The capacity at Miramar is probably more than White, Cherney, and Chandler could ever have dreamed as they sipped on hoppy beers in the back of their homebrew store in the mid-1990s. But growth has lead Ballast Point to a unique time and place in brewing history. But with so much work to do to keep a multi-site operation humming along, one could forgive them for not resting on their laurels. “Our plan is to drop two more 750 barrel fermenters in each month until we run out of space,” says Chandler, pointing down the row of stainless steel tanks outside in back of the facility. “See, they must have just poured the concrete on the end of the pad.” As he climbs around the mass of steel, Colby points out that the pad is six feet deep of pure rock. The concrete pad will provide some ballast, if you will, for the literal weight of their growth.

Scale is a funny thing in this industry. At Home Brew Mart you can still buy hops by the ounce. At Miramar, Chandler gleefully proclaims “We literally dry hop with close to a ton of hops on beers like Sculpin. It’s kind of crazy, but pretty awesome, when you think about it.”