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

Pizza Port Solana Beach: The next generation

The new brewer (wo)manning one of San Diego’s classic brewhouses

One of the county’s eldest brewhouses resides below-ground in an inauspicious picnic-tabled pizza joint—Pizza Port Solana Beach (135 North Highway 101). The first of the Southern California chain’s locations, it’s been turning out craft beer since 1992. Over the years, the seven-barrel system at Pizza Port Solana Beach has served as the launching pad for numerous brewers who’ve gone on to become big names both within and beyond the pie-in-the-sky empire.

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/feb/25/40660/

Among Pizza Port Solana Beach’s esteemed alums are Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey director of brewery operations Tomme Arthur, renowned beer award machine Jeff Bagby (who is currently working on opening his Bagby Beer brewpub in Oceanside), former Oggi’s Pizza & Brewing head brewer (and owner of Julian’s work-in-progress Nickel Beer Company) Tom Nickel, and most recently, brewer Sean Farrell, who recently made the move to Carlsbad where he’ll work with the brewer who earned Pizza Port Ocean Beach "Best Small Brewpub in the U.S." honors in 2011, Yiga Miyashiro, to open the business’ massive upcoming Bressi Ranch brewery, canning, storage, and restaurant facility.

Farrell’s transfer left the need to fill his shoes. As is often the case with Pizza Port, they looked within the organization when doing so, tapping The Lost Abbey and Pizza Port OB veteran, Devon Randall to take over. I recently sat down with Randall to get the skinny on her career to this point, how it feels taking over such a historically rich brewing apparatus, the beers she intends to brew, and what it’s like being a woman in a male-dominated profession.

Randall’s journey toward craft beer fitting began at the age of 21 when she worked in Berkeley at the since-burned-down Raleigh’s Bar & Grill. “It was the place to go for good beer and probably had the most taps in town,” recalls Randall. It was there she fell for her first craft beer love, Moose Drool, a brown ale from Montana’s Big Sky Brewing Company. That brew swore her off macrobeer for good, but it was getting her feet wet in the manufacture of quality suds, when helping an ex-boyfriend homebrew after moving to Los Angeles, that really sealed the deal. The relationship didn’t last, but her love of brewing did. After the two parted ways, she bought her own kit, advanced from extract to all-grain brewing, and joined a homebrew club called Pacific Gravity.

“I came to a point in my life where I was single, my lease was up, and my job in real estate marketing was dying down, and suddenly I found myself thinking, why don’t I get a brewing job doing something I really like?” says Randall. At the time, she was living in Los Angeles. She inquired with several breweries in San Diego and L.A., but many were wary of hiring her on for one reason or another. After a few rejections, she ventured to Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey, where they told her, “come back tomorrow with boots.”

“The first day there, we brewed Devotion Ale, which is nicknamed Devo. That’s my nickname, too, so it seemed like fate,” says Randall. “We also brewed Road To Helles, a beer made with approximately 2,000 pounds of specialty malt that has to be added one 55-pound bag at a time. I figured that was a pretty good test, having to lift those bags over my head over and over, but still wanting to be a brewer after I was done.”

Randall stuck around, doing everything they’d let her from filling kegs and cleaning bright tanks to sweeping and taking out the trash. Two months in, she was given an official position working in the warehouse. “I wasn’t the best at moving heavy kegs around. Most of the guys who do that work are big and burly, but I did my best. It actually helped that I was small, because I could get between the palettes.”

It was when one such big, burly guy running the bottling line was injured that she was able to show her versatility, taking over the line (a temperamental cork-and-cage operation) for a short while. Still, she wasn’t interested in going the packaging route. Her goal was to get into brewing. The next step in her advancement was assisting Arthur with the barrel program, a big deal at a company where barrel-aged beers are their bread-and-butter. After excelling there, she received a call from Miyashiro telling her about an open brewer position at Pizza Port OB. She grasped that gold ring and trained under Miyashiro for six months before getting the call to move up to Solana Beach where the show is all hers, but she’s not completely alone and can still lean on her contemporaries when needed.

“There have been various times where I thought things weren’t happening fast enough and asked, ‘why am I not brewing already?’ Now, I’m glad that Sean is still around to ask him questions. Everything’s right on time,” says Randall. “Right now, I’m really interested in proving myself and making great beer. I’ve been under instruction for the beginning of my career. Now, it’s time to take off on my own.”

While interviewing Randall, I had the chance to sample one of her first beers, Ponto Pale Ale, a highly botanic 5.8% thirst quencher heavy with Mosaic, a relatively new variety of hop sourced from Yakima, Washington. For now, she’s mostly getting the feel for recreating Pizza Port classics like Swami’s IPA and Dawn Patrol dark mild ale, but also had a rye pale ale fermenting away during our sit-down. Once she has a firm feel for her new digs, she hopes to add her own twists to mainstays while also reinstating the barrel program originally introduced by Arthur, which formed the humble foundation for The Lost Abbey.

“This being Tomme’s brewery not that long ago, and seeing what he’s done for the industry and The Lost Abbey, it’s very cool knowing I’m brewing on same system as he did. It may not be as shiny and pretty as the brewery in Ocean Beach, but it definitely has character.”

As for being a woman in the brewing industry, she says, “Well, there are fewer of us for sure. It’s definitely harder for us because, generally, we’re not as big. You can’t mind getting dirty or the physical labor, but I think it’s pretty damn fun. It’s physical and you get to be a part of the magic that is fermentation.”

Randall names Tonya Cornett of Bend, Oregon’s 10 Barrel Brewing Company, brewer-at-large and founder of female brewing industry group The Pink Boots Society Teri Fahrendorf, Kim Lutz from San Diego’s soon-to-open Saint Archer Brewery, and Pizza Port owner Gina Marsaglia as inspirations. “Women look at things from a different perspective. We have a different way of organizing things and running a brewhouse.”

In the end, a good brewer is a good brewer and good beer is good beer. Randall’s Ponto Pale Ale is a good beer. Here’s to more of that at this venerable San Diego brewing landmark.

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

Previous article

O’side Tree Lighting & Gift Market, Holiday Lights at the Museum, The Elovaters and Little Stranger

Events December 5-December 6, 2024
Next Article

The greatest symphonist of them all

Havergal Brian wrote over 30 of them

One of the county’s eldest brewhouses resides below-ground in an inauspicious picnic-tabled pizza joint—Pizza Port Solana Beach (135 North Highway 101). The first of the Southern California chain’s locations, it’s been turning out craft beer since 1992. Over the years, the seven-barrel system at Pizza Port Solana Beach has served as the launching pad for numerous brewers who’ve gone on to become big names both within and beyond the pie-in-the-sky empire.

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2013/feb/25/40660/

Among Pizza Port Solana Beach’s esteemed alums are Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey director of brewery operations Tomme Arthur, renowned beer award machine Jeff Bagby (who is currently working on opening his Bagby Beer brewpub in Oceanside), former Oggi’s Pizza & Brewing head brewer (and owner of Julian’s work-in-progress Nickel Beer Company) Tom Nickel, and most recently, brewer Sean Farrell, who recently made the move to Carlsbad where he’ll work with the brewer who earned Pizza Port Ocean Beach "Best Small Brewpub in the U.S." honors in 2011, Yiga Miyashiro, to open the business’ massive upcoming Bressi Ranch brewery, canning, storage, and restaurant facility.

Farrell’s transfer left the need to fill his shoes. As is often the case with Pizza Port, they looked within the organization when doing so, tapping The Lost Abbey and Pizza Port OB veteran, Devon Randall to take over. I recently sat down with Randall to get the skinny on her career to this point, how it feels taking over such a historically rich brewing apparatus, the beers she intends to brew, and what it’s like being a woman in a male-dominated profession.

Randall’s journey toward craft beer fitting began at the age of 21 when she worked in Berkeley at the since-burned-down Raleigh’s Bar & Grill. “It was the place to go for good beer and probably had the most taps in town,” recalls Randall. It was there she fell for her first craft beer love, Moose Drool, a brown ale from Montana’s Big Sky Brewing Company. That brew swore her off macrobeer for good, but it was getting her feet wet in the manufacture of quality suds, when helping an ex-boyfriend homebrew after moving to Los Angeles, that really sealed the deal. The relationship didn’t last, but her love of brewing did. After the two parted ways, she bought her own kit, advanced from extract to all-grain brewing, and joined a homebrew club called Pacific Gravity.

“I came to a point in my life where I was single, my lease was up, and my job in real estate marketing was dying down, and suddenly I found myself thinking, why don’t I get a brewing job doing something I really like?” says Randall. At the time, she was living in Los Angeles. She inquired with several breweries in San Diego and L.A., but many were wary of hiring her on for one reason or another. After a few rejections, she ventured to Port Brewing/The Lost Abbey, where they told her, “come back tomorrow with boots.”

“The first day there, we brewed Devotion Ale, which is nicknamed Devo. That’s my nickname, too, so it seemed like fate,” says Randall. “We also brewed Road To Helles, a beer made with approximately 2,000 pounds of specialty malt that has to be added one 55-pound bag at a time. I figured that was a pretty good test, having to lift those bags over my head over and over, but still wanting to be a brewer after I was done.”

Randall stuck around, doing everything they’d let her from filling kegs and cleaning bright tanks to sweeping and taking out the trash. Two months in, she was given an official position working in the warehouse. “I wasn’t the best at moving heavy kegs around. Most of the guys who do that work are big and burly, but I did my best. It actually helped that I was small, because I could get between the palettes.”

It was when one such big, burly guy running the bottling line was injured that she was able to show her versatility, taking over the line (a temperamental cork-and-cage operation) for a short while. Still, she wasn’t interested in going the packaging route. Her goal was to get into brewing. The next step in her advancement was assisting Arthur with the barrel program, a big deal at a company where barrel-aged beers are their bread-and-butter. After excelling there, she received a call from Miyashiro telling her about an open brewer position at Pizza Port OB. She grasped that gold ring and trained under Miyashiro for six months before getting the call to move up to Solana Beach where the show is all hers, but she’s not completely alone and can still lean on her contemporaries when needed.

“There have been various times where I thought things weren’t happening fast enough and asked, ‘why am I not brewing already?’ Now, I’m glad that Sean is still around to ask him questions. Everything’s right on time,” says Randall. “Right now, I’m really interested in proving myself and making great beer. I’ve been under instruction for the beginning of my career. Now, it’s time to take off on my own.”

While interviewing Randall, I had the chance to sample one of her first beers, Ponto Pale Ale, a highly botanic 5.8% thirst quencher heavy with Mosaic, a relatively new variety of hop sourced from Yakima, Washington. For now, she’s mostly getting the feel for recreating Pizza Port classics like Swami’s IPA and Dawn Patrol dark mild ale, but also had a rye pale ale fermenting away during our sit-down. Once she has a firm feel for her new digs, she hopes to add her own twists to mainstays while also reinstating the barrel program originally introduced by Arthur, which formed the humble foundation for The Lost Abbey.

“This being Tomme’s brewery not that long ago, and seeing what he’s done for the industry and The Lost Abbey, it’s very cool knowing I’m brewing on same system as he did. It may not be as shiny and pretty as the brewery in Ocean Beach, but it definitely has character.”

As for being a woman in the brewing industry, she says, “Well, there are fewer of us for sure. It’s definitely harder for us because, generally, we’re not as big. You can’t mind getting dirty or the physical labor, but I think it’s pretty damn fun. It’s physical and you get to be a part of the magic that is fermentation.”

Randall names Tonya Cornett of Bend, Oregon’s 10 Barrel Brewing Company, brewer-at-large and founder of female brewing industry group The Pink Boots Society Teri Fahrendorf, Kim Lutz from San Diego’s soon-to-open Saint Archer Brewery, and Pizza Port owner Gina Marsaglia as inspirations. “Women look at things from a different perspective. We have a different way of organizing things and running a brewhouse.”

In the end, a good brewer is a good brewer and good beer is good beer. Randall’s Ponto Pale Ale is a good beer. Here’s to more of that at this venerable San Diego brewing landmark.

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

Pizza Port Real Ale Festival: Only the Good Die Young

Next Article

Great American Beer Festival San Diego Winners

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.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader