San Diego’s Sudsy Safari Trails

Here’s how “America’s Finest City” became the mecca for delicious craft beers and where you can find the best

San Diego may have been known for its surfing safaris in the past, but nowadays those in the know are more likely to head south for craft beer.

Since its first craft brewery debuted in 1987, “America’s Finest City” has evolved into one of the nation’s nirvanas of artisanal beer, similarly to Portland and Colorado. San Diego County now boasts more than 150 craft breweries ranging from heavyweights like Stone and Ballast Point to family operations and small local beer-making operations that double as neighborhood pubs.

The venues are just as varied, from downtown and beach towns to the sprawling burbs and foothills of the Cuyamaca Mountains. And they cater to different clientele: Surfers and cyclists along the coast; after-dark denizens and Padres baseball fans in the Gaslamp district; even Naval aviators and U.S. Marines.

Although craft breweries are a relatively new trend, making beer has always been in San Diego’s DNA. The city’s first brewery appeared in the 1860s and by World War II – thanks in part to the many soldiers passing through on their way to and from the Pacific battlegrounds – San Diego was brewing around a quarter of all beer produced in California.

The rise of industrial beer producers like Coors and Anheuser-Busch in the 1950s put many of the smaller operations out of business in San Diego and across the nation. It wasn’t until 1983 – when the state government allowed breweries to sell their suds on site – that craft beer began to blossom again.

Breweries Big and Small

One of the early stars was Stone Brewing. Founded by now legendary beer-makers Greg Koch and Steve Wagner – who met at a one-day “Sensory Evaluation of Beer” class at UC Davis – the north county beer-maker slowly but surely expanded into San Diego’s best-known craft beer brand.

But things didn’t get off to a fast start.

‘They couldn’t find a distributor willing to take their hobby beers,” said Lizzie Younkin, Stone’s director of communication. “So they decided to self-distribute and bring their friends along. They would load up their minivan with their own beer and kegs from other small craft breweries and deliver it all themselves.”

Especially known for its India Pale Ales (IPAs), Stone has grown from its modest homebrew origins into five locations in San Diego County including Liberty Station, Little Italy and the sprawling Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens on a hilltop overlooking Escondido.

And their beers are no longer confined to San Diego. Stone brews have spread across the nation (they have an East Coast brewery in Richmond, VA) and to drinking establishments in 50 countries on five continents.

At the opposite end of the San Diego beer spectrum are small producers like New English Brewing, located in a biotech business park in Sorrento Valley.

Founded by the husband-and-wife team of Simon and Nina Lacey in 2006, the little brewery makes an amazing variety of small batch beers, from older favorites like Bloody Orange IPA and Por Favor Mexican-style pilsner to recently released Belgian Blonde.

Explaining how a smaller craft brewery operates, Simon Lacey says, “I do just about everything – brewing, accounting, human resources, payroll, dealing with suppliers and even working behind the bar when we’re short-staffed.”

Like many small businesses, the COVID-19 pandemic was a major challenge for New English. But they used the lockdown to reinvent themselves by working with other business park tenants to convert the parking lot out front into a parklike area with trees, picnic tables, shade structures and Adirondack chairs.

“We had a very supportive landlord,” says Nina Lacey, who viewed New England as an after-work amenity for the biotech workers and that also helped relocate the taco truck that served beer drinkers into a permanent shopfront location opposite the brewery.

Planning Your Sudsy Safari

With more than 150 choices, what’s the best way to plan a beer-tasting sojourn in San Diego?

The first step is deciding how you’re going to move from joint to joint. Nowadays, rideshare is one of the most common (and safest) options. If you’re going to use your own vehicle, make sure there’s a designated driver.

One of the best ways is to zero in on a particular town or neighborhood with a cluster of craft beer-makers. Here’s a few places to start, each with their own characteristics:

Brews with a View: Start in San Marcos, which lies along State Highway 78 between Oceanside and Escondido. Among its 16 breweries are standouts like Belching Beaver Brewery Pub 980 and nearby Aztec Brewery, which carries on the legacy of a bygone beer-maker by that same name that thrived in San Diego on either side of World War II.

Tucked in the San Elijo Hills above San Marcos, The Sanctuary is one of several local Lost Abbey tasting rooms with great beer, good food, live music and themed religious iconography like the Celtic cross on its beer glasses.

Beach Beers: You can start a beach town pub crawl at Pizza Port in Carlsbad – another of the pioneers of San Diego craft brewing – and continue down historic Highway 101 to the Bier Garden in Encinitas (24 beers on tap) and then to tiny Culture Brewing in Solana Beach, which is right down the block from live tunes and headliner bands at the Belly Up Tavern. Whether it’s afternoon or evening, punctuate the coastal pub crawl with brews on the lagoon-side deck at Viewpoint Brewing near the Del Mar racetrack.

Military Mugs: There’s another critical mass of craft breweries off Miramar Road near the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar (and former Navy “Top Gun” flight school). Among the anchor beer-makers in this area are AleSmith, Green Flash, Ballast Point and the delightfully different White Labs Brewing, a long-time yeast maker for local craft breweries that now highlights the importance of yeast in the beermaking process via its own innovative libations.

The Urban Path: For those who love to walk, the East Village (near Petco Park stadium), North Park (north of Balboa Park) and Little Italy (near San Diego Bay) are your best bets, each of them with a handful of breweries within a short distance of one another and plenty of places to eat between.

Best of the Fests: You can also sample a wide selection of San Diego suds at special events like San Diego Beer Week in November, the San Diego Beer Fest in June or the annual Stone Anniversary Celebration in August.

-Joe Yogerst