A microbrewery or craft brewery is a brewery that produces small amounts of beer, typically much smaller than large-scale corporate breweries, and is independently owned. Such breweries are generally characterized by their emphasis on quality, flavor and brewing technique.
The U.S. state of Oregon is home to more than 200 breweries and brew pubs that produce a large variety of beer.
The Pabst Brewing Company is an American company that dates its origins to a brewing company founded in 1844 by Jacob Best and was, by 1889, named after Frederick Pabst. It is currently a holding company which contracts the brewing of over two dozen brands of beer and malt liquor: these include its own flagship Pabst Blue Ribbon, as well as brands from now defunct breweries including P. Ballantine and Sons Brewing Company, G. Heileman Brewing Company, Lone Star Brewing Company, Pearl Brewing Company, Piels Bros., Valentin Blatz Brewing Company, National Brewing Company, Olympia Brewing Company, Falstaff Brewing Corporation, Primo Brewing & Malting Company, Rainier Brewing Company, F & M Schaefer Brewing Company, Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company and Stroh Brewery Company. About half of the beer produced under Pabst's ownership is Pabst Blue Ribbon brand, with the other half their other owned brands.
Genesee Brewing Company is an American brewery located along the Genesee River in Rochester, New York. In 1878, Genesee Brewing Company moved up into Rochester. From 2000 to 2009, the company was known as the High Falls Brewing Company. In 2009, High Falls was acquired by the capital investment firm KPS Capital. Together with also newly acquired Labatt USA, KPS merged the two companies as North American Breweries. Along with this change, High Falls Brewery changed its name back to the original "Genesee Brewing Company" operating under the North American Breweries name. In October 2012, North American Breweries was purchased by FIFCO
Two Brothers Brewing Company is an independently owned Illinois-based microbrewery founded by brothers Jim and Jason Ebel in 1996. The brothers brought their knowledge of different brewing styles to the Chicago craft brew market after living in Europe and experiencing the variety of beers available there. Jim and Jason started the business using bulk milk tanks converted into fermenters that were donated to them by their grandfather who was a retired dairy farmer. Two Brothers Brewing has now been in business for over 20 years and has opened multiple locations throughout the Chicago metropolitan area, as well as one in Arizona.
Christian Moerlein Brewing Co. is a private beer company that began production in 1853 in Cincinnati, Ohio, by German immigrant Christian Moerlein. Before closing its doors in 1919 as result of prohibition, Christian Moerlein was among the ten largest American breweries by volume. In 1981, the brand was revived by the Hudepohl Brewing Company as a "better beer" a precursor to the craft beer category and is considered a pioneer craft beer of the craft beer movement. In 1999, Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewing Co. sold out to a group of out-of-towners, a sale that included the Christian Moerlein craft beer brand. In 2004, Greg Hardman, a Cincinnati resident, purchased Christian Moerlein, as well as 65 other historic Cincinnati brands, returning local ownership to Cincinnati in a move that included a plan to return Cincinnati's brewing traditions.
Yazoo Brewing Company is a regional brewery in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. It was founded in 2003 by Brewmaster Linus Hall, and has since expanded operations and won numerous awards.
San Diego County, California, has been called "the Craft Beer Capital of America". As of 2018, the county was home to 155 licensed craft breweries – the most of any county in the United States. Based on 2016 sales volume, three San Diego County breweries – Stone, Green Flash, and Karl Strauss – rank among the 50 largest craft brewers in the United States. San Diego County brewers pioneered the specialty beer style known as Double India Pale Ale, sometimes called San Diego Pale Ale. Its beer culture is a draw for tourism, particularly during major festivals such as San Diego Beer Week and the San Diego International Beer Competition. San Diego County breweries including Stone Brewing Co., AleSmith Brewing Company and Ballast Point Brewing Company are consistently rated among the top breweries in the world.
The Nashville Brewing Company is a beer-maker located in Nashville, Tennessee. Opened by German immigrant Jacob Stifel in 1859, the company "was the first production brewery in Nashville", and grew to become "one of the largest breweries in the city in the 19th century". Ownership of the company "changed hands several times over the next 30 years", and it was occasionally renamed, with other company names including the Nashville Brewery, Stifel & Pfeiffer Brewery, South Nashville Lager Beer Brewery, and Moerlein-Gerst Brewing Company. In 1893 it became the William Gerst Brewing Company, in a facility completely rebuilt on the same property, which remained in operation until 1954. A historical marker now stands at the location where the brewery once operated. The Nashville Brewing Company was restarted in 2016 by beer historian Scott R. Mertie, who had written a history of the Nashville brewing industry a decade earlier.
The William Gerst Brewing Company was a beer-maker located in Nashville, Tennessee. Originally named the Nashville Brewing Company, which opened in 1859, the operation was purchased in 1890 and operated as the William Gerst Brewing Company until closing in 1954. After the brewery closed, a German restaurant called the Gerst Haus was started by Gerst's grandson and operated in several locations from 1955 until 2018. Although the brewery has been closed for decades, Gerst Amber has been contract brewed by several different breweries since the 1990s.
