GUEST BLOG / By West
Coaster Craft Beer Magazine Senior Editor Brandon Hernandez--He’s won countless
honors at the country’s and the county’s most prestigious homebrewing
competition. He’s graced the cover of West Coaster in the process. Now, Nick
Corona is transitioning from amateur brewing boss to pro-brew newcomer.
This
collective interest started as a purely family affair, with Nick’s wife Kandy,
brother Shane Smith, and parents Joe and Leslie Corona putting their faith in
their son’s abilities. North County residents, Nick and Kandy set their sights
on San Marcos and Vista, communities in close-proximity to their home with
histories of supporting small brewing operations. But it was the work of the
City of Escondido to reinvigorate its downtown core—and a space offering 14,000
square feet of space split between a ground floor and basement—that lured the
project team east.
That
is a lot of space, and though Five Suits’ 10-barrel direct-fire system and
quartet of 20-barrel unitanks will take up some of it, Corona will have help
from some friends filling it out. That roster is headed by Brian and Julie
Gruber, the owners of Carlsbad’s Notorious Burgers. The pair will bring their
focus on fresh, locally sourced, sustainable ingredients to the project via a
Mexican street-food concept that will include “craft tacos” and multiple vegan
options.
“While
Five Suits planned to open a modest tasting room in a small industrial spot, we
have since shifted to a group project targeting a larger retail location,” says
Nick. “We’ve always felt that, by offering food, we would shift from a stop
into a destination.”
Also
helping ensure destination status will be startups Good Omen Mead and Stoke
Distilling Co. The latter is a work-in-progress gin producer from brothers
Jordan and Ryan Kohn, while the former is a startup by Brian LaMere and Marie
Newman. An Escondido resident, LaMere has laid much of the initial groundwork
for the overall project.
Back
on the beer side, Nick will use a reverse-osmosis water-filtration system to
idealize water profiles for his portfolio, which he says will include a variety
of IPAs, multiple variations on his Hefeweizen, plus as many different styles
as he wants. He says to expect a Belgian golden strong ale, Vienna lager, biere
de garde, Irish red ale, American wheat, kölsch, Belgian witbier and, with a
distiller sharing the property, some barrel-aged stouts.
Those
beers will be divided into three subcategories based on punching a timeclock.
It will be called the Shift Series and include “Day,” “Swing” and “Graveyard.”
Day will consist of crushable beers coming in at-or-below 5.5%
alcohol-by-volume, with traditional styles above that percent making the Swing
shift. Beers that go further outside the lines (i.e., spiced, fruited,
barrel-aged) will comprise the Graveyard shift.
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Five Suits Brewing founder and head
brewer Nick Corona on the brew deck at Gravity Heights with that brewpub’s
brewmaster Skip Virgilio
As
he goes through the steps leading from the rec leagues to the major leagues,
Nick doffs his cap to the many who’ve made that jump and is thankful for the
large percentage of them who have helped him with lessons, critiques and
support throughout his homebrewing career. Much like with his family and
entrepreneurial friends, he feels he wouldn’t be where he is without them.
“I’m
definitely no innovator here. I am merely following in the footsteps of so many
awesome brewers before me who have made the jump from home to commercial, many
of whom come from [homebrew club] QUAFF,” Nick says. “Those guys are kings. I’m
just one of the minions.”
Nick
says an optimistic timeline for getting Five Suits up and running would be
around nine months, but he and his partners understand how construction
projects tend to be delayed and believe it could take up to a year. When Five
Suits does open, it will keg all of its beer, focusing on the space within its
four walls, but also distributing a “very limited amount” of kegs to several
North County accounts.
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