Mission Brewery Plaza is a historic

brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of b ...

building in the Middletown neighborhood of

San Diego San Diego ( , ) is a city on the Pacific coast of Southern California, adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a population of over 1.4 million, it is the List of United States cities by population, eighth-most populous city in t ...

, California. The building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

on July 6, 1989. It is also the name of a San Diego

microbrewery Craft beer is beer manufactured by craft breweries, which typically produce smaller amounts of beer than larger "macro" breweries and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as emphasising enthusiasm, ne ...

which opened in 2007 and operates in a different neighborhood in San Diego.

Historic building

Built from 1912 to 1913, the brewery was the first in the U.S. to be designed in the

Mission Revival The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century ...

style; it is still the only Mission Revival industrial building in San Diego. The brewery was operated by the San Diego Consolidated Brewing Company, a group led by August F. Lang. Due to the impending threat of

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

on the brewing industry, the brewery began production of a non-alcoholic drink called Hopski in 1915; however, the drink sold poorly and was discontinued, and the brewery closed in 1918. The building served as an isolation hospital during the

1918 flu pandemic The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the Influenza A virus subtype H1N1, H1N1 subtype of the influenz ...

; the physician in charge of the hospital, Dr. Peter C. Remondino, claimed to have never lost a patient to the flu. The American Agar Company purchased the building in 1923 and converted it into San Diego's first

agar Agar ( or ), or agar-agar, is a jelly-like substance consisting of polysaccharides obtained from the cell walls of some species of red algae, primarily from " ogonori" and " tengusa". As found in nature, agar is a mixture of two components, t ...

production plant. While the American Agar Company folded in 1933 due to Japanese competition, the building became an agar plant again after Japanese imports ceased during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. The American Agar and Chemical Company produced agar in the building from the 1940s until 1987. In 1987, developer Mike Foote bought the property, restored it, and converted it into offices. He hoped to open a microbrewery and restaurant at the site but lost the property to foreclosure in 1992. Pacifica Company bought it and continues to operate it as an office building. Pacifica later developed an adjacent residential complex called the Mission Apartments. In 2013, a new craft brewery called Acoustic Ales Brewing Experiment opened in the reconditioned old brewery space, but has since closed. In April 2018, Latchkey Brewing opened in the same location, but closed their brewery in 2021. Both breweries cited moving to a larger location in Carlsbad as the reason for closing, but neither has resurfaced as of April 2023.

Craft brewery

In 2007, the name was revived when a new Mission Brewery

craft brewery Craft beer is beer manufactured by craft breweries, which typically produce smaller amounts of beer than larger "macro" breweries and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as emphasising enthusiasm, ne ...

opened in

East Village, San Diego East Village is a neighborhood in downtown San Diego, California, United States. It is the largest urban neighborhood in downtown San Diego. It is located east of the Gaslamp Quarter and southeast of the Core district and Cortez Hill in down ...

. It is housed at 1441 L Street in the historic Wonder Bread building, built in 1894. The former commercial bakery is now a brewery with an initial capacity of 10,000 barrels a year and a tasting room that could accommodate up to 400 people. The brewery produces hefeweizen, IPA, blonde ale and amber styles, as well as extreme beers like Shipwrecked Double IPA, Carrack Imperial Red, Dark Seas Imperial Stout, and El Conquistador. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Mission Brewery converted their main tasting room into additional brewing capacity for contract brewing and converted a back area of the lot into a new tasting room, moving the building entrance from L Street to 14th Street. Mission Brewery has one additional tasting room located in the Kensington neighborhood of San Diego, having taken it over from Kensington Brewing Company whose owners left the brewing industry.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in California Mission Revival architecture in California Industrial buildings completed in 1913 National Register of Historic Places in San Diego Buildings and structures in San Diego Brewery buildings in the United States Beer brewing companies based in San Diego County, California 1913 establishments in California