Karl StraussBrewing Company is a San Diego, California-based craft brewery with eleven brewpub locations across Southern California and an onsite tasting room at their main brewery in the Pacific Beach neighborhood of San Diego. Besides being available at its own brewpubs the company's beers are distributed across all of California. Karl Strauss is the oldest surviving brewery in San Diego County, having been founded in 1989, and is credited with launching the county's rise to prominence in the craft brewing industry. Based on 2016 sales volume it is the 47th largest brewery in the United States. In 2016 Karl Strauss was declared the Mid-Size Brewery of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival.
History
In 1988, Chris Cramer and Matt Rattner asked Cramer's cousin, Master Brewer Karl Strauss, to help them develop a brewpub. Strauss was a former vice president of production at Pabst Brewing Company. Strauss agreed, contributing his library of hundreds of beer recipes, helping to design brewing operations, and serving as the company's spokesman on radio advertisements and in public appearances until his death in 2006. The company's first brewpub, Karl Strauss Old Columbia Brewery and Grille, located on Columbia Street in Downtown San Diego, opened in 1989. It was the first brewery of any type to operate in San Diego since 1953, and the first-ever brewpub in San Diego. At the time the craftbrewing industry was in its infancy and the American standard for beer was light, mild and mass-produced, but Cramer felt that the country was ready for beers with more personality. He believed that "If we could get thisstyle of beer into people's mouths, we could create converts." The company's first distributing brewery began producing beer in late 1991. In 1996 the company's distributing brewery operations were moved into a home office and brewing building in Pacific Beach. Also in 1991 the company opened its second brewpub: Karl Strauss Brewery Gardens in Sorrento Mesa. Additional brewpubs were opened in La Jolla, Carlsbad, Costa Mesa, 4S Ranch in San Diego's North County, Temecula, Anaheim and Downtown Los Angeles. There is also a Karl Strauss brewpub at Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles and a Karl Strauss "beer truck" at the Disney California Adventuretheme park in Anaheim. In 2009, the company partnered with the Greenhouse alternative energy company in a program to convert its waste to ethanol for use as a fuel.
