10 Small-Batch Breweries Beer Lovers Need to Try
Yahoo Food is partnering with Barnraiser, a crowd-funding site that helps raise money for farmers and food entrepreneurs. Each week, we’ll feature a story which highlights the mission of Barnraiser: to put a billion dollars into the hands of food innovators as they reshape a healthy food world. This week we’re featuring Barnraiser’s roundup of ten of the best small batch, artisanal breweries from across the country.
Tired Hands Brewing Company
Ardmore, PA @tiredhandsbeer
Current beers on tap (2 locations): 9 at the Brew Café, 12 at Fermentaria.
Tired Hands Brewing Company brews beers equally inspired by the farmhouse brewers of France and Belgium and the pioneering, heavy handed, brewers of America.
Why they’re awesome: “Localization guides everything we do, from sourcing raw ingredients and materials, to employing area talent. We bake bread on-site and source our simple menu of cheeses, meats, and seasonal produce from roughly 100 miles from our brewery. Simply put, our food serves our beer.”
Small Batch Beer Company
Winston-Salem, NC @smallbatchws
Current beers on tap: 8
Small Batch Beer Co. had a vision: Locally sourced. A little new, a little old. Organic and industrial. Sophisticated but homey. And lots of creativity mixed with just the right amount of classic to create a brewery in downtown Winston Salem.
Why they’re awesome: No matter what they’re making they experiment with ingredients. With little interest in obeying recipes. It’s this willingness to take risks and push the limits that makes them able to introduce you to an experience like never before.
Related: Who Knew? 8 Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Hops
Batch Brewing Company
Detroit, MI @batchbrewing
Current beers on tap: 13
Batch Brewing Company is Detroit’s first Nano brewery striving to make the best, cleanest tasting beer using local ingredients whenever possible.
Why they’re awesome: They started the “Feelgood Tap”: “We’re convinced we’ll be able to be wildly successful AND make a positive impact on the community around us.“ Each month, Batch Brewing Company partners with a different local nonprofit or charity group and creates a beer in honor of that partner. $2 from each pint goes to a local non profit.
Foundation Brewing Company
Portland, ME @foundationbrew
Current beers on tap: 5
Foundation Brewing is an independent artisanal brewery based in Portland, Maine. Wholly focused on creating world-class beers which pay homage to classic beers, but bring you something entirely new and exciting.
Why they’re awesome: They’re always experimenting. Their latest venture is available in cans; Prototype. Available in cans, Prototype is the 16 oz. physical manifestations of the ideation process, designed to be shared and enjoyed. This series of beers varies from batch to batch, allowing you to join in the creative process. The cans are stamped with their packaged date and the style of beer on the bottom.
The Ale Apothecary
Bend, Oregon @drugstorebrewer
Current beers on tap: 6
The Ale Apothecary produces hand made beer using their own innovative brewing process, which melds the ancient art of brewing with traditions of wine & champagne production. It is through a ‘mixed fermentation’ that their beer develops such complexities and character.
Why they’re awesome: There are absolutely no additives, processing aids, mineral salts, stabilizers, or artificial CO2 added to their beer at any time during production. "In an era of hop madness, we use only one hop, the Cascade hop grown by Goschie Family Farms in Silverton, OR.”
Have a brewery or food craft business? Learn how to raise funds on Barnraiser
Cellarmaker Brewing Company
San Francisco, CA @CellarmakerBeer
Current beers on tap: 8
Cellarmaker Brewing Co is a San Francisco brewery producing small batches of experimental beers. Their limited output and choice to abandon the common concept of a set production schedule (and flagship beers) allows them to constantly experiment with different hops, grains, barrels, and yeasts.
Why they’re awesome: The PhoMoMoCoe: They brewed this Pho inspired beer with Tired Hands Brewing. Motueka, Simcoe & Mosaic and limes, Rice noodles, thai basil, Culinary IPA ~ 6.7% ABV/49 IBU. Also their brewer has a rat tail.
Ranger Creek Brewing & Distilling
San Antonio, TX @rangercreek
Current beers on tap: 3-5
Ranger Creek is a combined brewery/distillery in San Antonio, TX. Ranger Creek believes in using local ingredients to make quality products by hand. They sum it up, “Sometimes we make them in traditional ways, and sometimes we experiment to create new and interesting things.”
Why they’re awesome: They make their beer and whiskey in their “brewstillery,” one batch at a time with lots of love and attention. As a combined operation, they highlight this relationship by aging their beer in bourbon barrels and distiling their beers into whiskeys.
Little Harpeth Brewing
Nashville, TN @LHBrew
Current beers on tap: 5 perennial, 4 seasonal
Crafting in the tradition of German lagers, consistent with the beers of pre-prohibition Middle Tennesseans, Little Harpeth has a mission to preserve the past, enjoy the present, and sustain the future of brewing in Middle Tennessee.
Why they’re awesome: “We are dedicated to the improvement of our community and to the quality of our product; And we are working hard to give you the beer you deserve… At Little Harpeth we are constantly looking for new ways to minimize our carbon footprint… When it comes to brewing we are constantly looking for ways to bring you the best beer under the best conditions.”
City Star Brewing
Berthoud, CO @CityStarBrewing
Current beers on tap: 9
City Star Brewing offers small batch ales, hand crafted on a 3.5 barrel brew system in the heart of downtown Berthoud, Colorado. The small town brewery was awarded the Bronze medal at the world renown, Great American Beer Festival in 2015.
Why they’re awesome: Their CALAMITY JANE brew: A City Star ladies collaboration for International Women’s Day. A 2015 recipe brewed with pink peppercorn, pink grapefruit and galaxy hops. 5% ABV | 27 IBU
Forbidden Root
Chicago, IL @ForbiddenRoot
At Forbidden Root, Chicago’s first botanic brewery, they craft botanical beverages with a unique recipe development process that results in beers that taste like no one else’s.
Why they’re awesome: "The use of bark, stems, blossoms, sap, herbs, spices, leaves, bark, flowers, honey, and roots reflects humankind’s instinct and perennial quest to forage for new and different flavors. All but forgotten for the last 150 years, we think the qualities and values of these old time botanic brews have a lot of life in them, and aim to make them relevant again and feel it our mantle to take it the next step.”
Barnraiser is the No. 1 crowd-funding community for good food and healthy living. At Barnraiser, you will meet the people changing how we eat and live, share their inspirational stories and fund good food, farming, edible education, social innovations and more projects that create a healthier world.
