AleSmith Brewing Company

AleSmith Brewing Company was founded in 1995 and has been owned since 2002 by Peter Zien, making it one of the genuine flagships of San Diego craft beer — a city that has as strong a claim as anywhere in America to having defined the modern IPA. The Miramar tasting room is a two-storey space with a patio, games and a Tony Gwynn memorabilia museum, the last of which reflects the brewery's long association with the late Padres great and his .394 pale ale.

What makes it useful here is that the non-alcoholic beer is brewed in-house rather than bought in, and it is treated as part of the range rather than as a concession. The line centres on AleSmith NA IPA — tangerine and pine, under 0.5% ABV, 75 calories — and NA Speedway, a non-alcoholic version of the brewery's iconic Speedway Stout carrying dark chocolate, espresso and roasted-malt character. That second one matters disproportionately: non-alcoholic stouts are far rarer than non-alcoholic IPAs, because the roasted malt body is harder to hold together without alcohol, and a brewery of this stature producing one gives non-drinkers access to a style they are usually shut out of entirely. There is also a Nelson Sauvin hop water on tap, which is zero-proof and zero-calorie, offering the hop aroma without the beer. The NA IPA has taken medals at both the California Craft Brewers Cup and the San Diego Beer News Awards, judged against the field rather than in a separate category. For anyone doing a San Diego brewery tour without drinking, this is the stop where you are least likely to be handed a soda and least likely to feel like an afterthought. Open daily, to 11pm at the weekend. Miramar is San Diego's brewing heartland, with dozens of taprooms within a few miles, so a designated driver ferrying a group around the area has a specific reason to make this the stop where they get to drink something they actually chose.