Located on the fourth floor of Los Angeles’ largest hotel, Bonaventure Brewing Company has been treating its loyal customers to craft ales for over a decade, while thousands of the city’s inhabitants walk by every day without even knowing it exists.
Dark Horse puts its own unmistakable stamp on whatever comes out of its tiny seven-barrel system, whether it’s a brawling IPA, an experimental Belgian brew or an old-school craft classic bearing a new twist.
Barleycorn’s isn’t exactly a brewery, but rather a brew-on-premise shop where customers can come to the store, buy their supplies and ingredients, and turn out a 15-gallon batch within a few hours.
Mike Hoops has been at the helm of the Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery for roughly a decade now, and he’s moving faster than ever—he’s doing more with lagers, playing around with more than a dozen barrels, and experimenting with new ingredients and adjuncts.
When Dann Paquette moved back to New England from Yorkshire a year ago, he had no job and little money. A year later, Paquette’s beer is spreading along the Atlantic coast, and he’s enjoying the one perk he’d never attained: unfettered creative freedom.
A decade ago, Jeff O’Neil was drinking Racer 5, growing hops in his backyard and sending résumés to every brewery in the Bay Area. Now he’s brewing West Coast-leaning ales out east, at the ever-expanding Ithaca Beer Company.
Though it’s the northernmost brewery in the contiguous 48 states, you’d think Alpine Brewing Company was 5 miles from Bavaria, not Canada. The German-owned, German-built brewery brews Bavarian-style beers exclusively. Owner Bart Traubeck prefers it that way.
Halfway through his 40s, Bob Sylvester and his wife launched a tiny shoestring brewery in a warehouse near the Gulf of Mexico. Saint Somewhere is a tiny, one-man, Belgian operation, but it has attracted a nation of ecstatic customers.
Every West Coast city has a beer scene to make you sing, but not Los Angeles. That’s not to say bastions of beer excellence don’t exist in this humble burg. In Pasadena, Mark Jilg operates one such outlier—Craftsman Brewing Company.
Alan Sprints has been the creative force behind Hair of the Dog for 16 years now. For most of that time, he’s also been the brewery’s only grunt laborer.
The Tröegs brothers were able to create their diverse array of ales and lagers by traveling and studying both nationally and internationally, immersing themselves in the craft beer culture. Their philosophy is to brew the beers they like rather than brewing to a particular style.
Less than two years ago, Southern Star was a new brewery outside Houston that few had heard of. Now, Dave Fougeron’s killer recipes have caught fire, and he “can’t make beer fast enough.”
Join us in our annual nod to those who help make beer more than just another beverage with buzz. Raise your glass and holla “Cheers!” to these badass beer advocates.
In a single year, Jon Curtis of The Tap Brewing Company will churn through more recipes than some pub brewers would get to in a decade. He revels in the variety.
Co-op breweries, with their minimal costs, democratic involvement and intensely local feel, look a hell of a lot like craft beer’s militia. They represent a community no longer simply using its buying power to steer the market, but one empowering itself to join the fight.
Christian Ettinger founded Hopworks Urban Brewery on the idea that radical sustainability should be commonplace. The organic, Portland, Ore., brewpub has taken environmentalism further than any brewpub in the country.
