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

Wild Barrel's hardline beer standard

"We want them to be great; if not, we're dumping them."

A large barrel shaped space is the centerpiece of Wild Barrel's tasting room
A large barrel shaped space is the centerpiece of Wild Barrel's tasting room

A new brewery opened along highway 78 through San Marcos this month. However, Wild Barrel Brewing already has the feel of an established beer company. Part of that is due to the top-to-bottom quality of its beers. But most has to do with the combined decades of experience possessed by its ownership team.

Place

Wild Barrel Brewing

692 Rancheros Drive, San Marcos

"I've been around craft beer for 42 years now," says Bill Sysak, noting his interest started when he was 15, long before he worked as a brand ambassador for Stone Brewing or as an instructor for SDSU's Business of Craft Beer program. With a high profile and longstanding connections in the global beer community, Sysak has worked as a consultant for brewery startups in his time, and he’s been invited to join a few.

Sponsored
Sponsored
A San Marcos brewery visible from highway 78

"The last 20 years, people had approached me to open up breweries," he says, "because I had the reputation of being this grandfather of beer geeks…and had a lot of connections " But with a personal cellar of more than 2500 beers and a penchant for dinner pairings, he'd always imagined himself opening a pub.

But when a business-savvy friend, Chris White, approached him with the idea for Wild Barrel, it stuck. "I was at Stone watching all these people open breweries and making mistakes," Sysak recalls. "People coming on board that didn't have a good business plan, that had too small a system, that weren't brewing quality beers." He knew he and White could do better.

He already had a talented brewer in mind: Bill Sobieski, a 25-year homebrewer and president emeritus of local home brewing club Society of Barley Engineers. Sobieski joined the partnership and dedicated himself to the effort, working in local brewhouses to log time on professional systems before it came time to brew the first batches for Wild Barrel.

"With our collective experience and reputations, the deal is, we're not releasing any beers unless they're in the 90th percentile," says Sysak. "We want them to be great; if not, we're dumping them."

The 15-barrel brewery hasn't dumped any beer yet, beginning with beer styles Sysak says any San Diego beer business must offer to compete, including a pair of IPAs and a coffee milk stout. Also on tap are several fruited variants of the same base Berliner weiss. These kettle sours were the first step in a long-term plan that puts the wild in Wild Barrel's name: an ambitious barrel-aged sour program.

Last month, Wild Barrel brought on Preston Weesner as a fourth partner. The former master blender of Oregon's premier sour-beer producer, Cascade Brewing, will commute from Portland to oversee production of wild and mixed-fermentation ales, ultimately including spontaneous beers, naturally fermented with whatever yeast is floating in the air.

Sysak says the team won't rush any of this. But their plans for the future appear fully fleshed out. In the next couple years, Wild Barrel hopes to expand its 10,000-square-foot brewery into 4500 square feet of adjacent suite space, develop a line bourbon-barrel-aged stouts, and begin opening tasting rooms in Los Angeles, Orange County, and the Inland Empire.

For now, it's already a worthy beer destination along the Hops Highway.

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

Looking back at race relations in Coronado

A former football player recalls the good and the bad
Next Article

Mid-range fleet scoring bluefin limits off Ensenada

Rockfish to open at all depths April 1st (no foolin’)
A large barrel shaped space is the centerpiece of Wild Barrel's tasting room
A large barrel shaped space is the centerpiece of Wild Barrel's tasting room

A new brewery opened along highway 78 through San Marcos this month. However, Wild Barrel Brewing already has the feel of an established beer company. Part of that is due to the top-to-bottom quality of its beers. But most has to do with the combined decades of experience possessed by its ownership team.

Place

Wild Barrel Brewing

692 Rancheros Drive, San Marcos

"I've been around craft beer for 42 years now," says Bill Sysak, noting his interest started when he was 15, long before he worked as a brand ambassador for Stone Brewing or as an instructor for SDSU's Business of Craft Beer program. With a high profile and longstanding connections in the global beer community, Sysak has worked as a consultant for brewery startups in his time, and he’s been invited to join a few.

Sponsored
Sponsored
A San Marcos brewery visible from highway 78

"The last 20 years, people had approached me to open up breweries," he says, "because I had the reputation of being this grandfather of beer geeks…and had a lot of connections " But with a personal cellar of more than 2500 beers and a penchant for dinner pairings, he'd always imagined himself opening a pub.

But when a business-savvy friend, Chris White, approached him with the idea for Wild Barrel, it stuck. "I was at Stone watching all these people open breweries and making mistakes," Sysak recalls. "People coming on board that didn't have a good business plan, that had too small a system, that weren't brewing quality beers." He knew he and White could do better.

He already had a talented brewer in mind: Bill Sobieski, a 25-year homebrewer and president emeritus of local home brewing club Society of Barley Engineers. Sobieski joined the partnership and dedicated himself to the effort, working in local brewhouses to log time on professional systems before it came time to brew the first batches for Wild Barrel.

"With our collective experience and reputations, the deal is, we're not releasing any beers unless they're in the 90th percentile," says Sysak. "We want them to be great; if not, we're dumping them."

The 15-barrel brewery hasn't dumped any beer yet, beginning with beer styles Sysak says any San Diego beer business must offer to compete, including a pair of IPAs and a coffee milk stout. Also on tap are several fruited variants of the same base Berliner weiss. These kettle sours were the first step in a long-term plan that puts the wild in Wild Barrel's name: an ambitious barrel-aged sour program.

Last month, Wild Barrel brought on Preston Weesner as a fourth partner. The former master blender of Oregon's premier sour-beer producer, Cascade Brewing, will commute from Portland to oversee production of wild and mixed-fermentation ales, ultimately including spontaneous beers, naturally fermented with whatever yeast is floating in the air.

Sysak says the team won't rush any of this. But their plans for the future appear fully fleshed out. In the next couple years, Wild Barrel hopes to expand its 10,000-square-foot brewery into 4500 square feet of adjacent suite space, develop a line bourbon-barrel-aged stouts, and begin opening tasting rooms in Los Angeles, Orange County, and the Inland Empire.

For now, it's already a worthy beer destination along the Hops Highway.

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

Hip-hop artist Don Elway makes movies for his music

Not Ordinary EP tells a story of life on the streets
Next Article

Celebrate Holi, Borrego Springs Music Festival

Events March 23-March 27, 2024
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.