Pizza Port San Clemente and excellent beer are synonymous. If you don’t believe me, then believe their plethora of awards from the Great American Beer Festival (GABF), World Beer Cup (WBC), San Diego International Beer Festival, and Los Angeles International Beer Competition.
Pizza Port San Clemente is part of the Pizza Port chain. Started in 1987 by Gina and Vince Marsaglia in Solana Beach, Pizza Port now spans 5 Southern California locations. They are Solana Beach, Carlsbad, Ocean Beach, San Clemente, and Bressi Ranch. Also, a bottle shop is in Carlsbad.
Pizza Port San Clemente – photo courtesy of Pizza Port
Each Pizza Port location has its own brewers. Pizza Port San Clemente’s brewers are Kane Christensen (Head Brewer) and Jonathan (Jon) Eckelberger (Assistant Brewer). Kane moved to San Clemente at age 7. Jon moved to San Clemente about 11 years ago. Both are rooted into the San Clemente community.
As brewers, both Kane and Jon are products of Pizza Port on-the-job brewer training. And both enjoy the creative brewing freedom that Pizza Port San Clemente offers them.
Kane Christensen
Kane Christensen started at Pizza Port San Clemente making dough, bussing tables and providing other support. He worked his way into bar tending. As a result, Kane became super interested and involved in beer. This interest led to him reading books about brewing. Then he started homebrewing with a friend. Kane would often bring his homebrew creations to Pizza Port San Clemente Head Brewer, Ryan Fields, for critique and feedback.
When San Clemente’s Assistant Brewer left, Ryan Fields hired Kane to fill the slot. In his new role, Kane made a milk stout, called Fly Me to the Moon, as his first professional beer. The beer was based on a homebrew recipe he scaled up and then served using nitrogen instead of carbon dioxide. Using nitrogen provided the beer with a smoother and creamier mouthfeel. It also allows the malt flavors to shine. Used correctly, nitrogen creates a stunning visual cascading effect. The bubbles on the sides of the glass fall while the interior bubbles rise to create a beautifully smooth, foamy head.
In 2014 Ryan Fields left and Pizza Port named Trevor Walls Head Brewer for San Clemente (read about Trevor Walls by clicking here). Kane continued to work as an Assistant Brewer at San Clemente until offered a position as Lead Brewer at Pizza Port Bressi Ranch. Bressi Ranch is Pizza Port’s large brewing and production facility for their canned beers. When Trevor Walls left Pizza Port in 2017, Kane returned to Pizza Port San Clemente as Head Brewer.
Jon Eckelberger
Jon Eckelberger started homebrewing at age 16 when he helped a family member create a homebrew. He discovered that he liked the brewing process and fell in love with homebrewing. Jon also discovered that even though he wasn’t old enough to buy beer, he could buy everything needed to make his own beer.
Jon started working at Pizza Port San Clemente and ended up also assisting Ryan Fields. Jon’s first professional beer creation was an English Bitter that he derived from a homebrew recipe. County Line English Bitter is still made today at Pizza Port San Clemente.
Jon took over as Assistant Brewer for San Clemente when Kane departed for Bressi Ranch. And in 2016, Trevor Walls and Jon Eckelberger won the GABF Silver Medal in the Coffee Beer category with Dusk ’til Dawn Imperial Porter.
Q&A with Kane Christensen and Jon Eckelberger
Kane and Jon joined me to talk about beer while we drank a couple of beers.
Describe your typical process for creating a new beer.
1) Inspiration is the key first step – usually coming from something unique and delicious we have tasted.
2) The next step is Research – typically through reading, tasting, and often communicating with other brewers.
3) From our research we build a Recipe and refine it over time to achieve our desired outcome.
4) Since we don’t have a pilot system (a smaller brewing system used to experiment with new beers), we rely upon our brewing experience to create new beers successfully from the start.
What’s your favorite Pizza Port San Clemente beer that you have created?
Kane: Hmm. My favorite would have to be FNA Pale Ale. Pale ales are my favorite style to drink now. And at 5.7% ABV, FNA is a session beer that delivers great body and flavor. I refined my recipe for FNA over several batches to get to this version. My two favorite hop varieties, Citra and Huell Melon, are the main hop components with some complementary Mandarina Bavaria hops. And I used a simple grain bill that includes oats to create a fluffy, smooth mouthfeel. Using our house yeast gives the beer that Pizza Port DNA. This is a refreshing, hot day beer. It’s a brew day beer!
Jon: I’d be a bad Dad if I didn’t say Abbey Mae IPA. It’s based on a really old recipe we had for a beer that was originally called The Goodness IPA. When my wife (Shannon) and I had our baby girl, I revived and renamed the beer to honor our daughter. Without question, that’s the beer I’m most proud of creating.
What’s your favorite non-Pizza Port beer now?
Kane: Well brewers always love top-notch beers that come from breweries like Kern River, Beachwood BBQ, and Firestone Walker – to name a few. But honestly, Karl Strauss has been making off-the-charts great beers. Their Mosaic Session IPA is fantastic. And lately, they make a beer called The Isomerizer IPA that’s just awesome. It’s made with a malt base of pale two-row barley, white wheat and Caramel 20. And 100% Mosaic hops are used. The passion fruit aroma is amazing. It’s so soft and delicious.
Jon: I love Blind Pig IPA by Russian River Brewing. But I agree that Karl Strauss has been killing it and so has Docent Brewing.
What do you drink when not drinking beer?
Kane: I love neat Scotch – especially peaty Scotches like Lagavulin and Laphroaig. I also like gin and tonic.
Jon: I’m a big beer drinker. When I’m not drinking beer, I’m usually drinking beer. Really though, I like Hendricks and tonic or Hendricks and soda with cucumber. I also like tequila.
What’s the worst part of a brewer’s job?
Making beer is really a 24 hour-a-day, living process until the final product is completed. So the most stressful part is not being present all the time to monitor the progress.
How do you come up with the names for the beers you create?
A lot of the names are humorous and edgy innuendos. Many have double or triple meanings. Some of the names are Star Wars or surfer oriented. And iconic community landmarks inspire some of the names.
We work in a pub and a pub is such a community-oriented place. So the fact that we use local names and things that are funny to all of us is reflective of that environment. Our beer signs are even made by in-house employees. And we really dig that type of environment. It’s wonderful to work in such a community/team-oriented establishment.
It’s people like Kane and Jon that make Pizza Port San Clemente such an iconic local hangout. Pizza Port has a long history of being community and family oriented.
I appreciate Kane and Jon’s commitment to creating quality beer and maintaining that community feeling.
15th Anniversary Celebration
Pizza Port San Clemente will be celebrating their 15th Anniversary this Saturday (July 14th) from noon to 7 pm. The celebration will take place up on the rooftop with live music, tasty BBQ and pizzas, special beers, and games. The event will be family oriented. So drop by and say hello to Kane and Jon and enjoy the afternoon.
Finally, a huge THANK YOU to Kane and Jon for their time and thoughts!