Mike Hess Brewing is one of the premier craft breweries in San Diego, a destination for aspiring small craft breweries as well as local craft beer fans and tourists alike. From humble beginnings (see History), Mike Hess Brewing has grown to include two locations in San Diego, the original "nano" in the Miramar area of San Diego as well as our showcase, production brewery in the mid-town area of San Diego, North Park.
As the city's first production nano-brewery - and its 33rd brewery - in 2010, Mike Hess Brewing quickly built a solid reputation for great beers and a unique brewery and tasting room experience. Production at our Miramar brewery grew from 14 barrels in our first quarter (July to September 2010), to 90 bbls in the three months leading to the opening of North Park, representing a 542% increase in just 2.5 years.
With growing consumer demand, and distributors excited to market our beers, we began the build-out of our North Park facility starting in the fall of 2012. The success of Mike Hess Brewing has been the result of brewing distinctive, high quality beers that appeal to a broad range of tastes, coupled with intelligent social marketing and effective branding. Glowing press coverage from our beginning in local publications, SD Reader, West Coaster and others were followed by national stories in Beer West, Celebrator Magazine, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
Our tasting rooms are family and pet friendly, and are staffed by some of the best beertenders in the industry. Whether you are a beer geek or novice, our friendly staff will make you feel right at home and happily walk you through our lineup of truly hand-crafted, well thought out beers. We offer tasting flights, beer by the glass as well as packaged beer - bottles and cans - and a 32 oz canned "Purrowler" of any draft beer to take beer home with you if you like.
Designed as social gathering places we encourage our guests to strike up conversations with the persons sitting next to them. Many a friendship has been forged over one or more of our beers!
We believe in optimizing our guests (and our own!) beer experience and therefore, our beer is served not only at proper temperature, but in the proper glassware. We feature a regular offering of four beer-style specific glasses at our North Park location, including a stange, for our Claritas Kolsch, and three variations of a tulip glass for the rest of our lineup, including our pint-size-serving beers (our Reds, Browns, Am. Wheat, Pales, IPAs, Commons, etc), an estate glass for imperials, (like Umbrix Rye Imperial Stout and Gladius, our San Diego Pale) and a classic tulip glass for our Belgian-style offerings (including Helicon, Pallidus and Aurum). Visitors to our Miramar location will find our branded Willi Becher glass as well.
