Background
Modern Times Beer is the brainchild of Jacob McKean, a longtime home brewer and Stone Brewing’s former social media guru. In January 2012, McKean walked away from his job at Stone Brewing and raised enough capital in 6 months to get the brewery off the ground. A kickstarter project helped the fundraising process. He found a location in a factory-centric area of Point Loma (Lomaland) and bought a 30bbl brewery set up. In addition, McKean managed to hire some of the most inventive, experienced brewers a start-up brewery could hope to land. Matt Walsh, former head brewer at Lost Coast; Derek Freese, the recent head brewer at Monkey Paw; and ex-Ballast Point brewer Alex Tweet. Consultant Michael Tonsmeire, a well-known home brewer and author of The Mad Fermentationist blog, took a sabbatical to launch the brewery’s wild yeast beers.
Since the opening of Lomaland the brewery has expanded that facility to include a neighboring 7,800 sq foot warehouse for packaging, while also growing their production systems with 120 bbl fermenters and towering silos. In 2014 Modern Times opened a second taproom and brewing facility in the North Park neighborhood dubbed The Flavordome. McKean, in 2017 decided Modern Times Beer would be the first California employee-owned brewery.
Not to rest on his successes, McKean next opened a downtown Los Angeles brewery & restaurant called The Dankness Dojo in 2018. A Portland,Oregon location, The Belmont Fermentorium was also created. And finally, a new location in Encinitas, The Far West Lounge also featuring a food menu. Future sites are said to be Santa Barbara & Anaheim.
How about the Modern Times name? “Modern Times” was a utopian community built on Long Island in 1850 by a bunch of wild-eyed wingnuts who thought they could demonstrate to the world what a more perfect society might look like. They bartered, lived without a state, sometimes ignored the conventions of marriage, and generally experimented with creating a less exploitative, more pleasurable world. Naturally, the whole thing eventually imploded when legit nut jobs from New York City found out about the “free love colony” just a train ride away and overran it. It’s now Brentwood, NY.
Experience
We visited the Lomaland facility on a Saturday afternoon. What jumps out at you when entering the spacious brewery and tasting room is the huge mural depicting Michael Jackson and his monkey made out of 12,000 Post-It notes. The bar base is made from hundreds of old books stacked on top of each other. The area near their Marketplace has old comic book pages covering the wall as well as garbage pail kid’s trading cards. The marketplace has Modern Times house roasted coffee beans and several different canned beers available. The place was pretty packed but eventually we nabbed some spots at a community table.
We have been fans of Modern Times beer, but had no idea of the depth of their offerings. There were 29 different beers available from big Stouts, to IPAs, Sours & Saisons. A few flights were enjoyed and a few pints. We left with several 4-packs of hazy IPA as well as some Modern Times bourbon flavored roasted coffee beans. Baked goods were available for purchase near the coffee bar. Mostly picked over, since it was late afternoon, but one poppy seed muffin was the best I have ever tasted. This place prides itself on on quality! A good time was had and we can’t wait to explore other Modern Times locations as well as seeing some of their other creations available in the stores.
There is a Good Nite Inn Near SeaWorld quite close.
http://www.moderntimesbeer.com
