page_title: Beer in San Diego County, California
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Beer in San Diego County, California / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Mission Brewery This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 89000805
context_page_description: San Diego County, California, has been called "the Craft Beer Capital of America". As of 2018, the county was home to 155 licensed craft breweries – the most of any county in the United States. Based on 2016 sales volume, three San Diego County breweries – Stone, Green Flash, and Karl Strauss – rank among the 50 largest craft brewers in the United States. San Diego County brewers pioneered the specialty beer style known as Double India Pale Ale, sometimes called San Diego Pale Ale. Its beer culture is a draw for tourism, particularly during major festivals such as San Diego Beer Week and the San Diego International Beer Competition. San Diego County breweries including Stone Brewing Co., AleSmith Brewing Company and Ballast Point Brewing Company are consistently rated among the top breweries in the world.
context_section_description: The San Diego Brewing Company opened in 1896 as the first commercial brewery in San Diego County; Alonzo Horton, the father of modern San Diego, was one of the founders. At the time it was the largest manufacturing enterprise in the county. It was located on 32nd street in San Diego. It closed in 1920 because of Prohibition. It reopened in 1935 and continued in operation until 1942, when it was displaced by the U.S. Navy's 32nd Street Naval Station. A brewpub by the same name now operates in the Mission Valley neighborhood.
  Mission Brewery, located in the Middletown neighborhood of San Diego, opened in 1913 and closed due to Prohibition. It was never reopened as a brewery, but the landmark five-story brick building was repurposed several times, for kelp extraction until the 1980s and ultimately as an office building, still in operation. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989. The name Mission Brewery was revived in 2007 by a brewery located in the historic Wonder Bread building in Downtown San Diego.
  The Aztec Brewing Company was founded in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico, in 1921 as Cerveceria Azteca SA. During Prohibition it helped to supply Americans with the beer they could not legally buy in the United States. The company moved to San Diego in 1933, following the repeal of Prohibition, and became San Diego's largest brewery. It was located on Main Street in Barrio Logan. It featured a large Rathskeller, or basement beer hall, decorated with murals, paintings, and woodcarvings by Jose Moya del Pino. By 1944 Aztec was the only brewery still operating in Southern California. The company was purchased by Altes Brewing Company in 1948; Altes was then bought by the National Brewing Company, which closed Aztec Brewing Company in 1953. For the next 36 years there was no local commercially brewed beer in San Diego County. The name Aztec Brewing Company has been revived in a Vista brewery which opened in 2011.
  During Prohibition (1920–1933), San Diegans could still drink beer by crossing the border into Mexico. In the formerly small town of Tijuana more than 180 cantinas were built to serve American visitors, and the city's population grew tenfold between 1920 and 1930. Several modern breweries were built in Mexicali to supply the demand.
  Before Prohibition there had been seven breweries in San Diego. After repeal there were three: Aztec Brewing Company, San Diego Brewing Company, and Balboa Brewing Company. These were soon either purchased by the Big Three national brewing companies (Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and Miller) or driven out of business by the aggressive marketing practices of the Big Three. From 1953 until the 1980s the local beer market was dominated by the large national brewers, with the alternative being imported beer from Mexico. But changes in national and state law in the late 1970s made home brewing legal, and in 1982 California allowed breweries to operate restaurants on their premises, which made brewpubs possible.
  In 1989 the Karl Strauss Brewing Company opened a brewery and brewpub on Columbia Street in Downtown San Diego and expanded into distribution brewing in 1991. This was the first commercial brewery in San Diego since 1953, and for many San Diego consumers it was their first exposure to freshly brewed beer and to styles such as amber lager and pale ale. In the mid-1990s a second wave of craft breweries appeared, led by Pizza Port, Stone and Alesmith. The local craft beer movement was inspired in part by homebrewing hobbyists, supported by the storefront Home Brew Mart, which opened in 1992 and later spun off the Ballast Point Brewing Company.
  Beer festivals promoted the new styles and educated a new generation of beer drinkers. In 1997 local brewers Tomme Arthur and Tom Nickel organized the first such event, the Strong Ale Festival (still an annual event), and in 1998 they added the Real Ale Festival (discontinued after 2012). Other festivals were added, and in 2009 the San Diego Brewers Guild launched an annual Beer Week. San Diego became so well established 
caption: The old Mission Brewery building in San Diego
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