Just married in Oceanside: beer and BBQ

Oceanside's newest beer company, Northern Pine Brewing, celebrated its grand opening on the first of December. However, the assortment of beers served for the opening were not the first we've seen from cofounders and brewers Bobby Parsons and Aaron Ortega.

Nearly six years ago, the former Marines brewed a special-release beer at Vista's Mother Earth Brew Co. Their Homage pale ale was brewed to commemorate the loss of seven compatriots in a helicopter collision over the Colorado Desert. With the help of Mother Earth owner Dan Love, they were able to raise funds to contribute to funeral expenses for their fallen friends, most of whom had been stationed at Camp Pendleton at the time.

That's where Parsons and Ortega first met as civilian contractors, plying their engineering prowess as airframers — that is, working on the frames of aircraft such as helicopters. Parsons had been gifted a book on homebrewing while deployed with the Marines and had been getting deep into the hobby when he met Ortega.

"He had this massive [homebrew] system in his backyard," recalls Anne Ortega, Aaron's wife. "It just kept growing, made out of bed frames and airframe parts"

As the third partner, Anne Ortega oversees the business operations of Northern Pine while Parsons and her husband continue to work full-time as engineers at General Atomics. When the three decided to pursue a brewing business three years ago, Anne went to work at Mother Earth, learning the ropes of the beer business. "They brought me on and kind of showed me how to own and operate a brewery," she says.

While all three partners worked full-time, they spent off-hours trying to find a location and brewing equipment that would work within their limited budget. "It was scraping together pennies and eating ramen noodles to build this place," Anne says. "We built the majority of this by hand."

They found a spot just west of the 5 freeway in downtown Oceanside (326 North Horne Street, Oceanside), but that meant they could only make and serve beer if the tasting room offered food service. Fortunately, another local business was interested in putting a kitchen in the same building. So they struck a deal with nearby BBQ restaurant That Boy Good to share the building — That Boy Good serves food on one side, and Northern Pine pours beer on the other.

Meanwhile, they found second-hand seven-barrel brewing equipment that may be familiar to fans of the TV show Monster Garage. During the 2004 episode titled "Firetruck Brewery," host Jesse James worked with Automatic Brewing Company founder Lee Chase (at the time head brewer of Stone Brewing) to assemble a mobile brewery on the back of a fire truck. The system had been removed from the truck a few years ago before Northern Pine found it for sale in Denver last year. The smokestack James designed during the episode is visible on Northern Pine's roof.

Inside, there's room to upgrade to a 10-barrel system with 20-barrel fermenters, but Anne Ortega says that's as big as they want it to get. "We want it to be a smaller, neighborhood brewery," she says. Which isn't to say the business won't grow. If they find success in Oceanside, Northern Pine hopes to keep its 7-barrel system and open a second brewing location.