BREWER'S ALLEY AT 30: BUILDING MARYLAND BEER TOGETHER
When Brewer’s Alley opened in downtown Frederick in 1996, there wasn’t much of a roadmap for building a craft brewery in Maryland.
For founder Phil Bowers, it started with homebrewing. “People were telling me, ‘Hey, you’re making pretty good beer.’ And then my little bit of a connection with the craft brewing industry at the time had me thinking, maybe this is something that I can get into.”
Much of that emerging craft beer scene was on the West Coast, so he went looking for experience. He visited breweries, talked to brewers, and took the intensive brewing course at UC Davis. But he knew where he wanted to build. “I wanted to do something in Frederick because that’s basically where I grew up.”
To mark the anniversary, we sat down with Phil and owner Greg Brown to talk about the early days, the people who built Maryland beer, and what it takes to carry a brewery forward.