A completely new and incredibly improved web page! Can you believe how great this is?! Fully interactive links on every page geared to educate you and share with you some of our latest news and events. Big thank you and huge props to Digithrive formerly known as Imagium Web. Great company to work with, and we highly recommend them. Also, all photo work you see is complements of Dan Tentler, feel free to contact us and we will gladly refer you to both of these guys.

Now for beer. My name is Wesley Keegan; I am the owner of TailGate Beer. Yes, I am 23 years old. Yes, I did graduate from SDSU in the class of 2007. Yes, I live and work in San Diego.  And yes, I will be writing a personal blog for your viewing pleasure. This blog will consist of updates of news, achievements, beer community press, and the ramblings of yours truly. Please feel free to respond, contribute, or even critique my terrible grammar via blog@tailgatebeer.com or of course post your comments on the blog post itself.

At TailGate Beer, we consider ourselves a local San Diego contract craft-brewery. While some might snub their noses at such a claim, it’s true! We do craft brew our recipes out of a brewery in El Monte, CA, and we are based in San Diego. All operations are done in Miramar, and all products are stored in Miramar as well. I live near Mission Valley, and used to be a beach lifeguard on the shores of Mission and Pacific beach. Our first account was Kristy’s MVP in Point Loma, and our longest running account is Lahaina’s Beach House in Pacific Beach. I pour hot cocoa and snuggle with a blanket at 60* F, and if the sun shows through no matter what time of year, I take the day off and hit the beach. That’s as true to San Diego as you can be.

Unfortunately, TailGate Beer does not have its own brewery. That doesn’t mean we’re not trying!  A certain brewery in Boston started the same way we are right now, and they’re doing alright for themselves. If things continue to grow as they are and San Diegans continue to warmly wrap their mild mannered arms around us, one day soon – we’ll build our brewery here too. Then we’ll drop the “contract” portion altogether.

As this initial blog has already been rather lengthy and you, the reader, are probably salivating at the thought of a TailGate Beer draft, I’ll leave you with some brief thoughts.

We have debuted our first summer seasonal: Jay’s Blacktop Blonde. It’s named after my buddy Jay the Tailgate Guy. I’m stoked about this beer, it’s very easy drinking. Crisp, golden, refreshing and believe it or not flavorful. That flavor part might be new to a lot of the yellow beer drinking community. We use choice malts and the same hops in our Blacktop Blonde that we put in our IPA: Magnum and Chinook. This adds for a little zesty spice when drinking. It was my former homebrew recipe, and it was always pretty good. But going from homebrew to commercial is a whole ‘nother monster. I could not believe how great it tasted, cheers to our brew master Phil!

Beer festival season is upon us! We just completed a weekend at the San Diego International Beer Festival and it was hugely successful. Organizers Chad Stevens and Tom Nickel did a great job! Next we have the LA County Fair, which showcases the LA International Beer Competition, where we won the gold medal for, “Hefeweizen.” And the upcoming CA State Fair, where the CA Commercial Craft Beer Competition is, and we won 5 awards! Please come see us at either of these events.

Lastly, we do have a Twitter and Facebook. Follow and become a fan! It’s a great way to stay in the know, and receive personal updates about news and upcoming events.

So for now, and until the next blog, thanks for reading, thanks for drinking, and please:
TailGate Responsibly!

Wesley Keegan
Owner – TailGate Beer