I was in San Diego last week giving a guest lecture to students in the Craft Beer and Urban Economies class at the University of California-San Diego. The course is taught by my friend and colleague, Julie Wartell. As part of the class, students get the opportunity to visit and tour a local brewery. I was fortunate enough that my trip to San Diego coincided with a visit the class made to Seek Beer Co.
Julie, myself, and about 25 students descended on Seek Brewery early on a Sunday afternoon. The brewery is located in the city’s North Park neighborhood, described by some locals as “the best beer neighborhood in the nation,“
The brewery was established in 2022. Like most craft breweries, it is relatively small. According to data provided to the Brewers Association, Seek produced 411 barrels of beer in 2023. It does have capacity for growth, however.
Our group was met at the brewery by founder and owner, Dave Ohmer. As with any brewery tour I go on, what interests me the most is hearing the owner talk about their background, their passion for brewing, and the opportunities and challenges that they see for their brewery and the industry more broadly.
Dave grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. His emotional ties to this marvelous Midwest city are still evident in the Bengals banner that has pride of place in his production space. A interesting feature of Dave’s journey to brewer and brewery owner is that he never home brewed. This highly unusual in the brewing industry. Data show that approximately 90% of today’s commercial craft brewers started on their professional journey as home homebrewers. During college, where he studied music, Dave waited tables at Downtown Grill and Brewery in Knoxville, TN. One day he asked the owners if he could volunteer in the brewhouse. His volunteer position transitioned to a paid position and from scrubbing floors and cleaning kegs he worked his way up to full-time brewer. Additional positions at Saw Works Brewing in Knoxville and Whole Foods Brewing Co. and Urban South Brewery in Houston, TX allowed Dave to expand his knowledge base and hone his brewing skills.
Seek has a relatively small taproom. A sign on the wall indicates that the space, legally, play host to 43 people. There is, however, an outdoor space, share with a neighboring brewery. This is vital to Seek’s success as it allows the brewery to serve more customers from its taproom. Currently, the taproom is responsible for 70% of Seek’s sales. The other 30% is self-distributed to local bars and restaurants. Going forward, Dave would like to increase the percentage of his sales that come from the taproom. Simply put, the profit margins on a taproom keg are just so much more generous than one that is distributed. During our visit, Dave mentioned that there had been rumblings of the outdoor space being converted to half-a-dozen parking spaces – this would not be a good development from Seek’s perspective.
When I was there Seek had about a dozen different beers on offer, including a Vienna Lager, a Coffee Stout, a Fruited Sour, a West Coast IPA, and a Hazy IPA. One thing that I noticed about the beers available was that all but one (an Imperial Coffee Stout) had ABS of under 7%. I asked Dave about this, and he said that this simply reflected market demand. Higher ABV beers had not been selling fast enough. This preference for lower ABV beers (although many would consider 6.9% to be quite high; its relative guess) is consistent with a broad market shift towards lower alcohol beers that has been observed. As a beer drinker who prefers beer to be under 7% ABV, I appreciated the wide choice of such brews on offer at Seek.
While a relative newcome to the San Diego beer scene, Seek has made a big impact. At the 2025 San Diego Beer News Awards (SDBNA), Seek won in six categories (Best Customer Service, Best Hazy IPA, Best Imperial IPA, Best Pilsner, Best Collaboration Beer and the inaugural Best Alternative Beverage award). What struck me about this list of awards was that not only does Seek produce great beer, but they also provide fantastic customer service. Behind the bar at Seek when I visited was Taproom Manager, Tyler Hamman. Along with Beertender, Savanah Marshall, Hamman is key to the great service that Seek’s customer’s experience. This was not the first time Seek had won the Best Customer Service Award – they had previously done so in 2023.
As Dave Ohlmer builds his brewery’s brand, and hopefully its taproom sales, providing good customer service is critical. In a research paper published in 2023 in the journal Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, researchers from Cornell University examined the relationship between various taproom characteristics and customer satisfaction. They found that the two most important contributors to customer satisfaction were the taproom’s interior ambience and the friendliness and knowledge of servers. And, perhaps not surprisingly, customers who were more satisfied with their taproom experience tended to stay longer, buy more beer, and spend more money.
Seek is also a brewery that is very engaged with its community. I experienced this on a previous visit in 2024. On that trip, Julie took me to Seek on a Monday evening. This happened to coincide with the weekly meeting of the Seek Run Club. Every Monday at 6pm, a group of folks meet up and have an at-your-own-pace walk/jog/run around the North Park neighborhood, at the end ow which everyone meets back at Seek for a beer (or two) and an opportunity to socialize. This activity is an indicative of a larger trend of breweries becoming the focus of what is generally known as Leisure Time Physical Activity (LPTA). The LPTA can be yoga, running, cycling, or any other activity that involves some level of physical exertion. The Run Club has become such a part of the identity of the brewery that one of the beer’s produced by Seek is called “On a Monday” a Light Lager with an ABV of 4.2% and has been dubbed as the “official beer of the Seek Run Club”.
Further Reading:
Li, Jie, Sara M. WagneR, Miguel I. Gomez, and Anna Katharine Mansfield. 2023. Customer satisfaction and sale performance in New York State brewery tasting rooms. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, Volume 52, Pages 132–150.
Seaman, Alana N, Lindsey Schroeder, Laura Morris, Kayla Hines, and Michele Abee. 2024. “Ten bucks for yoga and a beer in a cool vibey spot”: Exploring motivations for LTPA at craft breweries. Leisure Studies.