San Clemente Pizza Port Hires New 'Hop Head'

Ryan Fields on Wednesday started his first week as the new brew master at the .

In training since mid-November, the self-described "hop head" will keep the popular brews at Pizza Port on-tap while adding some of his own stylings—he's partial to the strong, sweet Belgian-style ales and hop-laden India pale ales.

"I'm going to try to keep a lot of the same beers around—stuff that's been here forever," Fields said. "(But) There's an IPA and a double IPA in the fermenters right now."

Look for those new brews around Dec. 16, if all goes well, he said.

Fields isn't new to the industry. He started his own home brew club in college—which he found far more interesting than studying physics.

He started on the bottling line at San Diego craft brew institution Lost Abbey to make a few bucks after college and found he liked working for the brewery.

Fields is taking over for Noah Regenry, who is leaving for the brewpub Hollister, north of Santa Barbara. He's responsible for such San Clemente Pizza Port favorites as Faceplant Belgian-style beer and Pseudo IPA, which won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver.

In the pipeline for fields, other than his IPAs, is a different kind of Belgian-style beer called a Saison. He said he picked up a fondness for the style working for Lost Abbey, which specialized in Belgian ales.