San Diego’s barrel-aged sour beer specialist California Wild Ales has taken over the space that last housed Two Roots Brewery in Ocean Beach to open the craft brewery's second tasting room.
California Wile Ales was founded in 2015 by Bill DeWitt and Zack Brager, and the company's full scale brewery and tasting room opened in 2018 at 4202 Sorrento Valley Boulevard in Sorrento Valley. California Wild Ales is San Diego's only all barrel-aged sour brewery, offering a lineup of sour beers that are aged in American, French, and Hungarian oak barrels, as well as liquor barrels, for a minimum of nine to twelve months. Recipes use seasonal fruits and vegetables from local San Diego farmers to produce a fresh, tart flavor profile. The brewery now has over 100 barrels fermenting and aging, with 10 sour brews on tap at all times and new flavors added every week depending on when barrels finish. This year, the company began shipping its barrel-aged beer to Alaska, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New York, and Washington DC, with customers able to order directly from the brewery's website.
California Wild Ales has recently taken over the 1,200 square-foot Newport Avenue space previously occupied by Two Roots Brewery (and Helm's Brewing before that) to open a new tasting room. Expect multiple taps of rotating craft beer creations for onsite consumption and takeaway. Popular sour beer flavors include Pineapple Upside Down Cake, Peach Bellini, Carlsbad Blueberry, and Rosé, made with Zinfandel grapes from Escondido.
California Wild Ales is expected to open its new tasting room at 4896 Newport Avenue in San Diego's Ocean Beach in early 2021. For more information, visit californiawildales.com.
