Meet San Diego’s newest brewery: URBN St. Brewing Co.

Southern California Hospitality veteran Jon Mangini of URBN Restaurants Inc. (BASIC Urban Kitchen + Bar, URBN Coal Fired Pizza, GANG Kitchen) expanded his restaurant empire in the best way that he could — adding an in-house brewing operation.

To get URBN St. Brewing Co. started on the right track, Mangini tapped two of San Diego’’s highly respected beer industry veterans, Alex Carballo (former Exec Chef at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens in Escondido, Stone Catering) and Head Brewer/Partner Callaway Ryan (Stone Brewing Co, Surly Brewing Co., Real Ale Brewing, Live Oak Brewing Co.).

Together, Mangini, Carballo and Ryan are thrilled to bring their vision of great beer and food to life in El Cajon’s rapidly growing neighborhood and have been meet with an overwhelming amount of support from the city and local brewing industry.

Callaway Ryan’’s gravitation toward brewing started at an early age through a fortuitous trip to Germany. While traveling, he was exposed to Europe’’s historically rich breweries and craft beers like Trappist ales, Rauchbier and Hefeweizen. As an avid homebrewer, Callaway quickly discovered a passion for fine beer that ultimately put him on an unwavering path toward a professional career. Today, Callaway has spent nearly a decade working alongside some of the nation’’s top brewers, including at Stone Brewing Co., where he spent the last year and a half working as a senior brewer at their Escondido facility. As Callaway embarks on a new era of ownership alongside Jon and Alex, he’’s most looking forward to creating recipes that are distinctly his own.

““Being paid to brew your own beer is pretty much every brewer’s dream,”” Callaway said. ““I love the communal aspect of beer, and I can’t wait to have a bar full of people coming together around something I produced.”

Callaway had to transition from production under Stone Brewing Co.’s twin 120-barrel systems to a much smaller scale 15-barrel, premier direct-fired brewhouse. Having spent the bulk of his career working on smaller systems, Callaway admits that he has missed many aspects of manual brewing and is excited to grow the brewery from scratch. With a variety of six staple suds to debut as the brewery opens its doors, Callaway’’s creations offer something for everyone :

Current URBN St. beers:
Summer Ale | 4.3%
Light, balanced, British malts, light honey, floral hop nose.

IPA | 6.50%
Vienna malt, well-balanced, firm malt backbone. Glacier and Pacifica hops.

Brink Brown Ale | 5.1%
Graham cracker, chocolate raisin, subtle sweetness, slightly citrusy hops.

Saison | 6.2%
Hazy, straw blonde, light body, retrained phenol.

Malt Bomb ESB | 6.3%
Bright, copper red color, toffee, light chocolate, black currant and lemons.

Gigo Hoppy Wheat Porter | 6%
Light body, garnet in color, subdued roast, vanilla mint.