Great Craft Beer Breweries in the US
Craft beer brewing has really taken off in recent years. Luckily for you we have rounded up some great craft beer spots for you. With a growing number of drinkers looking for more variety in their beer and smaller brewers really pushing larger established companies for a share of the market.
What defines a craft brewer is an annual production of 6 million barrels of beer or less, and that less than 25% of the company is owned by another company that is not a craft brewer.
The explosion in the popularity of craft beer has led to more breweries opening, more beers being made, and even more events and awesome beer-based festivals.
In 2019, 40 out of the 50 top brewers in the US were craft brewers and, while they can’t compete with companies like Anheuser-Busch, MillerCoors, Heineken, Pabst Brewing, or Sam Adams for production and distribution capacity, their quality does mean you’ll see their products on shelves next to Budweiser and Miller Light.
In this article, we’ll be looking at some of the best established and up-and-coming craft breweries in the US and what great craft beer they are adding to the market.
Suarez Family Brewery
Based in Hudson, New York, and established in 2016, the Suarez Family Brewery founder and head brewer, Dan Suarez, learned his skills from the equally famous Shaun Hill. Shaun ran the fantastic Hill Farmstead brewery in Vermont.
The Suarez Family Brewery has released some real winners, such as the Palatine Pils, General Store bière de garde, Bones Shirt black lager, and Crispy Little.
In addition to releasing some great beers, they have also reinvigorated the love in their local area for non-traditional types of beer.
Dan Suarez is a huge fan of the New York Knicks and claims that they better they play, the better his beer tastes. So, for the best experience, visit the Suarez Family Brewery when the Knicks are set to be the winners of the NBA Championship!
Bell’s Brewing
Despite craft beer not really being a hot choice in 1985 Michigan, Larry Bell ignored the people who called him crazy and opened his own brewery anyway.
Proving all those nay-sayers wrong, Bell’s Brewing has gone on to create some of the biggest names in craft beer; from Two Hearted, which is always high on the list of best Indian Pale Ales (IPAs) in the US, to the now unofficial state beer of Michigan, Oberon.
With winter closing in, the perfect fireside tipple of the Bell’s Cherry Stout is exactly what you need to put you in a festive mood.
The Alchemist
Vermont’s premier craft ale brewery, the aptly named Alchemist is responsible for the USA’s first real hazy IPA, Heady Topper, which has since gone on to become the brewery’s flagship drink.
Unforgettably, the original brewery location at Waterbury in Vermont has had to be closed due to damage from Hurricane Irene. However, the secondary location at Stowe is well worth a visit. Not only because they have all of The Alchemist’s fantastic creations on tap, but because it has a frisbee golf course and is just down the road from the Ben & Jerry’s factory.
IMAGE HERE >>>> https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2015/09/24/20/36/beer-barrel-956322_960_720.jpg >>> Photo
WeldWerks Brewing Company
Established in 2015 in Greeley, Colorado, the most stereotypical of blue-collar Colorado working towns, WeldWerks Brewing Company is probably most famous for its Juicy Bits, a fresh take on a New England IPA that brought the brewery some much deserved nationwide attention.
WeldWerks has a reputation for creating some of the most off the wall beers you can buy in the US, and in significant quantities as well. They produced 138 unique beers in 2018 and they are on track to realize over 100 beers this year.
Most of the time, if someone offered you a beer called Taco Gose and told you it was made from 600lbs of roasted tomatoes, topped off with a spice list that sounds like the ingredients for your favorite chili, you’d probably shine them on. But, given this brewery’s success so far, when it comes with the WeldWerks Brewing Company stamp even this kind of crazy might be worth a try.
Bale Breaker Brewing Company
If you were going to base a brewery anywhere in the continental US, you may as well open it in a place that grows 73% of all the hops produced nationwide.
Bale Breaker Brewing was opened in Washington’s Yakima Valley in 2013 and is the only craft brewery in the US that has its own attached hop farm. The placement of the brewery gives Bale Breaker Brewing a slight edge over the competition.
Because they are sited in the middle of the largest hop-growing sector in the USA, the brewery has access to strains of hops that don’t even have a recognized name yet; this is thanks to their partnership with Yakima Chief Hops, a global supplier of hops that is entirely farmer-owned.
pFriem Family Brewers
No, that’s not a typo, that is exactly how the name is spelled. Even with the handicap of an entirely unpronounceable name pFriem Family Brewers has gone, in seven years, from a family start-up to being widely recognized as one of the best breweries in Oregon.
One of the secrets to the pFriem Family Brewers’ success is the fact that they reach outside of the traditional beer brewing community, connecting with chefs, winemakers, and even cheesemakers to unlock the secrets of adding distinct tastes by using specifically sourced ingredients from different regions.
It’s not surprising then that the brewery is famous for its fruit beers, and produces 12-15 new fruit-based beers every year, using ingredients such as raspberries, peaches, nectarines, wine grapes, and even marionberries.
A Great Selection
So there you have it, with the popularity of great craft beer going from strength to strength, the US is producing some of the best craft beer breweries in the world, each with their own take on brewing.
With a more artisanal approach to beer now becoming the norm, we can look forward to a future filled with beers brewed with real skill, care, and a range of interesting and exciting ingredients.