By the 1970s, American beer had become remarkably uniform. Consolidation after Prohibition had left a small number of national brewers selling light, pale lagers. Brewery counts fell to historic lows, with fewer than a hundred brewing companies still operating in the late 1970s. Then a handful of stubborn enthusiasts started doing things differently.
Fritz Maytag rescues Anchor
In 1965 Fritz Maytag, a young heir to the Maytag appliance fortune, learned that San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing was about to close. He bought a majority stake and set about fixing a business with ageing equipment and a spotty reputation. Maytag focused on quality and tradition. He revived Anchor Steam Beer, a distinctive “steam beer” brewed with lager yeast at warmer temperatures, and in 1975 released Liberty Ale, a pale ale generously hopped with the new American Cascade variety. Anchor also made a barleywine and seasonal beers that were unusual in America at the time.
Around the same period, Jack McAuliffe founded New Albion Brewing in Sonoma, California, in 1976, often cited as the first new American microbrewery of the modern era. It closed in the early 1980s, but its influence on the founders who followed was enormous.
Homebrewing becomes legal
Prohibition-era rules had left homebrewing beer in a legal grey zone even after repeal, while home winemaking had been allowed. In 1978 Congress passed a bill, signed by President Jimmy Carter, that legalised federal homebrewing of beer for personal use. It took effect in February 1979. Individual states still had their own rules, and the last holdouts, Mississippi and Alabama, only legalised homebrewing in 2013.
That same year, Charlie Papazian and Charlie Matzen founded the American Homebrewers Association in Boulder, Colorado. Papazian’s book The Complete Joy of Homebrewing encouraged a generation to “relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew.” The Great American Beer Festival followed in 1982. Many future professional brewers started with a kit in their kitchens.
Sierra Nevada and the pale ale
In Chico, California, homebrewer Ken Grossman and Paul Camusi founded Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. around 1979 and 1980, building their brewery largely from salvaged dairy equipment. Their Pale Ale, first sold in 1981, used whole-cone Cascade hops to deliver a bold citrus and pine character. It became one of the most influential beers in American history and a template for the American pale ale and, later, the IPA boom.
Writers helped spread the word too. The British beer writer Michael Jackson’s World Guide to Beer (1977) introduced many Americans to the diversity of global styles, while Britain’s Campaign for Real Ale, founded in 1971, showed that consumers could organise to defend traditional beer.
Why it matters
The craft movement changed not just America but global beer culture. From fewer than a hundred brewing companies, the US grew to more than 9,000 breweries by the early 2020s, and craft-inspired brewers now thrive from Brazil to Japan. Along the way, the movement revived forgotten styles, created new ones and taught drinkers to care about hops, freshness and local character. It began with a few people who simply wanted better beer than they could buy.