Editorial
The history of the craft beer movement in America begins with a law change most people have never heard of. In 1978, President Carter signed legislation legalizing homebrewing at the federal level for the first time since Prohibition. What followed over the next four decades was the most significant transformation in American drinking culture since repeal. The craft beer movement went from a handful of obsessed homebrewers to a $26 billion industry in a single generation. Here is how it happened, and the bars where you can still taste the different eras. For the full global arc, from Belgian monastery brewing through Britain's CAMRA rebellion to today's worldwide movement, see our complete history of craft beer. For the cultural shift craft beer triggered, how it changed bar design, drinking habits, and what Americans expect from a pint, see our analysis of how craft beer changed drinking culture worldwide.
The 1978 legalization did not instantly produce a craft beer industry. What it produced was a generation of homebrewers who discovered that American lager, which was what virtually every commercial brewery was producing at the time, did not need to be the only option. Fritz Maytag had already bought and saved Anchor Brewing in San Francisco in 1965 and was making genuinely flavorful beer in a market that had largely forgotten the concept. But Anchor was an anomaly. The homebrew revolution was the education that created the market.
Sierra Nevada Brewing Company opened in Chico, California in 1980. Ken Grossman built it on equipment he largely made himself and with a commitment to hoppy, flavorful ales that had not been commercially available in America for decades. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, released in 1981, is arguably the most influential single beer in American history. It established the template for what an American craft beer could be: hop-forward, full-flavored, and made with genuine conviction.
Russian River Brewing built its name in Santa Rosa on Pliny the Elder, the double IPA that helped set the American hop standard, and now runs a second 85,000-square-foot brewpub in Windsor with a beer garden and tours. The annual Pliny the Younger release draws lines around the block. Go midweek to skip the crowd, order a fresh Pliny on draft, and stay for the pub menu. Best for pilgrims of the West Coast IPA.
By the mid-1990s, the craft beer movement had enough momentum to produce a wave of brewpubs, restaurants with brewing operations attached, that brought fresh local beer to parts of the country that had never had it. This period also produced the first serious arguments about what craft beer was supposed to be: was it about flavor? Locality? Independence? Size? The Brewers Association eventually settled on a definition, but the debates from this period shaped the movement's values in ways that are still visible today.
Portland, Oregon emerged as the second capital of American craft beer during this period. By 2000, Portland had more breweries per capita than any city in the world, and the culture around those breweries was genuinely different from anywhere else, more communal, less precious, more interested in session strength and variety than in prestige.
Horse Brass Pub has poured in southeast Portland since 1976, the British-style pub that anchored the city's rise into America's beer capital. Don Younger ran it as a clubhouse for the early craft scene, and the long bank of taps still leans local and serious. Order a cask ale, claim a worn wooden booth, and settle in for the night. Best for a slow session, for drinkers who want the room where Portland beer grew up.
Blind Tiger Ale House has been Greenwich Village's craft beer landmark since the 1990s, the West Village room that taught New York to take American beer seriously. The taps rotate hard and the brewery nights pull crowds for rare kegs. Skip the table search and post up at the bar, order whatever just tapped, and ask what is fresh. Best for a midweek tasting, for drinkers chasing the keg the menu cannot keep on.
By 2010, the American craft beer model had crossed the Atlantic and was influencing British, Scandinavian, and eventually continental European brewing in ways that the traditionalists in those countries found alarming. London's BrewDog bar opened in 2010 and was immediately controversial. The beer was too hoppy, too American, too willing to provoke. It was also genuinely good, which made the criticism harder to sustain. BrewDog is now a global brand, and the bar culture it helped create in Britain is one of the most interesting in the world.
The Craft Beer Co. opened on Leather Lane in Clerkenwell in 2011 and grew into a small London group, with the Covent Garden room claiming one of the country's biggest tap walls. The lists run global and the cask handles keep it British. Take the stairs for a quieter seat, order a third-of-a-pint flight, and work across styles. Best for a deep-dive session, for drinkers who treat the tap list like a reading list.
Mikkeller Bar opened in 2010 on Viktoriagade in Vesterbro, the home room for Mikkel Borg Bjergso's gypsy-brewing project and a hub for Copenhagen's craft scene. Twenty taps pour Mikkeller alongside the world's best, and the pale wood room stays calm and design-forward. Go early evening, order a low-strength table beer to start, and build from there. Best for a tasting flight, for drinkers who want Denmark's most influential beer bar.
The history of the craft beer movement is the history of what happens when people care enough about a thing to do it properly in defiance of what the market says is acceptable. Fritz Maytag, Ken Grossman, and the homebrewers who preceded them were not operating in a favorable environment. They made their beer anyway, and the industry that followed was built on the same combination of stubbornness and genuine craft.
The best craft beer bars today are still built on that foundation. The equipment is better and the distribution is global, but the bars worth going to are the ones where someone is still making decisions based on what the beer should taste like, not what it should sell for. Every open bar in this guide is one of those places.