Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Abnormally rapid expansion
Young beer company adding capacity already
Derek Gallanosa, head brewer at Abnormal Beer Company
Barely six months in business, Rancho Bernardo's Abnormal Beer Company has announced plans for a million-dollar expansion to its brewhouse. Abnormal's ten-barrel system will continue to operate inside restaurant Cork and Craft, which also houses Abnormal Wine Company.
The expansion will take over a 2000-square-foot suite next door to the 5000-square-foot restaurant. Eleven new fermenters will occupy the rear of the space along with hot and cold liquor tanks, allowing head brewer Derek Gallanosa to speed up production and boost capacity up by 550 percent. The front two-thirds will be used to accommodate private events.
The new investment will also include forklifts and delivery trucks for the self-distributing brewery, plus space to grow its fledgling barrel-aging program. Gallanosa says demand for Abnormal beers has been growing in the short time they've been available. "We were only filling up half the tanks," he says about the startup's early brewing efforts. "But now we're starting to fill them up all the way. We're getting a lot more interest."
Focusing on high-visibility beer bars, the young brand primarily works within the San Diego market. However, its reach is slowly extending throughout Southern California, as it participates in off-site beer events and monthly beer-dinner collaborations at Cork and Craft.
"With the collaborative dinners, I try to set up beer collaborations with each one," Gallanosa explains. "I have one in the tanks right now for our November beer dinner with Alpine. I'm scheduled to work with [Orange County beer company] The Bruery for December."
Between limited capacity and space earmarked for these collaborations, Gallanosa hasn't had a lot of room to branch out beyond Abnormal's three most popular beers: Debut IPA, 5PM Session Ale, and Mostra Mocha Stout. He anticipates the additional fermenting space will allow him freedom to produce more different styles and variations.
"I kind of like making different styles," he says, "playing around with it. Trying different variations of IPA, saison, stout, or porter." Working out of a restaurant with 30 guest taps, he says he's motivated to make beers that will complement that selection, rather than be redundant.
"I'm probably not going to use the extra tanks to make something that somebody else makes great,” he notes. "I want to layer the flavors, make more complexity." Mostly, he adds, "The main focus is to be drinkable and easily paired with food."
The new tanks will arrive in February, though Gallanosa doesn't expect the expansion to be complete until this time next year. Still, a pretty quick expansion for a brewery that opened in the spring. Although, Cork and Craft/Abnormal co-owners Elvin Lai, Matt DeLoach, and James Malone have apparently long anticipated this move — Gallanosa says when the plumbing was installed for the restaurant and brewery, the pipes were set to easily connect to the expansion suite, just in case.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Abnormally rapid expansion
Young beer company adding capacity already
Abnormally rapid expansion
Young beer company adding capacity already
Derek Gallanosa, head brewer at Abnormal Beer Company
Barely six months in business, Rancho Bernardo's Abnormal Beer Company has announced plans for a million-dollar expansion to its brewhouse. Abnormal's ten-barrel system will continue to operate inside restaurant Cork and Craft, which also houses Abnormal Wine Company.
The expansion will take over a 2000-square-foot suite next door to the 5000-square-foot restaurant. Eleven new fermenters will occupy the rear of the space along with hot and cold liquor tanks, allowing head brewer Derek Gallanosa to speed up production and boost capacity up by 550 percent. The front two-thirds will be used to accommodate private events.
The new investment will also include forklifts and delivery trucks for the self-distributing brewery, plus space to grow its fledgling barrel-aging program. Gallanosa says demand for Abnormal beers has been growing in the short time they've been available. "We were only filling up half the tanks," he says about the startup's early brewing efforts. "But now we're starting to fill them up all the way. We're getting a lot more interest."
Focusing on high-visibility beer bars, the young brand primarily works within the San Diego market. However, its reach is slowly extending throughout Southern California, as it participates in off-site beer events and monthly beer-dinner collaborations at Cork and Craft.
"With the collaborative dinners, I try to set up beer collaborations with each one," Gallanosa explains. "I have one in the tanks right now for our November beer dinner with Alpine. I'm scheduled to work with [Orange County beer company] The Bruery for December."
Between limited capacity and space earmarked for these collaborations, Gallanosa hasn't had a lot of room to branch out beyond Abnormal's three most popular beers: Debut IPA, 5PM Session Ale, and Mostra Mocha Stout. He anticipates the additional fermenting space will allow him freedom to produce more different styles and variations.
"I kind of like making different styles," he says, "playing around with it. Trying different variations of IPA, saison, stout, or porter." Working out of a restaurant with 30 guest taps, he says he's motivated to make beers that will complement that selection, rather than be redundant.
"I'm probably not going to use the extra tanks to make something that somebody else makes great,” he notes. "I want to layer the flavors, make more complexity." Mostly, he adds, "The main focus is to be drinkable and easily paired with food."
The new tanks will arrive in February, though Gallanosa doesn't expect the expansion to be complete until this time next year. Still, a pretty quick expansion for a brewery that opened in the spring. Although, Cork and Craft/Abnormal co-owners Elvin Lai, Matt DeLoach, and James Malone have apparently long anticipated this move — Gallanosa says when the plumbing was installed for the restaurant and brewery, the pipes were set to easily connect to the expansion suite, just in case.
Comments