As two recent college grads, co-founders Chris Cramer and Matt Rattner had sampled enough beer to know a good beer when they tasted one.  On a post-grad around-the-world trip in the summer of 1988, Chris discovered microbrew beer at a pub in Fremantle, Australia – a cool port city much like San Diego. Chris came home and couldn’t get that beer out of his head so he talked his buddy Matt into opening a similar kind of brewpub in San Diego.

Karl helped to design the 10 barrel brew system in what was about to be their first brewpub on Columbia Street in downtown San Diego. Chris worked out logistics. Matt crunched the numbers. And the doors opened on February 2, 1989. At the time, it was the first brewery to open in San Diego in more than 50 years. On opening day, locals lined up around the block, waiting to get in to try one of their 3 delicious beers – Karl Strauss Amber Lager (Karl’s favorite and our current-day flagship), Downtown After Dark Brown Ale, and Gaslamp Gold.  For most, it was the first fresh beer they had ever tasted. Chris and Matt couldn’t brew beer fast enough to keep up with demand. Two weeks after opening, they were ordering two more 20 barrel fermentors so that they could double their production capacity.

Chris and Matt had to increase their brewing capacity – this time renting out a 2,000 sq foot bay in an industrial park on Kurtz Street (by the Sports Arena) in Point Loma. As business continued to grow, Chris and Matt rented out more bays until they were occupying 12,000 sq feet of the industrial park. Business was booming and they had to keep up. More tanks were needed and this required holes to be cut in the roof to get the tanks in. Unfortunately, the landlord just happened to be driving by on the day this was happening. Eventually, the bags of grain in the parking lot, water from brewing running out into the office park, and semi-trucks continually pulling in and out to pick up the beer all added up to an unhappy landlord.