Ballast Point Brewing
While staying in San Diego, we frequented a small fish shack right on the harbor for breakfast. They dealt in heavy, cheap plates of food ideal before heading out onto the water to fish. Not surprisingly, they carried a full time of taps for Ballast Point Brewery. It’s natural fit – fishing and fish themed labels for a fisherman’s hangout on the water. The brewery on the other hand, was no where near the water, and instead tucked into a generic looking building just off the air force base. But inside, exciting stuff was fermenting away.
Brewmaster Ryan Glenn gave us a stellar tour. The brewery was hard at work – making a wide range of classic, and not so classic beers. But the most exciting stuff, isn’t beer at all.
In the front corner of the brewery, there is a chain link fence separating off a whole area, and a sign clearly warning “No Beer Beyond This Point.” Why the cutoff on carrying around a beer? because of ABC restrictions – that space isn’t part of the brewery. It’s the distillery.
Crammed into the tiny area is a still, surrounded by a small mountain of barrels. Each barrel is carefully labeled, containing any number of aging experiments. This is where Ryan’s pride in his work really shows – they’re doing exciting stuff, and they’re as far as they can tell, almost the only ones doing it. It’s fully cyclical too – as these barrels eventually give up their high proof contents, they’ll be recycled back into the brewery for aging beers.
The only problem is that aging spirits is a lengthy process. Their first release, gin is out now. But for the good stuff, we’ll have to wait a bit longer.
Tags: ballast point, distill, San Diego
