We reach out to our writers, subscribers, and followers to help us build our annual feature on brewery openings. This year, we've also included a number of Canadian breweries. Here are 50 of the most promising newcomers, as chosen by you. Read the full article: 50 of the Best New Breweries
I like this article. I plan to travel in other parts of the Country and this sort of information is useful.
Of the many beers photographed in this article many (most?) were of the murky/turbid/opaque variety. I suppose the message is if you are going to open a new brewery you better have some Hazy/Juicy Ales as part of your portfolio of beers? Cheers!
Can we already start recommending spots for next year's inevitable list? Some awesome places have opened up rather recently in my opinion
Looks like some new places to hit up. But I will say that I'm pretty skeptical when I see Vasen on something like this.
I live close to Fifth Hammer Brewing. Great to see them on this list! Their tap room is great and the beers they've been producing have been dope.
Cool read! Just hit Lazarus brewing while I was in Austin two weeks ago, they have really solid stuff.
Nope. They opened in 2016. https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/iso-exceptional-breweries-that-opened-in-2017.536364/
?????????? Cellar West Artisan Ales Boulder, Colorado Opened: December 2016 Matchless Brewing Tumwater, Washington Opened: December 2016 Outer Range Brewing Company Frisco, Colorado Opened: December 2016
Also they were open for 5 days in 2016 (Dec 26 open date). Would be kind of hard to make the list a hard start and stop date.
Traveling to Richmond this weekend. Nice to see a brewery there made it. Will check it out, and they're walking distance from The Veil.
I'm friends with a couple who rented a house on that farm for a couple years. Nothing but nice things to say about the owners, and my buddie's homebrew definitely took a big step forward while he was there. Gotta make a point to get up to Silvaticus.
Did you recommend them last year when we did the call for suggestions? Looks like they opened in December 2017. That's really not enough time to consider them as one of the best new breweries of 2017. If you're such a fan, why didn't you add them to the site? (I just did now.) A quick scan online shows that they're viewed as average.
I look forward to this list each year and have nominated breweries in the past. On this years list I have visited a few (Battery Steele, Lazurus) and have had brews from a few others. All seem to be doing good work! Has there ever been thought to a follow up article? One that would describe growth, changes, failures, expansion etc. of the breweries that have been on these lists in the past? I think that would be a very interesting read.
Dancing Gnome officially opened on October 1, 2016. This article concentrated on breweries that opened in 2017, but we added a few from December 2016 because in the past our monthly print schedule prevented us from including spots with a December opening date. But for the record, we're fans of DG and covered the brewery last year.
While I did not vote, glad to see Counterweight and Fox Farm on this list. Both are cranking out excellent product imo. Cheers All....
I've never seen or heard of any of these new breweries. Maybe someday but this strikes me as a very obscure selection. It would be nice to see the median distance that these beers get distributed, or am I only going to see them if I visit the brewery?
Most, if not all, of the breweries listed here have very limited (if any) distribution but that is not that surprising considering they opened in the calendar year 2017. In many of the states where it is legal, these breweries would be the ones self-distributing. I'm not sure I would agree that is an obscure selection, they solicited input from BA readers/website users.
Outer range, while hidden away in the mountains, continues to pack in the masses around late afternoon and pump out some exceptional brews! I was extremely impressed and I think we've seen just the tip of the iceberg with these fine folks. Revision? Well, hopefully it's just a matter of time before we luckily see these mouth-watering concoctions grace our presence in AZ.
These breweries might seem obscure, but that's partially the nature of this annual exercise, to seek out and highlight bright spots around the country from the hundreds and hundreds of breweries that open every year. Add that to the fact that many beer companies are choosing to stay small and concentrate on their local market, and yes, you end up with quite a few places that don't distribute very far but are worth visiting.
Nice to see Godspeed in the list. Great spot, interesting beers that aren’t conservative or on trend. The Imperial Coffee Lager he brewed for Peche Mortel day was a great homage to his former brewery. I’ll have to pay more attention to suggesting places. I would have suggested Whitby Ontario’s Little Beasts Brewing which soft opened on October 20th 2017. Really good beer from a talented female head brewer. Also, it would have been funny to see two breweries with the same name (almost) on the list!!
Love the format and content of the article! And it’s geographically laid out for potential road trip stops Had I heard of Open Outcry (South Chicago) sooner, I may have tossed their name into the jar.
For the areas I know about the selections are reasonable and it is an interesting list. there are so many new breweries popping up that there are probably at least 5 or 10 in each state on par with those that made the list. Its a good time to drink beer.
For some reason those Barrel Culture beers freak me out with the crazy colors. Esp that one that looks like some sort of blue windshield washer fluid. Might be really good tho.
The beers are really good though I think I prefer the ones that are straight berries to get their color. I know they added some Gatorade to one of the green colored ones to get the color but yeah they are a little weirdly colored.
Vasen's not worthy. They aren't terrible but compared to some of the big dogs on here they seem out of place.
