May 11 marked the last day of business for Half Door Brewing, a 10-year-old brewpub run by the family behind downtown’s venerable Irish pub, The Field. Installed in a charming two-story house on the corner of Island and Ninth avenues, a block from Petco Park, it was particularly popular among Padres pre-gamers and East Village denizens.
A prime piece of real estate, it was quickly snatched up by Villains Brewing, a 2-year-old beer operation out of Anaheim. It’s the latest in a recent trend of out-of-town brewing company entering the San Diego market through site acquisition. Since 2023, there have been eight instances of this, with six of those newcomers hailing from Orange County.
“When you take a trip to San Diego, you fall in love – especially if you’re a beer person,” says Isaias Hernandez, co-founder of Villains’ parent company, Smoke & Fire hospitality group.
In February, Hernandez was ed by a real estate acquaintance who believed the Half Door space represented an ideal expansion opportunity. It was reminiscent of a 2022 phone call in which another visionary agent represented a site that seemed prime for the restaurateur – the 33,000-square-foot Leisuretown beer-food-and-coffee complex previously operated by Modern Times Beer in Anaheim – and asked Hernandez if he’d ever thought of opening a brewery. He hadn’t, but a tour of the sprawling space (and the fact he was friends with an award-winning brewer from Green Cheek Beer Co.) inspired him to get into the beer business, just as an initial look-see at the Half Door site convinced him it was well suited to grow the Villains brand.
In taking over Leisuretown, Smoke & Fire inherited a 1904 two-story craftsman home remarkably similar to the Half Door property, which it converted into a “villains’ lair,” a bar-and-restaurant with a haunted mansion aesthetic that has since become a focal point of the Anaheim complex. Hernandez intends to remodel Half Door’s interiors to offer a similar concept while including nods to historic downtown San Diego and the Padres. Though not from San Diego, Hernandez and his team have locals at the forefront of their minds as they look to enter a craft-beer community they consider tops in the country.
“We have an opportunity to go to arguably the best beer city in the U.S.,” says Smoke & Fire co-owner Russell Lee. “It’s the city you think of as the capital of craft beer, and we’re excited to go into the heart of the beast.”
Villains is the latest OC operation to take on said beast, almost undoubtedly buoyed by their contemporaries’ successful efforts to do the same in recent years. The most notable of those has been Green Cheek, which took over Bagby Beer Co., a 9,000, multi-story, indoor-outdoor brewpub on Coast Highway in Oceanside at the onset of 2024.
It was the fourth venue for the Orange-based company, which was founded in 2017 and quickly gained status as one of the most popular breweries in the country behind high-quality hoppy beers and assorted alternative beverages. Having already built a solid reputation and multiple locations in its home county, expanding into a more distant territory and a far more competitive market represented a risk, but Green Cheek’s founders had multiple reasons for taking it.
“Expanding into San Diego County came down to a mix of strategic growth and personal drive,” says Green Cheek co-founder and CEO Brian Rauso. “From a business perspective, San Diego represents a natural next step. It’s geographically close, has a strong, diverse customer base, and shares a lot of cultural overlap with Orange County, making it a market where brand recognition can transfer more easily. It also offers unique neighborhoods and a vibrant food scene, giving space for innovation while still playing to the strengths that made our brand successful in the first place. From a ion standpoint, opening in San Diego was more than just about expansion.”
Like many heads of OC beer companies that have ed the local ranks, Green Cheek’s other co-founder, head brewer Evan Price, has personal ties to San Diego County. For him, they come in the form of longstanding relationships with numerous brewing contemporaries he has been inspired by or collaborated with. For others, such as Trevor Walls, the co-founder and head brewer of Anaheim’s Brewery X, their careers are deeply rooted in San Diego soil.
A veteran fermentationist, Walls worked for prestigious local operations, including Ballast Point Brewing, Pizza Port and Mission Brewery before becoming director of brewing operations for Brewery X in 2017. The company has since launched high-profile taprooms at Anaheim’s Angel Stadium and Honda Center, the Ontario International Airport, and the Sheraton San Diego Resort on Harbor Island.
“We never felt like we were entering from the outside. For us it was more of an ‘it’s good to be back’ approach,” says Walls. “Most of our team cut their teeth in craft beer here for legacy brands like Pizza Port, Ballast Point and Stone. I think a lot of the current beer industry doesn’t know about our San Diego roots, but once we tell our story to local beer folks they tend to perk up a bit more and seem more receptive to our brand, beer and goals.”
San Clemente-based Artifex Brewing is also headed by a brewer who not only started his career in San Diego but still lives in coastal North County. In 2023, he was able to realize a longstanding goal of opening a satellite taproom at a collective in Oceanside (just a block away from Heritage Brewery & Barbecue, a brewpub belonging to a popular San Juan Capistrano BBQ business of the same name). And in 2024, Tarantula Hill Brewing, a 6-year-old Thousand Oaks company founded by a pair of Stone Brewing veterans, took over the production brewery built into Draft Republic’s San Marcos location.
San Diego brewery closures have been at an all-time high over the past two years, creating vacancies and, in turn, opportunities for out-of-town brewing outfits to test the local waters. With more than a half-dozen now established within the county, their founders can weigh in on how business has been at their satellites.
“Brewery X is the most saturated craft-beer brand in Orange County,” says Walls. “We were distributing our beer in San Diego for a few years prior to opening our Harbor Island location. After a year of operation, the brand recognition and reputation among San Diego beer drinkers has increased dramatically. They are taking more interest in our beers on tap around town as well as Brewery X cans on shelves throughout San Diego because they’ve heard of us or been to our spot at the Sheraton.”
Roughly 1 1/2 years after touching down in Oceanside, Green Cheek’s owners are pleased but far from taking their collective foot off the pedal as they work to further endear themselves to their immediate community and the county as a whole.
“Craft beer feels like part of San Diego’s identity. The people here really know their beer, they’re super into trying new styles, and there’s a deep appreciation for quality and innovation,” says Rauso. “It’s been especially exciting to see how quickly the local beer community here has embraced us. We’ve had great conversations, repeat customers, and people genuinely curious about what we’re doing, which tells us we’re making real traction. It’s still a process, but we feel like we’re building something solid and lasting here.”
In the past, San Diego County brewing companies – mostly large, production-based entities, including Ballast Point, Pizza Port and Stone – have readily expanded, opening venues in other Southern California communities. The most recent was Karl Strauss with last September’s launch of a new brewpub in Corona. But that was the first opening beyond county lines for a San Diego beer operation since the aforementioned Leisuretown, which closed just two years after its 2020 debut.
With eight new entrants to San Diego County’s beer scene, could a slowdown be coming or will this trend continue?
“This trend underscores the region’s enduring appeal as a premier destination for craft brewing, and I think it will continue since San Diego is sort of the center of the universe for the brewing community,” says Rauso. “Overall, the synergy between incoming breweries and established local players is enhancing San Diego County’s reputation as a craft-beer capital, offering consumers an ever evolving and diverse beer experience.”
Out-of-town breweries with San Diego County locations
Artifex Brewing: Based in San Clemente with Oceanside Taproom (2023)Brewery X: Based in Anaheim with Harbor Island Taproom (2024)Brewjería Co.: Based in Pico Rivera with Chula Vista Taproom (2024)Docent Brewing: Based in San Juan Capistrano with Carlsbad Taproom (2024)Green Cheek Beer Co.: Based in Orange with Oceanside Brewpub (2024)Heritage Brewery & Barbecue: Based in San Juan Capistrano with Oceanside Brewpub (2023)Tarantula Hill Brewing: Based in Thousand Oaks with San Marcos Brewery (2024)Villains Brewing: Based in Anaheim with East Village Brewpub (2025)
Local breweries with Southern California locations outside San Diego County
Ballast Point Brewing: Locations in Anaheim, Long Beach, San FranciscoCulture Brewing: Taproom in Manhattan BeachKarl Strauss Brewing: Locations in Anaheim, Corona, Costa Mesa, Los Angeles, TemeculaPizza Port: Brewpub in San ClementeStone Brewing: Taproom in Pasadena
Brandon Hernández is founder of San Diego Beer News (www.sandiegobeer.news), a site providing daily coverage of the county’s brewing industry. Follow him @sdbeernews or him at [email protected]
