Little Miss Brewing moving into Normal Heights and O.B.

Since before Little Miss Brewing began churning out beers from its Miramar brewhouse in August, the plan was to open a satellite tasting room in a San Diego urban neighborhood. Now, as the business hits the five-month mark, it has signed leases to open two of them. Pending licensing, Little Miss will open tasting rooms this spring in Normal Heights (3514 Adams Avenue) and Ocean Beach (4861 Newport Avenue).

Initially, Little Miss wasn't going to serve beer at its brewery, rather focus on distribution and the search for a tasting room site. But when beer fans accustomed to hopping from brewery to brewery in the industrial neighborhood fondly known as "Beeramar" started showing up, the Little Miss team assembled a comfortable gathering space and made the most of it.

"I love Miramar," says cofounder Jade Malkin. "Even though we didn't plan to have a tasting room at first, it's worked out really well for us." While the brewery has quickly ramped up to 45 accounts, and sells out of beer as fast as brewer Joe Lisica can make it, the plan to move into a more populous area remained. "The idea is to bring beer to customers and not make them have to travel up here."

"The real goal is to focus on neighborhoods that are true neighborhoods," says Jade's husband and partner Greg Malkin. They focused their search around Ocean Beach and greater North Park hoping to attract regulars who live in the neighborhood, in addition to the dedicated beer drinkers that seek out their brewery. "We're going to push more for pints and growler fills," he adds. "We'd like to have more people from the community coming in on a regular basis."

The Normal Heights location, located a couple of blocks east of Automated Brewing's home in the back of Blind Lady Ale House, comprises about 1000 square feet and will serve from 16 taps. The Ocean Beach location sits a couple doors down from Culture Brewing's satellite taproom and will be the larger of the two at 2000 square feet and 20 taps.

Little Miss has fashioned its brand out of a World War II theme, decorating its brewery with old U.S. propaganda posters and using a bombshell design for both its tap handles and taster-flight trays. "The idea with the other tasting rooms," says Greg, "is sort of go with allied forces themes." In other words, the Normal Heights location will take inspiration from war-era Great Britain, while the Ocean Beach spot will be designed around French imagery.

To meet the increased demand of the new taprooms, the Malkins are investing in five or six new 30-barrel tanks to increase production capacity in their young brewery going forward.