Just six months after their launch, Terrapin struck gold at the 2002 Great American Beer Festival: The only beer in their line, Rye Pale Ale, bested 92 other beers and took the gold medal as the country’s best American Pale Ale.
Founders Brewing Company brews the kind of beers its brewers want to drink, and by gleefully smashing every convention it can get its hands on, the brewery has gained a rabid following.
In less than a year and a half of brewing, Surly Brewing Company, a tiny Brooklyn Center, MN brewery, has already put the industry’s big boys on notice.
Greg Koch and Steve Wagner first brewed their flagship beer, Arrogant Bastard, back in 1995, a full year before they co-founded Stone, and two years before the beer’s commercial release.
Idaho, Wyoming and Montana all boast some fantastic, overlooked winter destinations, offering more room on the slopes than their crowded, more-heralded neighbor to the south, as well as more elbow room at the bar.
The craft brewery Larry Bell founded on a Kalamazoo, MI stovetop, Bell’s Brewery, is the oldest east of Boulder. And while the craft brewing landscape has filled in considerably since its founding, Bell’s has retained its pioneering spirit.
How do you celebrate fifteen Great American Beer Festival medals and back-to-back GABF Small Brewery Brewer of the Year nods? You open up a new brewing and bottling plant, and start distribution of two new lines of beer.
