AleSmith Brewing Co. has opened its previously announced new tasting room in Miramar, billed as San Diego County’s largest brewery tasting room at 25,000 square feet.
After more than a year of design and a $1.5 million renovation, company officials said AleSmith’s new facility is up and running in a leased space at 9990 AleSmith Court, formerly known as Empire Street.
The indoor-outdoor space has 60 beer handles and features a zig-zagging bar with a trio of massive copper tap towers, and visitors get a view of a custom-built, two-story brew house behind glass panes frosted over with the company’s familiar anvil logo.
Operators said the new tasting room’s 5,000-square-foot outdoor beer garden has a fire pit and drought-resistant plants. The exterior space is bordered by a steel rail bar allowing access to food trucks and other on-site vendors of edible items.
Owner and CEO Peter Zien said the new facility will allow the 20-year-old brewer to eventually boost production ten-fold from its current output of nearly 25,000 barrels annually.
The new tasting room was designed by Marcatects and Smith Consulting Architects, with R&R Construction as the general contractor and Urban CM Group as project manager.
Future phases, set for completion in 2016, will include a new beer garden bar, an upstairs mezzanine area, company store and private event space. Zien is also planning a museum honoring the late San Diego Padres Hall-of-Famer Tony Gwynn, being built in association with Gwynn’s family and the non-profit Tony and Alicia Gwynn Foundation.
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