Description
It was Northern California in 1993. Tony Magee started brewing a homebrew kit on the stove, and after a couple of batches, some spice sprinkled over his back. When Thanksgiving night came and the wort caught fire and the turkey burned crispy, Tony's wife Carissa kindly asked him to move his new hobby to another location. He moved to an old warehouse in the city of Forest Knolls, California (next to the city of Lagunitas, which Tony thought had a cool-sounding name ...) and began to brew more and more. The beers ranged from mean and disgusting to tender and extraordinary. And then IPA came and he knew that he could never return. Eventually Tony grew out of this room and immediately moved down the street to Petaluma to bring his recipes and the name Lagunitas. As the brewery grew, the tribe that drank the beer followed, and we expanded our zymurgical reach to new areas and new beers. One morning when Tony drove from his home to the Petaluma brewery, he thought of his beer traveling across the country and realized how to get fresh beer there. The answer was: Chicago. With the help of some new friends in the Windy City, our production facility in Pilsen opened its doors a year later and started brewing for Chicagoland and everything east of the Rocky Mountains. A brewery in Seattle followed shortly afterwards in the west, and another in Azusa, California. Lagunitas beers are now available and growing in 20 countries. And whether we support local communities by turning beer into cash for the cause or simply firing stories and songs with IPA and other fine beers, we have learned one thing (besides how to cook a turkey) ... Wherever you go: beer speaks, people murmur.
