If you expect at a map marking San Diego ’s 100 - plus breweries , you ’ll notice one area that shows up more frequently than the rest : Miramar . It is home to a staggering amount of breweries – more than two dozen are develop within in a two - and - a - half mile radius of Miramar Rd .
peach to brewers throughout the state , it becomes evident that Miramar is peculiar ; it is likely the dim pigeonholing of breweries in the entire state . " I have never experienced another vicinity with so many great brewery in a few mile radius , " said Aaron Grossman , the creative theatre director at Green Flash , which opened on Mira Mesa Rd in 2002 . " The rank volume of breweries in the region has made this a totally unique part of the county and a very important place for craft beer . "
But it hardly resembles what you might imagine the biggest brewing hotbed would look like : “ Beeramar ” – as it has become affectionately known , though its origins are hazy – is not just another neighbourhood fraught with hot dining and night life options .
Bourbon barrel-aged stout at Ballast Point|Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits
" There is no place quite like it . "
Rather , the stretch of Miramar between the 805 and 15 looks like one giant industrial park , its landscape painting overshadow not by trendy eating place , but by wholesale floor and carpet warehouses . Until recently , it was most widely know as being the home to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar – the position where the Navy train its TOPGUN program ( what up , Tom Cruise ) .
But now , a Modern brewery open in Miramar seemingly every fourth dimension you turn your caput the other way . In the past two months alone , Thunderhawk AlementsandLittle Miss Brewinghave open their doors for business organization .
AleSmith Brewing Company
" It ’s a one - of - a - kind community , " say Grossman . " Everyone is immersed in the brewing , merchandising , and merchandising of craft beer . We all exhort each other and make each other good . There is no blank space quite like it . "
So how did such an retiring area become one of America ’s beer capital ? Frankly , nobody really seems sure .
“ To my knowledge , AleSmith was the first brewery in the neighborhood when we moved here in 1995 , ” Peter Zien , AleSmith ’s chief operating officer and proprietor , said . It link up White Labs , then only a yeast wholesaler , and Callahan ’s , a flyspeck brewpub that opened in 1989 .
“ There were no other breweries from , like , 1995 to [ the former 2000s ] . We were the only unity out here for many long time . ”
But we ’ll speculate that the unassuming quality of Miramar may have very well been its biggest plus in attracting brewer .
“ It ’s always had cheap split – you used to be able to get in for under a dollar a pes – and it used to be pretty spread out , ” pronounce Zien . “ Now there ’s very little uncommitted space in Miramar . ”
Though its cardinal location is sure as shooting a contributing factor of contraption to the domain ’s burst ( roughly 70,000 multitude drive Miramar Rd every day , according to Zien ) , there is one thing that , on the surface level , hold up all logical system . aside from being a somewhat industrial expanse , Miramar began truly flourishing between 2010 - 2013 , in the wake of the monumental 2008 ceding back .
“ I know with the niche , it did n’t really feign craftsmanship brewer , ” said Zien . " In fact , 2008 - 2009 was the first metre in 13 class of business we climbed out of the red and became profitable . That time period was when cunning beer really became vainglorious out here . ”
Miramar is n’t barricade anytime before long .
Looking to the data point , we find some uncloudedness : apparently , we drink more during receding . And in the same way that many areas looked back to their local thriftiness for financial backing , so too did they for their beer selections in San Diego . The brewery scene has develop in bicycle-built-for-two with the unenergetically recovering thriftiness , but at spirit level comparably seen in Silicon Valley ’s degraded - yesteryear inauguration world .
“ We ’re like the new technical school sector with how fast we ’re growing , ” state Zien . “ And I do n’t see an end to it anytime before long . Everyone I live is in a emergence pattern . hoi polloi are saying we have too many brewery – I think we ’re at about 130 in the county . But I think there will be more than 200 moderately soon . ”
assume Zien is right , and Beeramar only continues to flourish , that could be good intelligence for all residents living in America ’s Finest City , not just the beer connoisseurs .
“ There have been cogitation that show for every one brewery worker in San Diego , it creates five to seven task in accessory clientele , ” said Zien . “ We have far - achieve effects from the glassmakers who make beer bottleful to the workers building process piping in these breweries . It ’s all good for San Diego . We ’ve still got a ton of keen things forward of us . Miramar is n’t stopping anytime soon . "
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