At the end of 2015, San Diego County had 114 breweries and brewpubs – only two of which were in the South Bay. Citing low incomes and its minority-majority population, some brewers, sales representatives and distributors have assumed residents there only have taste buds for Bud Light, Corona and Dos Equis. A recent boom in breweries and tasting rooms is proving them wrong. Voice of San Diego, March 14, 2017.
Image credit: Jamie Scott Lytle
Chula Vista’s Third Avenue is lined with breweries and tasting rooms. Two new tasting rooms have been approved in National City. In Imperial Beach, Coronado Brewing Company is building a 10-barrel brewery with a 7,000 square-foot restaurant.
Anywhere else in craft beer-devoted San Diego County, openings like these would be unremarkable. But the South Bay has long been one corner of the county the craft beer boom hasn’t touched.
At the end of 2015, San Diego County had 114 breweries and brewpubs – only two of which were located in the South Bay, according to a National University System Institute for Policy Research study.
When I asked the brewers, bar owners, city planners and real estate agents in the South Bay to explain the disparity, some cited land use issues and local politics, but most pointed to assumptions about who’s drinking beer there. Citing the region’s generally low incomes and its minority-majority population, some brewers, sales representatives and distributors from outside the South Bay have assumed residents there only have taste buds for macro brews, like Bud Light, Corona and Dos Equis.
The South Bay’s mini craft beer boom, though, is upending those assumptions.