Oftentimes, our Beer Briefs roundups are a mixed bag of good and bad news, but today we\u2019re pleased to present three items that are 100% positive and, dare we say, rather exciting. Read on for info about the recent resurrection of a once very popular brand, a new food program for North Park\u2019s eponymous beer operation and more bragging rights for a perennial brewing-competition darling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve recently seen beers from Black Plague Brewing on store shelves or tap lists at local bars, and wondered just how out-of-code they must be, fear not. After suddenly closing down last September, the eight-year-old beer brand has returned. Co-founders Jordan Hoffart and Jarred Doss are once again at the helm, bringing their craft-beer concern back to life with the assistance of partners at Karl Strauss Distributing<\/a>. So far, one beer, Open Mind Hazy IPA, has hit the market in both kegs and cans. That opaque hop-bomb will be the centerpiece of a new portfolio, which will roll out over the coming months. It\u2019s rare for a shuttered business entity to be raised from the dead, not just in the beer world but in any industry. That reality isn\u2019t lost on Hoffart, who is pleased to continue building on the legacy of something he and Doss poured so much of themselves into. \u201cI\u2019m excited to bring Black Plague back to its fans,\u201d says Hoffart. \u201cIn doing so, we\u2019ll be keeping it as the boutique niche brand it\u2019s really always been.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When North Park Beer Co.<\/a> (NPBC) debuted in 2016, owners Kelsey and Amanda McNair decided to focus exclusively on development of a family of beers that has since gone on to win worldwide acclaim. That level of attention was made possible in great part by the able-bodied team at Mastiff, a versatile culinary outfit that has run the kitchen at NPBC\u2019s flagship location from day one. In 2022, when the McNairs opened a kitchen-equipped satellite taproom in Bankers Hill, they opted to delve into the world of restaurant management. Behind a menu of inventive comfort food, they were successful, enough so that they opened a full-fledged pizza shop offering NYC-style pies in Pacific Beach\u2019s Crown Point neighborhood in 2024. And now, the McNairs and longtime Executive Chef Sam Navarro are readying for the debut of a new culinary program at their original location, following the expiration of Mastiff\u2019s lease. The exact concept and menu items have yet to be announced, but if all goes as planned, NPBC will reopen the North Park kitchen under its flag later this spring.<\/p>\n Recently, trade organization the Brewers Association (BA) released its annual lists of the top brewing companies in the country based on production figures. The first, a roster of the top 50 \u201ccraft brewing companies\u201d per the BA\u2019s definition (a brewery producing less than six million barrels per year, which is less than 25% owned by a beverage-industry concern that is not itself a craft brewer), includes three San Diego-based concerns. Coming in at number six was Athletic Brewing<\/a>, an eight-year-old non-alcoholic beer company that is headquartered in a pair of Miramar facilities and is the largest such operation in the U.S. Ranking at numbers 41 and 49, respectively, were Pizza Port Brewing and Coronado Brewing<\/a>. The latter returned to the list after a one-year absence. In 2024, Athletic was in eighth place and Pizza Port ranked 38th. Of those brewing entities, only Athletic made it onto the BA\u2019s \u201ctop 50 overall brewing companies list\u201d for 2025, coming in at 15 behind Escondido-based Sapporo-Stone Brewing<\/a> at 13, up one from 2024. Pizza Port made the top overall list in 2024, coming in at 49..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oftentimes, our Beer Briefs roundups are a mixed bag of good and bad news, but today we\u2019re pleased…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302380,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[45213,26451,1115,19496,2251,2252,1043,1404,413,127673,3324,127674,58796,12258,45216,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-302379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-award-winning","tag-bankers-hill","tag-beer","tag-black-plague-brewing","tag-brandon-hernandez","tag-brewery","tag-event","tag-festival","tag-food","tag-jordan-hoffart","tag-karl-strauss","tag-kelsey-mcnair","tag-north-park-beer","tag-pacific-beach","tag-pizza-port","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}