| Karl Strauss Brewing Company | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Location | San Diego, California, USA | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coordinates |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Owner(s) | Chris Cramer and Matt Rattner (private) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Year opened | 1989 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Active beers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Other beers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Karl Strauss Brewing Company is a San Diego, California-based beer business with a microbrewery and a chain of brewpub restaurants. Besides being available at its own restaurants, the company’s beers are available on tap at many Southern California restaurants and bars, as well as being sold in bottles at retail stores. Karl Strauss is the oldest surviving brewery in San Diego County, having been founded in 1988, and is credited with launching the county's rise to prominence in the craft brewing industry.[1]
Contents |
In 1988, Chris Cramer and Matt Rattner asked Cramer’s cousin, the late Karl Strauss, to help them develop a brewpub. Strauss was a former vice president of production at Pabst Brewing Company, reaching the title of Master Brewer.[2] Strauss agreed, contributing his library of hundreds of beer recipes, helping to design brewing operations, and serving as the company's spokesman on radio advertisements until his death in 2006.
The company’s first brewery restaurant, Karl Strauss Brewery Restaurant, located on Columbia Street in Downtown San Diego, opened in 1989. It was the first new brewery of any type to open in San Diego in more than fifty years, and the first-ever brew pub in San Diego.[3]
The company's first distributing brewery began producing beer in late 1991. In 1996 the company’s distributing brewery operations were moved into a 22,000-square-foot (2,000 m2) home office and brewing building in Pacific Beach. In 1999, the company installed new brewery equipment at its microbrewery, which more than tripled the brewing capacity. In 2009 they introduced a bottling line so that they could produce bottled beer as well as kegs in their local facility.[4]
Karl Strauss Brewery Gardens restaurant in Sorrento Mesa opened in 1991. In 1996, the company opened Karl Strauss Brewery Restaurant in La Jolla.[5] In 1999, the company opened a brewery restaurant in Carlsbad, California, and under a licensing agreement with Host Marriott opened a Karl Strauss Handcrafted Beers Bar at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and San Diego International Airport (SAN). In August 2000, the company opened a Karl Strauss Brewery Restaurant at Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles.[6] In 2001 the newly-opened Disney California Adventure Park in Anaheim included a Karl Strauss "beer truck" in the Pacific Wharf area, selling six of the company's brews.[7] The most recently opened Karl Strauss Brewery Restaurant was established in 2002 in Costa Mesa, California.
In January, 2009, the company moved its bottling operations from Stevens Point Brewery to its San Diego, California location.[8]
In 2009 the company made news by partnering with the Greenhouse alternative energy company in a program to convert its waste to ethanol for use as a fuel.[9]
Annual events held at the microbrewery include the Beach to Brewery Beer & Music Fest in May and the Karlfest in October.
The January–February 2010 issue of Draft Magazine named a Karl Strauss brew, Endless Summer Light, as the best light craft beer in the nation.[10] Also that year, the brewery's Red Trolley Ale received gold medals in the Irish red ale category at both the Great American Beer Festival[11] and the World Beer Cup.[12]