lines (i.e., spiced, fruited, barrel-aged) will comprise\nthe Graveyard shift.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nhe goes through the steps leading from the rec leagues to the major leagues, Nick\ndoffs his cap to the many who\u2019ve made that jump and is thankful for the large\npercentage of them who have helped him with lessons, critiques and support\nthroughout his homebrewing career. Much like with his family and entrepreneurial\nfriends, he feels he wouldn\u2019t be where he is without them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m definitely no innovator here. I am merely following in the footsteps of so many awesome brewers before me who have made the jump from home to commercial, many of whom come from [homebrew club] QUAFF,\u201d Nick says. \u201cThose guys are kings. I\u2019m just one of the minions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick\nsays an optimistic timeline for getting Five Suits up and running would be\naround nine months, but he and his partners understand how construction\nprojects tend to be delayed and believe it could take up to a year. When Five\nSuits does open, it will keg all of its beer, focusing on the space within its\nfour walls, but also distributing a \u201cvery limited amount\u201d of kegs to several\nNorth County accounts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

He\u2019s won countless honors at the country\u2019s and the county\u2019s most prestigious homebrewing competition. He\u2019s graced the cover of West Coaster in the process. Now, Nick Corona is transitioning from amateur brewing boss to pro-brew newcomer. His vehicle for doing so will be Five Suits Brewing, a complex concept that will bring food, spirits, cocktails […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[368,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-22367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-beer-news","8":"category-san-diego-beer-beverage-news","9":"entry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/FSB2018-3Color-onBlack.jpg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","wps_subtitle":"Standout homebrewer to debut multi-faceted Escondido project","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdtr4y-5OL","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archives.csusm.edu\/westcoastersd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}