It's official: San Diego has its own beer. The San Diego Tourism Authority teamed up with a local brewery to develop a new brew called "72 and Hoppy."
The move makes San Diego the first U.S. travel destination to launch its own official craft beer. Bay City Brewing Company helped to create the specialty brew.
"Bay City had approached us with the idea to do a collaboration beer and it was something we had thinking about internally for a while so it was perfect timing," said Candice Eley from the San Diego Tourism Authority.
An announcement of the brew was made at Bay City Brewing Company Tuesday afternoon.
“You’re going to taste a lot of lemon and citrus notes with a descent amount of tropical fruit and a mild but pronounced bitterness," said Karsen Moon, assistant brewer at Bay City Brewing Company.
There are well over 100 breweries in San Diego. According to a recent study by Cushman and Wakefield, San Diego has more operating breweries than any other region in the U.S.
Some residents expressed that other breweries were left out of the opportunity to brew the city's official beer.
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“Brewers love what they do and love the beer they brew and so that makes sense to me that they might want to be in the position that Bay City is in," said Dande Bagby, board member of the San Diego Brewers Guild and owner of a brewery in Oceanside.
Bagby has a recommendation to make it more fair to other breweries.
"Maybe the Tourism Authority will rotate the official beer, maybe it will be a series," added Bagby. "That would be cool."
It has been estimated the industry brings in over $800 million each year.
