In cities with passionate local beer scenes, you’ll often find a craft beer bar that\u2019s anchored the scene, be it for five, 10, 20, or 30 years. The longer the beer bar has been around, the earlier that community of brewers, publicans and drinkers came together as a cohesive community enriching everyone.<\/p>\n
Here are six iconic U.S. craft beer bars which have strengthened beer communities in the cities where they operate, from oldest to newest.<\/p>\n
The Toronado | San Francisco<\/h2>\n
As a brewer, Jesse Friedman from Almanac Beer Co.<\/a> says being able to say you\u2019re on tap at the Toronado is a big deal – a life goal. As a customer, he adds, the gruff demeanor of the Toronado bartenders is part of the whole experience.<\/p>\n Dave Keene opened the now-iconic Toronado about 30 years ago in San Francisco\u2019s Lower Haight neighborhood on August 5, 1987. The service is no-nonsense, the beer is cash-only, and the bathrooms are well known for being small and grungy. It\u2019s also one of the most prestigious and well-respected beer bars in the world.<\/p>\n Friedman says that while the pioneering Toronado<\/a> cares about freshness and cultivates relationships with breweries, hype doesn\u2019t really matter to Keene & Co. \u201cThey set their own path and invariably it works out their way.\u201d<\/p>\n Vinnie Cilurzo, co-founder of Russian River Brewing Company<\/a> in Santa Rosa, California, notes that the Toronado is one of the oldest craft beer bars in the United States. “I think it goes without saying that Toronado has influenced the San Francisco and Bay Area beer scene more than any other establishment,” Cilurzo says. “It really means something to a brewer or brewery to have their beer on tap at the Toronado.\u201d<\/p>\n (READ: 8 Farm Breweries to Visit This Year<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s 21st Amendment Brewing<\/a> co-founder Nico Freccia jokes, \u201cI love to talk about the Toronado. It\u2019s one of my favorite subjects and where I asked my wife to scatter my ashes.\u201d (He notes that Keene does not know about this plan.)<\/p>\n When Freccia started going to the Toronado regularly in 1994, he describes it as primarily a neighborhood bar, but also one of the few places anywhere where Belgian beer was available. He also points to the bar\u2019s Barleywine Festival, which started as an annual event in 1993 until 2015, as evidence of Keene\u2019s beer-forward thinking.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople didn\u2019t know what a barleywine was [in 1993] and most breweries didn\u2019t brew one,\u201d Freccia says. But the Toronado found more than 30 examples in those early years, and as the festival progressed over time, added multiple verticals, which helped people understand how beer ages.<\/p>\n The cash-only bar only sells two things, beer and t-shirts, which Cilurzo sees as one of the reasons for the Toronado\u2019s success. \u201cBecause of this, they can focus on selection, inventory and clean lines.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Roper, owner of the 25-year-old Hopleaf<\/a> beer bar in Chicago, remembers that in 1992, there wasn\u2019t much of a local beer scene in the area.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very small, very troubled scene,\u201d he says. Chicago city leadership did not issue one permit for breweries or taverns in the 22 years Richard M. Daley was mayor (1989-2011). That\u2019s why Three Floyds opened in Indiana, Roper says, and all the employees live in the Chicago area and commute.<\/p>\n Hopleaf opened in February 1992 with eight beers on tap and 35 bottles. Roper refused to carry the popular standard macro lagers of the day. Early customers who walked through the door were always surprised.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy do I have to carry beer that I\u2019m not passionate about?\u201d<\/p>\n Of the bar’s 65 taps, 15 are reserved for Belgian beers and 15 for Chicago breweries.\u00a0He believes carefully curating your beer list is the key to staying relevant.<\/p>\n \u201cOur draft list changes every day,” he tells us. “I print out 250 menus every day. It\u2019s a full-time job just to keep up with the thousands of beers available now.\u201d<\/p>\n The Hopleaf has supported the legacy breweries like Firestone Walker, New Belgium and Sierra Nevada from the very beginning.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of that loyalty we get a lot of special releases from those breweries,\u201d Roper says.<\/p>\n Gabriel Magliaro founded Half Acre Brewery<\/a> in 2006, and prior to that (and since then) visited the Hopleaf frequently.<\/p>\n \u201cIt had the best selection of Belgian beer, and early on provided a true, authentic publican experience,\u201d he says. As soon as Half Acre was incorporated, he started working with Roper. \u201cIt\u2019s a great example of a place we\u2019d love to have our beer sold.\u201d<\/p>\n (LEARN: Take CraftBeer.com 101 Course<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n Falling Rock Tap House\u2019s 20th anniversary is June 2017 and owner Chris Black<\/a> has scheduled a week of celebration. He\u2019s flown all over the country to brew collaboration birthday beers with some of the breweries that have come to think of Falling Rock as a second home, especially during the Great American Beer Festival (GABF).<\/p>\n GABF is a big part of why Black opened Falling Rock Tap House in 1997. He\u2019d moved to Denver from Houston, following a career in beer, working for beer bars like the Ginger Man, breweries and distributors. He moved to Denver to do something with beer, and although the Wynkoop Brewpub was popular at that time and Great Divide was making local beer for the market, there were no beer bars.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring GABF, bars would put up banners, and sell a bucket of Sam Adams longnecks for $20, but that was the extent of it,\u201d he explains. \u201cI thought if I opened a place and put on a whole bunch of cool beers, no one else is doing that and I had all these contacts going back 10, 15 years. That would appeal to the uber beer geek coming out to the festival.\u201d<\/p>\n Lauren Limbach (formerly Salazar), the specialty brand manager and wood cellar blender at New Belgium Brewing<\/a> in nearby Fort Collins, says, \u201cDuring GABF, we share [the Tap House] with the entire beer drinking community. It\u2019s the maddest of all madhouses. Tappings every hour on the hour. Everyone comes out of the woodwork.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year at GABF, the Falling Rock Tap House held 31 events in six days, with special brewery offerings being tapped almost every hour. Although during the high season of the Great American Beer Festival, rare kegs are plentiful.<\/p>\n (LEARN: Our Big List of Beer Schools<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n \u201cWe were the only game in town for a decade. Then things exploded. Now, there are three or four places in Denver I really like to go. Great Divide is my local haunt if I don\u2019t want to be at the Tap House.\u201d<\/p>\n Brian Dunn from Great Divide verifies this, adding that his staff are regulars at Falling Rock. \u201cChris comes to our taproom bar, he\u2019s a big supporter of local breweries. We go there all the time, and he brings his crew to brewery events.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re lucky to have them in Denver,\u201d Dunn says. \u201cAnd after 20 years frequenting the Tap House, there are so many stories I can never tell.\u201d<\/p>\n The Birmingham scene was bleak when Jerry Hartley opened the J. Clyde on April 13, 2007.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was nothing here. No place to get craft beer, and only one brewery in the state,\u201d Hartley says.<\/p>\n He moved to Birmingham in 2004 after living in Germany for several years\u00a0and tried to find quality beers in his city, like the ones he loved overseas.<\/p>\n Originally, Hartley wanted to open his own brewery, but Alabama\u2019s restrictive laws regarding breweries and beer at the time made it too difficult. Instead, he opened the J. Clyde, a beer bar and restaurant and worked to help change state laws and the local beer culture.<\/p>\n \u201cIf there were people like me looking for quality beer,\u201d Hartley says, \u201cI knew there would be others.\u201d<\/p>\n The J. Clyde started with 40 taps, which Hartley filled with imports and quality craft he could find under the state\u2019s legal ABV limit. He worked with the legislative advocacy group, Free the Hops, to change the antiquated beer laws and the group used the J. Clyde as a meeting place and rallying point.<\/p>\n In 2009, the ABV limit was raised from 6% to 13.9% and in 2011, The Brewery Modernization Act was signed into law, allowing breweries to open taprooms and sell their beer on site.<\/p>\n \u201cAs taprooms opened in 2012, that ignited people\u2019s interest in local beer,\u201d Hartley says. \u201cWe remodeled our back bar with 13 taps exclusively for Alabama beers and four more to pour at cellar temps.\u201d<\/p>\n (LEARN: Details on 75+ Popular Beer Styles<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n The J. Clyde helped Good People, Birmingham\u2019s first brewery, in their early days with \u201cresearch and development.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhatever they brewed, we\u2019d tap it and give them the feedback we heard,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Michael Sellers, Good People Brewing<\/a> co-founder, says that both the brewery and the J. Clyde started around the same time, which created a common goal between the two businesses to promote craft and local beer.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could get beer there you couldn\u2019t get from other bars and you were exposed to different styles of beer,\u201d Sellers says \u201cThere\u2019s so much more craft now, so the impact is lessening but for years, it was the place to be for craft beer in the area.\u201d<\/p>\n Greg Engert worked at the Brickskeller in Dupont Circle before joining the Neighborhood Restaurant Group as a partner and beer director. The Brickskeller first opened in 1957 and was the site of the first tasting that Michael Jackson held in the United States, due to its strong Belgian beer program.<\/p>\n The owners of the Brickskeller, the Coja family, took advantage of Washington DC’s singular import and distribution laws that permitted bars to serve beer from all 50 states.<\/p>\n Although the Brickskeller closed in 2010, its owners set into motion a progressive beer culture, which is directly responsible for the current success of all beer bars in Washington, D.C. The legendary beer hall, Engert says, continues to influence DC beer culture due to the Coja family’s pioneering vision.<\/p>\n Engert and his partners opened ChurchKey in 2009, the group\u2019s first property in Washington, D.C. The concept, as overseen by Engle, includes a five-engine cask program, heightened levels of service, and a temperature-controlled draft system. The 50 beers on tap are carefully sourced. The attention to service means menus are always updated, the food menu complements the beer, educated staff is at the ready, and proper glassware will be deployed.<\/p>\n (COOK WITH BEER: Hundreds of Recipes<\/a><\/strong>)<\/p>\n \u201cChurchKey has provided a lot of consumer education – for example, breaking the menu down into approachable style categories with descriptors,\u201d DC Brau<\/a> founder Brandon Skall says. \u201cNow it\u2019s an educated populace.\u201d<\/p>\n DC Brau, the first distributed brewery in Washington, D.C., opened in 2011, two years after ChurchKey.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city\u2019s been purveying great beers since the 1950s,” Engert says. \u201cWe were a city of beer bars before having a brewing community.\u201d<\/p>\n Polly Watts took over her father\u2019s neighborhood bar on St. Charles Avenue knowing nothing about beer. Now, she\u2019s the local leading expert.<\/p>\n The Avenue Pub<\/a> converted to a craft beer bar in 2009, the same year that NOLA Brewing began producing beer. At that time, the only other local option was Abita, Watts says.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only other breweries we had access to were Rogue, North Coast, Harpoon and Brooklyn. That was it,” she tells us. “There was very little out there.\u201d<\/p>\n National breweries and local distributors were unwilling to take a risk and send specialty styles to the untested New Orleans market. But Watts began talking to her connections with importers, and they would go through their list line by line with her.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started turning people onto sours, Belgian pale ales, saisons and barrel aged imperial stouts,\u201d Watts says. \u201cAnd all the beers were exceptional – they blew people away. You do that a few times and you get a beer person.\u201d<\/p>\n She transformed the beer selection.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one had heard of anything on the menu before, and that was a deliberate strategy. If you put on a bunch of new beers and one familiar, people will gravitate toward the familiar,\u201d Watts says. \u201cThis way, at that time, chances were that no one knew anything about the beers or the styles and they had to talk to the bartenders to learn about them. It got people to be more experimental in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Avenue proved that there was safety in showcasing the higher end, experimental beers – and they could really shine there,\u201d says Dylan Lintern, COO of NOLA Brewing<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Great](\"https:\/\/cdn.craftbeer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/GABB.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nHopleaf | Chicago<\/h2>\n
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Falling Rock Tap House | Denver<\/h2>\n
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J. Clyde | Birmingham, AL<\/h2>\n
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ChurchKey | Washington, D.C.<\/h2>\n
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The Avenue Pub | New Orleans<\/h2>\n
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