Dungeons, dragons, and draft beer!

There is an abundance of breweries throughout San Diego County, and many of them offer excellent beers. And while 20 years ago, we were all fine with simply pulling up a stool in a warehouse-turned-brewery and sipping on beers we couldn’t find elsewhere, now we’re flush with options. Today, breweries and tasting rooms need to offer something more than just quality suds. Maybe it doesn’t have to be somewhere “where everybody knows your name and they’re always glad you came,” but it does need to offer a sense of community in addition to great beer. And no brewery seems to understand that better than BattleMage.

BattleMage co-founders Ryan Sather and Chris Barry grew up playing — and bonding over — geeky games like Everquest, World of Warcraft, Warhammer, and Magic: The Gathering. So when it was time to open their brewery, the decision to build the brand around the gaming communities in which they were already entrenched was an easy and obvious one. Today, the Vista brewery is loaded with board games and arcade games for people of all ages and gaming experience, but the experience goes even further for the dedicated gamers.

On Mondays and Tuesdays at 6 pm, the brewery hosts expansive Dungeons & Dragons nights which fans of the RPG can join via Discord (https://discord.gg/nzYkgxkzXU). Founding Dungeon Master Jeremy Hinkley explains the grandiosity of these gatherings, “We set ourselves apart from other D&D events by having about ten games a week that are all taking place in the same world at the same time. Everyone gets to influence the larger story. When there is a big boss to fight at the end of an arc, we have sixty players over the course of two nights all fighting that big boss together. We had to get creative and invent some new mechanics to accommodate that.” The D&D night’s success (now on its fifth campaign) has extended beyond the brewery: the Dungeon Masters have created a podcast, Lorecasters, which shows up on Instagram and TikTok and has a viral video with more than 500,000 views.

Sather describes the brewery as “a space where shared passions have turned into long-term connections. For some, that passion is D&D, trivia (the first Wednesday of every month), or Magic: The Gathering (the third Wednesday of every month). For others, its simply the beer — BattleMage’s amber ale, Summon Ifrit won back-to-back medals at the World Beer Cup (gold in 2023 and silver in 2024). Those of us who lean toward the latter category may be interested in an annual membership to the BattleMage Guild, which offers 22-ounce mug pours for the price of 16 ounces, early access to beers, limited edition merch, and attendance at the annual Guild party.

Tim Ames, a BattleMage regular, expresses the brewery’s impact on his life: “It’s difficult to articulate how warm, connected, and supportive the community at BattleMage is. On a personal level, I met my wife, found my dream job, and made many of my closest friends there.” The sense of belonging and community at BattleMage flows just as freely as its award-winning beers, and that’s something that’s not always easy to find.