Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

AleSmith partnering locally with Mikkeller

Danish gypsy brewer not quite invading San Diego

Mikkeller brewmaster Mikkel Borg Bjergsø (left) and AleSmith brewmaster Peter Zien toast their upcoming collaboartive partnership
Mikkeller brewmaster Mikkel Borg Bjergsø (left) and AleSmith brewmaster Peter Zien toast their upcoming collaboartive partnership

While other regions are finding out what it’s like for a San Diego brewing company to expand into their backyards (Green Flash Brewing Company and Stone Brewing Co. are both constructing East Coast breweries in Virginia, with the latter also building a facility in Berlin, Germany), no established brewing interests from outside San Diego have expanded into our fair county…until now.

Place

AleSmith Brewing Company

9990 Alesmith Court, San Diego

Earlier this week, AleSmith Brewing Company owner and brewmaster Peter Zien announced that he is entering into a collaborative partnership with international gypsy brewing superstar Mikkel Borg Bjergsø to provide a U.S. presence and full-time brewing facility for his company, Mikkeller, in San Diego.

Sponsored
Sponsored

AleSmith is in the process of moving out of its 20,000-square-foot campus in Miramar and into a 105,500-square-foot facility two blocks away that will allow the company to increase production ten-fold before reaching capacity.

Upon finalizing the deal on the larger venue, Zien set out to sell his existing brewery, tasting room, and warehouse space as a turnkey facility. He received interest from well-known brewing companies throughout the country, but ended up tapping Bjergsø, a longtime friend. It was as simple as floating the basic idea out via email.

Bjergsø, who has made a career by brewing his beers exclusively at breweries around the world, had been contemplating the idea of building a place to call his own but hadn’t made any serious movement on that aim until Zien posed the idea for the partnership.

Though still in the negotiation phases, essentially, both Bjergsø and Zien will hold interest in the former AleSmith campus, which will be under the charge of Bjergsø and used to brew Mikkeller beers. There is no plan for what those beers will be or whether Mikkeller will establish a line of core, year-round beers, but the potential will exist under this structure.

What is a surety is that Bjergsø will invite many brewing contemporaries to San Diego to craft an interesting array of collaboration beers, all of which will be available in a tasting room that will be revamped to reflect a style consistent with Mikkeller’s bars, which are scattered across the globe in locales such as Bangkok, Stockholm, and San Francisco.

Bjergsø is also in the process of opening a brewpub called WarPigs in his native Copenhagen, Denmark, a collaboration with Indiana-based 3 Floyds Brewing Co. that will also feature a small yeast-production laboratory run by San Diego–based White Labs.

Bjergsø plans to split time between San Diego, Copenhagen, and gypsy brewing abroad. He also plans on opening additional non-brewing venues throughout California. This is what makes sharing this interest with Zien so crucial: Bjergsø will be able to tap Zien to ensure he and his eventual staff harness the most they can as fast as possible from the old AleSmith brewery. Like others, Bjergsø knows the world-class beer AleSmith has produced over the past 20 years and, thus, knows that he stands an excellent chance of replicating that quality. That probability is raised significantly by embarking on this venture with the brewer who oversaw the facility’s operations since purchasing the business in 2002.

This yet-to-be-named interest is scheduled to start producing beer in July, one month after AleSmith’s new facility is estimated to be open and fully operational. The proximity of both businesses will make for easy interaction between Bjergsø and Zien, who plan on working together on AleSmith-Mikkeller collaboration beers.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Angry Pete’s goes from pop-up to drive-thru

Detroit Pizza sidles into the husk of a shuttered Taco Bell
Next Article

SDSU pres gets highest pay raise in state over last 15 years

Union-Tribune still stiffing downtown San Diego landlord?
Mikkeller brewmaster Mikkel Borg Bjergsø (left) and AleSmith brewmaster Peter Zien toast their upcoming collaboartive partnership
Mikkeller brewmaster Mikkel Borg Bjergsø (left) and AleSmith brewmaster Peter Zien toast their upcoming collaboartive partnership

While other regions are finding out what it’s like for a San Diego brewing company to expand into their backyards (Green Flash Brewing Company and Stone Brewing Co. are both constructing East Coast breweries in Virginia, with the latter also building a facility in Berlin, Germany), no established brewing interests from outside San Diego have expanded into our fair county…until now.

Place

AleSmith Brewing Company

9990 Alesmith Court, San Diego

Earlier this week, AleSmith Brewing Company owner and brewmaster Peter Zien announced that he is entering into a collaborative partnership with international gypsy brewing superstar Mikkel Borg Bjergsø to provide a U.S. presence and full-time brewing facility for his company, Mikkeller, in San Diego.

Sponsored
Sponsored

AleSmith is in the process of moving out of its 20,000-square-foot campus in Miramar and into a 105,500-square-foot facility two blocks away that will allow the company to increase production ten-fold before reaching capacity.

Upon finalizing the deal on the larger venue, Zien set out to sell his existing brewery, tasting room, and warehouse space as a turnkey facility. He received interest from well-known brewing companies throughout the country, but ended up tapping Bjergsø, a longtime friend. It was as simple as floating the basic idea out via email.

Bjergsø, who has made a career by brewing his beers exclusively at breweries around the world, had been contemplating the idea of building a place to call his own but hadn’t made any serious movement on that aim until Zien posed the idea for the partnership.

Though still in the negotiation phases, essentially, both Bjergsø and Zien will hold interest in the former AleSmith campus, which will be under the charge of Bjergsø and used to brew Mikkeller beers. There is no plan for what those beers will be or whether Mikkeller will establish a line of core, year-round beers, but the potential will exist under this structure.

What is a surety is that Bjergsø will invite many brewing contemporaries to San Diego to craft an interesting array of collaboration beers, all of which will be available in a tasting room that will be revamped to reflect a style consistent with Mikkeller’s bars, which are scattered across the globe in locales such as Bangkok, Stockholm, and San Francisco.

Bjergsø is also in the process of opening a brewpub called WarPigs in his native Copenhagen, Denmark, a collaboration with Indiana-based 3 Floyds Brewing Co. that will also feature a small yeast-production laboratory run by San Diego–based White Labs.

Bjergsø plans to split time between San Diego, Copenhagen, and gypsy brewing abroad. He also plans on opening additional non-brewing venues throughout California. This is what makes sharing this interest with Zien so crucial: Bjergsø will be able to tap Zien to ensure he and his eventual staff harness the most they can as fast as possible from the old AleSmith brewery. Like others, Bjergsø knows the world-class beer AleSmith has produced over the past 20 years and, thus, knows that he stands an excellent chance of replicating that quality. That probability is raised significantly by embarking on this venture with the brewer who oversaw the facility’s operations since purchasing the business in 2002.

This yet-to-be-named interest is scheduled to start producing beer in July, one month after AleSmith’s new facility is estimated to be open and fully operational. The proximity of both businesses will make for easy interaction between Bjergsø and Zien, who plan on working together on AleSmith-Mikkeller collaboration beers.

Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Best Sports Betting Sites - 10 Online Sportsbooks Ranked for 2024

Best Sports Betting Sites (2024) - Reviews of TOP Online Sportsbooks
Next Article

March is typically windy, Sage scents in the foothills

Butterflies may cross the county
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.