Omnivore - Georgia's Brewed Awakening

• Illustration by Wes Duvall

For as long as he can remember, SweetWater Brewing Company CEO Freddy Bensch says Georgia has been known as a "craft-brewing wasteland." Surprising words, perhaps, from the man who co-founded the state's most successful local brewery 16 years ago. But they're words forged in the trenches of the craft beer-less days of decades past, when drinking local meant buying Budweiser from the grocery store up the street.

Between 1993 and 2002, a handful of craft breweries and brewpubs began popping up around the Atlanta area. Elder statesmen such as Red Brick (formerly Atlanta Brewing Company), SweetWater, Five Seasons, and Terrapin introduced such household names-to-be as 420 and Hopsecutioner, and laid the groundwork for the current craft beer boom. Unfortunately, by the early aughts, archaic distribution rules, and prudish, restrictive alcohol-by-volume (ABV) laws had stifled the homegrown industry. Georgia capped ABV at 6 percent, limiting the ability of local brewers, barkeeps, and beer lovers to experiment. But in 2004, the state raised the legal ABV limit to 14 percent, a move that not only allowed establishments like Decatur's Brick Store Pub to start serving some of the finest high-gravity beers in the world, widening palates and deepening consumer interest in the process, but also freed up local brewers to be more adventurous with their creations.

Continue reading "Georgia's Brewed Awakening" by Austin L. Ray