The newest entrant to Torrance’s rapidly growing craft brew scene is actually a refugee from San Diego where the city’s nasty political scene under its now disgraced former mayor prompted a relocation to a more welcoming business environment.

Absolution Brewing will become Torrance’s fifth craft brewery when it opens on Columbia Street, hopefully shortly before the end of the year, said co-founder Wes McCain.

The Torrance Planning Commission will consider its conditional use permit application this fall, he said.

“They’re well aware of what it takes to open a brewery,” he said. “We don’t have to teach the politicians what’s necessary.”

No they don’t, not with the city’s emergence as a craft beer center at the expense of Los Angeles, where taxes and the economic climate in general are much more onerous.

Incidentally, McCain said the brewery will concentrate on Old World beer styles made with New World hops.