Modern Times Beer + Coffee is celebrating its 10th anniversary in the Midway District.
“We started in 2013 and we’ve come a long way,” said Robert Wyngard, VP of operations for Craft ‘Ohana, the parent company of Modern Times at 3725 Greenwood St., which purchased the Midway brewery/roaster in 2022. “This was our original location. We built a warehouse space next door.”
“We just had our 10th-anniversary party with about 450 people with food trucks, an ice luge, and a bunch of special, rare beers available,” noted Jake Nunes, Modern Times’ director of hospitality.
Modern Times today has a tasting room in North Park as well as a restaurant in Encinitas.
Wyngard and Nunes both came from Stone Brewing Company, one of San Diego’s cornerstone craft breweries. Of Modern Times’ origin, Wyngard said the company’s founder, Jacob McKean, who also came with a marketing background from Stone, was “really passionate about beer and saw an opportunity to do something different, pair it up with the values that Jacob wanted to express, things like quality of life for our employees, quality of health, quality of product.”
It was McKean’s idea, said Wyngard, that the brewery roaster should be employee owned, which it was until the sale to Maui Brewing last year. McKean was also responsible for coming up with the company name.
“Modern Times derives from an idea Jacob had to form a utopian beer company based on the early history of places like Point Loma Nazarene University out here that had sophists, a community with utopian connections,” noted Wyngard.
The Point Loma Theosophical community was an organization of American Theosophists based at Point Loma from 1900 to 1942. Much of the site for the Point Loma Theosophical Community is now occupied by Point Loma Nazarene University.
Theosophy was a movement originating in the 19th century with roots that can be traced to ancient Gnosticism y Neoplatonism. The term theosophy comes from the Greek theos (“god”) and sophia (“wisdom”), and is generally understood to mean “divine wisdom.”
Nunes noted Modern Times was begun by McKean with a “Kickstarter (a global crowdfunding platform) campaign and a lot of donations,” which he pointed out proved successful during the early heady days of San Diego’s craft brewery expansion. But Nunes added, “COVID changed a lot of things in our industry, focusing us to pivot from our previous business model. Now, post-COVID, we’re getting our feet back under us and learning how to do business in person again.”
Added Nunes: “This past year was the first year in a decade when the craft brewing industry hasn’t shown growth. We’re competing now with hard seltzers, kombuchas, ciders, and ready-to-drink cocktails. There are a lot more options than there were 10 years ago.”
“We’re the only local brewery that is also a craft coffee roaster,” pointed out Nunes noting Modern Times, along with other local craft brewers “have come up with 100 different beer styles, a beer style for every occasion.” He added Modern Times has a special projects department working out of its barrel facility, which is a working laboratory that “comes up with unique beer styles using fruit and herb flavors, utilizing ingredients like coconut, coffee, and chocolate.”
Both Wyngard and Nunes discussed the future of craft brewing in San Diego. “I definitely think we’re going to continue to see some consolidation over the next few years,” said Wyngard. “COVID was really really hard on places where their model was specifically focused only on tasting room sales. But for me what really defines craft and makes it cool is the collaboration between breweries. We are friends together and we truly want everyone to succeed. That’s the spirit of craft.”
“I think the future is bright and we’re looking good and looking forward to being interviewed for our 20th anniversary,” concurred Nunes.
LOMALAND FERMENTORIUM
Where: 3725 Greenwood St.
Hours: Sundays-Thursdays noon-9 p.m., Fridays-Saturdays noon-10 p.m.
Contacto: moderntimesbeer.com.
