Austin’s (512) Brewing Company was founded in 2007, at the front end of a wave of new brewery openings in the Texas capital. The brewery has benefited both from Austin’s thirst for local product and from its burgeoning community of brewers.
No one knows what lies ahead—but if these intrepid small-business owners are any indication, craft beer will be just fine. Here are just a few of the stories that made 2011 one of the best years for craft beer in the country’s history.
At Augusta Brewing Company in Labadie, Mo., husband-and-wife duo Terry and Jeri Heisler are keeping a family history alive by moving the brewery’s production operations from its current location to a facility in Washington, Mo., which has been in Jeri’s family for over a century.
Today, Shrago’s still working a day job. But he’s also in the brewhouse on nights and weekends, churning out creative takes on American and Belgian styles for Long Beach, Calif., brewers Beachwood BBQ & Brewing. It’s a long way from the stovetop he started on.
In Decorah, Iowa, Clark Lewey was disappointed with the local selection. So he started brewing his own “beers that make a statement.” Homebrewing quickly turned into a business plan, and Toppling Goliath launched on a nano-system.
The original plan was to build Jester King in an industrial part of Austin, but when a local farmer just outside the city offered his 200-acre farm as a brewery site, the three managing partners accepted. Today, Jester King is producing some of Texas’ most intriguing beers in a style that seems more suited to Belgium than the American Heartland.
When Daniel and David Kleban started the Maine Beer Company, they were brewing their hoppy American ales one barrel at a time in an industrial park on the outskirts of Portland; they’re now on pace to do 1,500 barrels a year, and that quantity doesn’t come close to meeting consumer demand.
Jeff O’Neil and the Berardi family are transforming a four-story stone building into an artisan brewer’s dream-workshop, complete with a gravity-fed system, a “gnarly” cellar, a “spider-filled, Old-World approach to barrel aging” and—wait for it—maybe even a coolship.
Bootlegger’s Brewery, which produces the much-hyped Knuckle Sandwich Double IPA, put out its first keg of beer in April 2008 after Aaron Barkenhagen and his father assembled the previously owned brewhouse equipment and constructed the brewery themselves in order to save money.
Alex Ganum places Upright Brewing Company in the Belgian/French farmhouse vein, in the sense that the brewery is cranking out beers that can stand on their own, without getting hung up on style.
Andy Thomas spent 12 years at Heineken International, where he held the reins as president and CEO of Heineken USA from 2005–2007. Then he surprised everyone when he accepted the position of president of the Craft Brewers Alliance.
American brewers have never exactly been constrained by German purity laws, but founder/owner Russ Springsteen and head brewer Corey Wentworth are taking experimentation and extreme beer to new heights in Traverse City, Mich., at Right Brain Brewery.
During the day, Doug Dozark runs production for Cigar City Brewing. And when he’s not working the production line, he’s in Gulfport, Fla., churning out beers in 35-gallon batches for the family restaurant.
In 1982, Charlie Papazian threw a festival. What he calls an “astounding” crowd for the time (800 people) showed up to a hotel in Boulder, Colo., to drink some craft beer. This fall’s Great American Beer Festival sold out in one week to 49,000 attendees, and Papazian is still at the helm.
At Bridge Brew Works in Fayetteville, West Virginia, co-owners and brewers Ken Linch and Nathan Herrold combine their talents to produce some stellar beers in a state where microbreweries are few and far between.
The jump from employee to owner-brewer is an expensive one. But for Jason Meyer, co-founder of Driftwood Brewing Company in Victoria, British Columbia, the really hairy stuff came in the months after his brewhouse got cranking.
With help from the its fan base, the “Surly Nation,” new Minnesota laws allow Surly Brewing Company to sell beer at its own location. Now, plans are in the works for a $20 million, 6 acre destination brewpub.
Before New England’s Valley Malt existed, a farmhouse brewery could never truly be a farmhouse brewery, and a harvest beer could never truly be a harvest beer.
In Springdale, Utah, at the entrance of the glorious Zion Canyon National Park, lies a small brewery that works with an eye toward connecting man and nature through beer.
Six months after Baxter Brewing started brewing and canning their beers, demand is soaring, and Livingston has made Lewiston, Maine, a destination for craft beer fans.
When Eric Marshall started Marshall Brewing Company in 2008, he had a different kind of challenge ahead of him. Oklahoma was a beating heart for the American adjunct lager and its producers, and seducing drinkers with hoppy ales and rich lagers was no easy task.
Carl Melissas, brewmaster at Asheville’s Wedge Brewing Company, brews up unpretentious ales and lagers inspired by the classic style benchmarks. It’s a simple-sounding proposition, until you account for the stiff competition all around town. The city knows quality and craftsmanship.
