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 legalising 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 transformation 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 Homebrew Years: 1978 to 1994
The 1978 legalisation 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 flavourful 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, flavourful 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-flavoured, and made with genuine conviction.
The Brewpub Era and the First Wave: 1994 to 2010
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 flavour? 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.
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The Global Spread: 2010 to the Present
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.
Our Verdict
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 favourable 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 bar in this guide is one of those places.
