Modern Times Beer is the great what-if of San Diego craft beer. Founded in 2013 in Point Loma, it rose fast on bold can art, inventive hoppy beers, house-roasted coffee, and tasting rooms that looked like nothing else in town. At its peak it stretched across California and into Oregon, then overexpansion, pandemic disruption, and internal turmoil brought the whole thing down. The brewery was sold at a court-ordered sale in 2022, its original Point Loma brewery closed in 2024, and today the brand survives in a leaner, more complicated form. The beers that made its name are still worth seeking out, but a visit takes a little homework first.

The basics

• Location: North Park Flavordome, 3000 Upas Street, San Diego (the remaining San Diego taproom; see below)
• Founded: 2013, by Jacob McKean in Point Loma
• Known for: Orderville hazy IPA, Blazing World hoppy amber, Fortunate Islands hoppy wheat ale, Black House coffee stout, Fruitlands gose, house-roasted coffee, and retro-futurist taproom design

McKean, a Stone Brewing alum, opened Modern Times as a 30-barrel production brewery and tasting room in Point Loma, in the space later known as the Lomaland Fermentorium. The brewery grew quickly and became California’s first employee-owned brewery in 2017, starting with a 30 percent employee stock ownership plan. Its stated focus was aroma-driven, complex, flavorful, session-friendly beer, often blending styles rather than sticking to one category, and it backed that up with an in-house coffee roaster that fed both its taprooms and its stouts.

The expansion that followed was enormous: North Park’s Flavordome in 2014, Encinitas’ Far West Lounge in 2018, plus venues in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Oakland, Santa Barbara, and Portland. By early 2022, four of those locations had closed, the lender had started litigation, and the company went through a court-ordered receivership sale. Maui Brewing’s parent company, Craft ‘Ohana, acquired Modern Times for $15.3 million in October 2022. In 2024, Craft ‘Ohana closed the original Point Loma brewery, cut 57 jobs, and moved production to contract brewing at AleSmith in Miramar. Since then the beer business and intellectual property have passed to Wings & Arrow, while hospitality and coffee operations were licensed separately, which is why the brand’s current footprint is confusing even to longtime fans.

The taproom

If you visit Modern Times today, go to North Park. The Flavordome at 3000 Upas Street is the brewery’s best-known surviving taproom, an industrial-style space with about 20 rotating taps, Modern Times coffee, an outdoor patio, and a lampshade-covered ceiling and vintage decor that carry the brand’s old maximalist spirit. It is the closest thing left to the classic Modern Times experience: creative, a little weird, and built for lingering over a flight.

Two important cautions before you go. First, the original Point Loma brewery and taproom is closed, so do not head to Greenwood Street expecting a visit. Second, the Encinitas Far West Lounge at 470 South Coast Highway 101 closed permanently in June 2026, according to the brand’s current owner, after a brief closure described as a pre-summer sabbatical and then licensing difficulties. The official Modern Times site still lists Encinitas at the time of writing, so trust the closure report over the stale listing. Downtown’s Timestead pub, opened in late 2025 in the former Local Eatery and Resident Brewing space, was also reported in October 2026 to have been renamed and separated from Modern Times. In short: North Park is the safe bet, and it is worth checking hours before any visit, given how fast this story has changed.

Standout beers

• Orderville Hazy IPA: The flagship. A Mosaic-led hazy IPA with juicy tropical fruit and a dank, resinous edge, and the beer most fans name first.
• Blazing World Hoppy Amber: A luxuriously hoppy amber loaded with Nelson, Mosaic, and Simcoe hops, fruity and dank with just enough malt backbone to hold it together.
• Fortunate Islands Hoppy Wheat Ale: A pale wheat ale dry-hopped like an IPA with Citra and Amarillo, tropical and citrusy yet crisp and easy to drink.
• Black House Oatmeal Coffee Stout: The coffee beer that built the brand’s second reputation. Brewed with house-roasted coffee, it pours dark and smooth with roast, chocolate, and espresso character.
• City of the Dead Coffee Stout: The showpiece. A full-bodied export stout built around coffee beans aged in bourbon barrels, rich with coffee, chocolate, and vanilla notes without the boozy burn of a barrel-aged beer.

Our take

Modern Times is still essential San Diego beer history, and Orderville and Blazing World alone justify its place on any serious local list. But we cannot review it the way we review a stable neighborhood brewery, because it is not one anymore. What survives is a great back catalog, a genuinely fun North Park taproom, and a brand being rebuilt under new ownership after a spectacular rise and fall. Go to the Flavordome, order Orderville or Blazing World, and enjoy what made this brewery famous. Just do not plan a multi-stop Modern Times crawl around the old locations, because most of them are gone, and the story of how that happened is now part of the visit.