Ambitious Ales, the Long Beach brewery that took home gold at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival, is crossing into Orange County for the first time, opening a brewery and tasting room at The LAB Anti-Mall in Costa Mesa with a grand opening weekend set for October 24-25. The new taproom sits at 696 Randolph Ave., tucked into the open-air retail center that has anchored Costa Mesa's creative commerce scene for decades.
The expansion marks the brewery's first location outside Long Beach, according to the Los Angeles Times, which reported that Ambitious Ales is based in Long Beach and was founded in 2012 by Jon Cuthbert, Juan Carrillo, Jerome de Leon, Garrett Carroll and Danny Karpinski after the group took a trip to the Oregon Brewers Festival. The brewery opened its first physical location in Long Beach's Bixby Knolls neighborhood in 2019, and this new Costa Mesa spot represents its first Orange County outpost.
That original Bixby Knolls taproom came together inside the historic 1947 Tuttle Cameras building on Atlantic Avenue, a renovation that doubled as a piece of neighborhood revitalization, according to the Long Beach Post. The founders also leaned on the city itself to get off the ground: Long Beach's Economic Development Department helped connect the brewery to a zero-interest, $10,000 Kiva microloan that funded its outdoor patio and custom tasting room furniture, the Long Beach Business Journal reported.
A Gold Medal Pedigree Heads South
Ambitious Ales isn't walking into Orange County without credentials. The brewery's hazy IPA, Professional Human Being, won gold at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival in what was the competition's most entered category among 349 submissions that year, per the Los Angeles Times. The brewery has also picked up multiple awards at the California Brewers Cup and a bronze medal in 2019 for its coffee beer, Central Perk, building a reputation for handcrafted, small-batch and seasonal releases.
Danny Karpinski, one of the brewery's founders, said the team is pleased to land at The LAB Anti-Mall, a location he said fosters small businesses and creative brands, per a news release cited by the Los Angeles Times. He added that the team looks forward to connecting with local beer enthusiasts in Orange County and joining the city's breweries, saying Orange County and Costa Mesa have craft beer lovers who will appreciate the brewery's approach, creativity and community. Linda Sadeghi, co-developer of The LAB, said in the same release that Ambitious Ales will bring craft beer, energy and a patio experience to the small-business collective.
Inside a Landmark Built to Be Different
The LAB Anti-Mall itself has a backstory that fits neatly with the brewery's community-first pitch. Developers Shaheen and Linda Sadeghi created the center in 1993 by repurposing a former military night-vision goggle factory into an open-air retail hub built specifically for independent businesses, according to the Los Angeles Times' archival coverage of the project. The name stands for Little American Business, and the complex served as the founding anchor for Costa Mesa's SoBeCa District — a city-designated planning area for South Bristol Entertainment, Culture & Arts that has since grown into a hub for creative retail and dining, per Travel Costa Mesa.
Ambitious Ales isn't the first craft beer concept to set up inside the collective, either. Fullerton-based Bootlegger's Brewery previously operated a taproom on-site, reflecting how The LAB regularly rotates small-business tenants through its outdoor layout, according to The LAB Anti-Mall itself.
Joining a Crowded Randolph Avenue Beer Trail
The new taproom also plants Ambitious Ales directly in the middle of Costa Mesa's most concentrated beer corridor. Randolph Avenue already hosts Green Cheek Beer Co., Salty Bear Brewing Co. and Gunwhale Ales, making the strip the primary geographic home for craft brewing in the city, according to Off The Charts. Hoodline previously profiled Gunwhale Ales as part of a look at Costa Mesa's top beer bars, underscoring how long this stretch has drawn beer tourism to the neighborhood.
For opening weekend, Ambitious Ales plans to pour a full tap list, including Gandalf the Crisp, a New Zealand-style pilsner brewed with 100% Motueka hops, and Calamansi Corner, a fruited gose made with calamansi, cucumber, coriander and sea salt. The celebration will also include limited merchandise and DJs spinning vinyl, with Smoked & Salted Barbecue handling food on Saturday and Hamburgers Nice taking over on Sunday. Seating at The LAB is indoor and outdoor, and both family- and pet-friendly.
Parking and the Bigger Industry Picture
Because opening weekend is expected to draw a crowd, Ambitious Ales has arranged designated overflow parking at an adjacent office property on Randolph Avenue, noting on its Facebook page that regular LAB parking will be partially restricted during the festivities.
The expansion also lands at an interesting moment for the industry. California led the nation in craft beer production in 2024, with 961 operating breweries producing more than 3.7 million barrels and generating $8.26 billion in economic impact, according to the Brewers Association. But nationally, the picture is tougher: operating U.S. craft breweries contracted by 2.9% in 2025 to 9,578 active locations, with 481 breweries closing compared to just 300 openings, marking the second consecutive year that closures have outpaced new openings, per the Beer Street Journal. Against that backdrop, a medal-winning operator like Ambitious Ales choosing to expand stands out as a notable vote of confidence in Southern California's craft beer scene.
As the brewery grows, it says it continues experimenting with brewing techniques, upgrading infrastructure and sourcing better ingredients — the same ethos that carried it from a homebrew hobby born out of a trip to the Oregon Brewers Festival to a gold medal-winning operation now opening its doors on Randolph Avenue.
