CARSON >> A rather desolate stretch of industrial Main Street in this blue-collar community may not seem the obvious spot for a craft brewery and small plate cafe named after an obscure silent Swedish horror film and specializing in the niche style of sour beers.

That is unless you are Martin Svab, one of the three-co-owners of Phantom Carriage, a brewery with the subtitle “a small batch endeavor.”

Svab, an immigrant from the Czech Republic where his family owns a tavern dating back to 1781, moved to Southern California to study screen writing at UCLA.

Aptly born on Halloween, he became a film production executive before gravitating to the craft beer industry, most recently managing Redondo Beach institution Naja’s before launching Phantom Carriage.

His film background is why the brewery’s beers sport names such as Bergman (named after legendary Swedish director Ingmar Bergman), Cushing (actor Peter Cushing starred in a string of British B movies made by Hammer Films) and Lugosi (named after Bela Lugosi, the original cinematic Dracula).

“It took us pretty much three years to get this place off the ground,” Svab said. “We wanted to do an authentic Belgian beer cafe.

“The key component is fresh food,” he added. “It’s a small menu, but it’s all farm to table. We have an in-house pickling program we’ll be ramping up, (with) cheese, charcuterie … We would rather contain everything in house, we’ll do beer pairings, our chefs can work with our brewers. It’s a lot more work, but the reception has been great.”

Indeed, the bar at the 7,5000-square-foot brewery at 18525 Main St. was jammed the day after Christmas even though its soft opening is barely being advertised while Svab and his partners, Jackson Wignot and Simon Ford, work out the inevitable kinks. A grand opening is planned later in January.

For now Phantom Carriage is open Thursday through Sunday, although it will eventually ramp up to seven days a week.

The brewery is not only Carson’s first, it is the first in the South Bay to sport a cafe in its oak barrel-stacked tasting room and the first to offer a regular rotation of carefully curated guest taps in addition to its own sour beers.

Sour beers are an acquired taste with a “funky” taste and odor.

Ford, the director of brewing operations, a homebrewer who met Svab at a meeting of a local brew club at Naja’s, observed that sour beers use unique yeast strains cultivated by microbiologists across the country. Unlike most craft beers, yeast rather than hops drive the taste, a production process known for its unpredictability.

“It is a very time-intensive process,” Ford said. “When I first tried sour beers it took me a while to wrap my head around them: Your initial reaction is to kind of cringe a little bit. It’s almost overwhelming to the palate, but once you let your palate acclimate there’s a bunch of flavors you just can’t taste with other beers. They are very complex elements to it; it’s very wine-like in certain respects.”

At the moment, pours are limited to 3 ounces and there are three sours on tap; Ford, who by day is a patent attorney, expects that to double over the next month.

The limited supplies are due to the longer production process sour beers require compared to their hoppy craft beer kin and the small three-barrel brewing capacity at the brewery.

“Right now it’s a labor of love for everybody involved,” Ford said. “We’re just hoping it takes off.”