Craft beer is a beer that has been made by craft breweries. They produce smaller amounts of beer, typically less than large breweries, and are often independently owned. Such breweries are generally perceived and marketed as having an emphasis on enthusiasm, new flavours, and varied brewing techniques.
The U.S. state of Oregon is home to more than 200 breweries and brew pubs that produce a large variety of beer.
Goose Island Beer Company is a brewery in Chicago, Illinois, that began as a single brewpub opened in 1988 in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and named after a nearby island. The larger production brewery opened in 1995, and a second brewpub, in Wrigleyville, in 1999 which later closed in 2015.
Rogue Ales is a brewery founded in 1988 in Ashland, Oregon. The company brews their own beer, distills their own spirits, and coopers their own barrels. Rogue has pub locations in Oregon.
Russian River Brewing Company is a brewery and brewpub in downtown Santa Rosa, California, with a second location in Windsor. The company is known for strong India pale ales and sour beers.
Firestone Walker Brewing Company is a family-owned craft brewery with operations in Paso Robles, Buellton and Venice, California. The brewery was established in 1996 by brothers-in-law Adam Firestone and David Walker. The original brewery was located on a family vineyard in Los Olivos, California. Their first beer, Double Barrel Ale, was made in a patented variation of the Burton union system. The main brewing operations moved to Paso Robles in 2001. Firestone Walker is today known for bestselling beers such as 805 and Mind Haze. Firestone Walker celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021 and is now California's second largest craft brewery.
Anderson Valley Brewing Company is a brewery founded in 1987 in Boonville, California. Its name is derived from its Anderson Valley location in Mendocino County.
Founded by entrepreneurs Richard Wrigley and Robert D'Addona, the Manhattan Brewing Company was one of the earliest brewpub concept on the East Coast of the US. The first working brewery in New York City for decades, operations started as a large on-premises multi-tap brewpub in 1984. It was located in a former Consolidated Edison substation on the corner of Thompson Street and Broome/Watts in SoHo. The international style ales and beers combined with beer cellar style tables and copper kettles were popular with New Yorkers; distribution was then expanded, via draft horses and antique dray, into the New York marketplace with medal winning brands Manhattan Amber and Manhattan Gold Lager. The business struggled however, with a large overhead, the raising of the NY drinking age and the Black Monday crash of October 19, 1987. The doors finally closed in 1991.
A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of beer has taken place since at least 2500 BC; in ancient Mesopotamia, brewers derived social sanction and divine protection from the goddess Ninkasi. Brewing was initially a cottage industry, with production taking place at home; by the ninth century, monasteries and farms would produce beer on a larger scale, selling the excess; and by the eleventh and twelfth centuries larger, dedicated breweries with eight to ten workers were being built.
The Boulder Beer Company was Colorado's first microbrew and the forty-third licensed brewery in the United States. It was founded on September 25, 1979 by David Hummer, Alvin Nelson, and Randolf Ware. Ware and Hummer were physics professors at the University of Colorado Boulder and home brewers. When the laws surrounding home brewing were relaxed, the brewery originally started on a farm in a "goatshack."
Sudwerk is a brewery in Davis, California. It has been crafting German-style lagers since 1989. It was a pioneer of lager in microbrewing, following the strict requirements of the German Reinheitsgebot, and it continues to specialize in craft lagers.
Triple Rock is a brewpub in Berkeley, California.
Great Leap Brewing operates four brewpubs in Beijing, two in the Dongcheng District and two in the Chaoyang District. It makes and sells a wide range of beers at those locations, popular both with the city's Western expatriate community and younger Chinese drinkers interested in an alternative product.
Breckenridge Brewery is an American brewing company based in Littleton, Colorado. Select beers can be found in 42 US states. The company was purchased by Anheuser-Busch InBev in 2016.
Belching Beaver Brewery is an American craft beer brewery based in San Diego, California. The company was founded in 2012 by Thomas Vogel, Dave Mobley, and brewmaster Troy Smith, who formerly served as the brewer at Coronado Brewing Company. The brewery began with a milk stout, which they then evolved into other iterations, including their Peanut Butter Milk Stout, which Smith says "put [them] on the map".
The Blackstone Brewing Company is a craft brewery in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded by Kent Taylor and Stephanie Weins in 1994, it claims to be Nashville's oldest craft brewery. The original brewpub, called Blackstone Restaurant and Brewery, opened on New Year's Eve 1994 and operated until 2016. In 2011, the company built a production brewery nearby and opened a tap house for the public in 2016. Blackstone also brews traditional European lagers for the Nashville Brewing Company. Blackstone Brewing Company has received more awards than any other brewery in Nashville, winning multiple medals at the World Beer Cup and the Great American Beer Festival.
