Alpine Beer Company began with Patrick and Valerie McIlhenney, Pat and Val to their friends. Pat was a career firefighter who reached the rank of Captain. While visiting friends in Northern California, the McIlhenney’s fell in love with the idea of opening a brewpub. Pat decided he wanted to do the same thing someday. Not right away but someday.

Pat discovered you could legally make your own beer. He was all over that and started homebrewing for fun. Pat joined QUAFF. Homebrewing quickly turned into recipe development. Pat submitted his homebrews to worthy competitions around San Diego County. He followed the feedback from judges and repeated the submission process until a high placing medal was awarded. Pat was hooked.

Pat insinuated himself on Skip and Ted, his friends who just opened AleSmith Brewing. Pat volunteered at the fledgling brewery, cleaning and helping out wherever needed. He really appreciated the hands-on experience.

After a few years of working at AleSmith, Pat asked Skip if he could contract AleSmith to make some Alpine Beer Company beer. Before years end, “McIlhenney’s Irish Red” was released as the first-ever Alpine beer. Soon after that, Pure Hoppiness made its debut. Over the next two years, Pat and Val worked toward their next goal – opening their very own brewery in Alpine.

Pat and Val go in on some brewing equipment with Pat and Skip of AleSmith – they split it 80/20. AleSmith got 20% of the equipment and Pat got enough equipment to start a brewery of his own. The equipment went into storage for over a year while Pat looked for a place in Alpine to open a brewery.

After years of extremely hard work, Pat and Val open Alpine Beer Company. McIlhenney’s Irish Red and Pure Hoppiness were already in the market. The first beer Pat brewed in Alpine was an American Wheat Ale called Willy, named after Val’s brother who helped them build the brewery. The next beers Pat introduced were Mandarin Nectar, Alpine Ale, and Captain Stout.

It is a busy few years for the brewery. Shawn, the son of Pat and Val, began his brewing career in earnest. Shawn flexed his creative muscle and brewed Bad Boy for the first time. Alpine made their first venture into barrel aged sours with Ichabod and earned a Gold medal at the World Beer Cup. Shawn officially took on the role of “Head Brewer” and is focused on making magic in the brewhouse.

Both Duet and Nelson made their debut to rave reviews. And the awards just kept on coming as Pure Hoppiness won a Silver medal for Double IPA in the World Beer Cup.

The brewery finally got some much-needed room to expand. The garage behind the brewery was converted into more fermentation and bottling space. Pat bought four double-batch fermenters from, of all places, Green Flash. Capacity was tripled to 1,500 barrels a year. Brewing at capacity was immediate. Pat and Val opened a tiny, 36 seat diner-style pub in the same building as the brewery, but at the opposite end and call it, “The Pub”. The pub focuses on a barbeque menu and Alpine’s delicious beer.

The World Beer Cup awarded Alpine three medals – O’Brien’s IPA won a Gold for Strong Pale Ale, Duet and Token each won a Bronze medal for IPA and Baltic Porter (respectively). Duet also won a Bronze medal at the GABF in the highly-entered IPA category. And, Odin’s Raven won a Bronze medal at GABF in the Chocolate Beer category.

In 2013, Alpine Beer Company and Green Flash Brewing Co embarked on a “hand-shake” agreement to brew some Alpine beer at the shiny new Green Flash Mira Mesa brewery. For the first time, Alpine’s distribution increased outside of San Diego County to include most of California.

A year later, Alpine Beer Company and Green Flash officially joined forces, allowing for the expansion that Pat had been working on to become an immediate reality.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. HFS IPA wins a bronze medal at GABF in the American-style Strong Pale Ale category. Alpine introduced a new single IPA, Windows Up, and put beer in cans for the first time. Alpine remodeled the tasting room and brewery space and relocated the Pub and its BBQ offerings to a new location right down the street.

Stop by the Tasting Room or Pub today and enjoy a little taste of hoppiness from Alpine.