Mad Lab feeling perfectly at home

It wasn’t a year ago that Mike McFarland was a homebrewer. Now, the founder, owner, and brewer behind Mad Lab Craft Brewing (6120 Business Center Court, Building F, Suite 700, Otay Mesa) is adding a new component to his business to appeal to homies. That added faction is The Perfect Pint Home Brew Shop. Scheduled to go live in April, it will be under the management of McFarland’s wife, Daphne.

The Perfect Pint will start out small. Unlike larger San Diego shops such as Home Brew Mart, the McFarlands will not sell any equipment; just ingredients. Even that stock of base materials will be limited to those utilized by all-grain brewers. That means no extracts—just three of beer’s four basic ingredients: hops, grains, and yeast.

Opened eight months ago, Mad Lab is the county’s southernmost brewing company. A nanobrewery by production classification, its beers are currently produced on a 55-gallon system, but in-progress upgrades should allow Mad Lab to double its output per batch by summer.

McFarland is a retired U.S. Navy chief who worked as an operations specialist for Seal Team One and completed several tours of duty in Iraq before making the transition to civilian life. Before opening Mad Lab, he worked for a year at Home Brew Mart, and that experience figures to come in useful with The Perfect Pint.