The Mash

Like all great breweries, Trillium Brewing Co. was built out of love. However, their love wasn’t just for beer, but also for each other! Trillium was founded by a husband and wife duo that thought, "Hey, what better way to celebrate our marriage than make our own celebratory craft beer?" Founders JC and Esther Tetreault wanted to share their creation and build a passionate community within their Boston neighborhood, and with Trillium, they have accomplished just that.

At the top of their website, Destihl Brewery demands two things of its fans. Right under their name, they boldly display their motto, in all caps: "Support flavor. Boycott bland." This is the idea that defines the brewery, a promise that they certainly fulfill.

Despite all odds, Matt Phillips made the system work for him. This is the sentence that describes every aspect of Phillips Brewing & Malting Co. In 2001, a time before craft beer had anybody's attention (least of all in British Columbia), Phillips launched his brewery without a single "normal" beer, like a pale ale or a lager, opting for daring, experimental flavors as his core aesthetic. He also accomplished all this without a bank loan, because he couldn't get one. He took out a handful of credit card applications and went into massive debt in order to start his company.

Crooked Stave was founded in 2010 when Chad Yakobson completed his master’s thesis on wild yeast fermentations. The Coloradan used his research to launch a brewery and distributor that would produce 100% Brettanomyces-fermented beers. Despite this common current, Crooked Stave brewing prides itself for making funky and innovative new brews. Most notably, their Wild and Barrel-Aged Sour beers have hit the ground running, having been rated as the top sour beers in Colorado and the world by New York Post and Serious Eats, respectively.

From The Ground is a small brewery founded by Jakob Cirell on the grounds of Migliorelli Farm in Red Hook, New York, in 2012. After years of working as a mechanical engineer in the Big Apple, Cirell decided to return to the farming practices he was raised with in Maine in his youth and pursue a dream of brewing beer for a living. Committed to using ingredients only grown on New York soil, From The Ground’s beers are the epitome of local agriculture. The Migliorelli Farm contains a 100-acre orchard which grows apples, pears, cherries, and a variety of tree fruits used in the barrel-aging process.

Not every brewery relies on age-old family secrets to make their beers. Rahr & Sons Brewing Company, however, stands out as one of those fine gems in the brewing world that has managed to make great, modern craft beer out of a family tradition. The Rahr family first entered the brewing world in 1847 after immigrating from Rhineland, Germany to the United States and starting the Rahr Malting Company, today one of the largest brewing suppliers in the country. In 2004, though, one of the Rahr boys decided he wanted to craft his own brews and started his own operation in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Barrier Brewing Company is based in East Rockaway, just a short jaunt away from our native Brooklyn, and was only founded in 2009. They may not have a full website yet, but they certainly have great visual style. Their bottle labels are covered in evocative pop-art designs, equal parts funky, fresh, and tongue-in-cheek. From a raven-haired, gothic duchess named Morticia, to a row of gold teeth and Money bling, just looking at the bottles had us eager to try.