The archive's own writing
Tally's Take
Records tell you what a brewery is. These tell you what happened. Every piece is sourced the same way the archive is — and where the reporting disagrees with itself, we say so rather than pick the tidier version.
- Spain · to 2026
Spain Doesn't Have One Beer Story
A cooperative run by four women, a brewery named for a mining valley, and a factory that closed with 78 workers and was brewing again a year later under a different company.
- Valchiavenna · 1833–1957, and after
The Valley That Once Brewed a Fifth of Italy's Beer
Nine breweries in one Alpine valley, cooled by cracks in the mountainside, and a modern brewery carrying a historic name that is not the same company.
- Central Bohemia · to 2026
The Brewery Map Is Lying to You
Antoš closed but its brand lives on, three Czech companies sell beer they do not brew, and a man with a 150-litre brewhouse was missing from every map.
- Bavaria · 1040 to now
The Oldest Brewery on Earth Is Owned by a Government
Weihenstephan dates its brewing to 1040. The monks no longer run it — the Free State of Bavaria does, and only three records in this archive sit outside private hands.
- Britain and Europe · 19th–20th century
When Beer Was Treated Like Medicine
Stout was once recommended to nursing mothers and people recovering from illness. Beer history is not only what people drank — it is what they believed beer could do.
- Bavaria · 1516
The Reinheitsgebot Wasn't Just About Pure Beer
The 1516 Bavarian decree is remembered as the Beer Purity Law. It was also grain policy, price control and a government putting its hand on the brewing economy.
- Microgravity · ongoing
Beer Has a Gravity Problem
Carbonation only behaves because gravity makes it. Remove gravity and the pint has to be redesigned — bubbles, container and all.
- Mesopotamia and Egypt · antiquity
Imagine Getting Paid in Beer
Mesopotamian and Egyptian records show beer issued as part of workers' rations. Before direct deposit there were grain rations — and sometimes they arrived fermented.
- London · 17 October 1814
The Day London Was Flooded With Beer
On 17 October 1814 a vat failed at the Horse Shoe Brewery and porter poured into St Giles. Eight people died. The name sounds comic; the event was an industrial disaster.
- Dublin · physics, ongoing
Why Guinness Bubbles Appear to Fall
Bubbles rise. So why does a settling stout look like it is pouring downward? Because a pint glass is a fluid-dynamics experiment you can drink.
- Scotland · the strength race
When Beer Reached 67.5% Alcohol
Snake Venom was advertised at 67.5%. Yeast cannot get anywhere near that, so the strength came from freezing — and the number came from the brewery.
- Cannabaceae · botany
Hops and Cannabis Are Botanical Cousins
That dank IPA is not imagining things. Humulus lupulus and cannabis share a plant family, and some of the same aromatic chemistry.
- Washington DC · 2011–2012
Beer Was Brewed Inside the White House
Honey from the White House beehive, a homebrew campaign, and recipes released to the public in 2012. For a moment the executive residence was a brewery.
- Germany · 1040 to now
Germany: The Beer Country That Refuses to Be One Story
Weihenstephan brewing since 1040, Hasseröder inside AB InBev, Colbitzer insolvent but still pouring, and 120-litre cellar systems the directories never see.
- Baja California · 1923 to now
Mexico’s Beer Story Is Bigger Than the Bottle
A 1923 border brewery, a craft brewery working inside its shell, two identities at one Ensenada address and beer taking root in Mexico’s most famous wine valley.
- United States · 1976–2026
The Mucus in the Bottle
Schlitz swapped a stabiliser to keep it off the label, ten million bottles came back, and 177 years later the last batch was brewed to the recipe from before the shortcuts.
- Canada · 1620 to now
The Country in the Glass: Canada Is Not One Story
Talon’s brewery at Québec, a Dartmouth backyard, dairy gear in Horseshoe Bay and a national thirst in its ninth year of decline — one country, many beer cultures.
- Global · volume rankings
Not One of the World's Twenty Biggest Beers Is Independent
Nineteen of the twenty best-selling beers on earth have a record in this archive. Every one of them is macro-owned.
- Alberta · 1890s onward
The Brewery That Taught Alberta to Grow Barley
Calgary Brewing & Malting imported seed barley from Ontario, handed it to Alberta farmers, and guaranteed them 25% over market price to plant it.
- Alberta · from 1916
Beer When Beer Was Banned
Alberta went dry in 1916. The brewery did not close — it made something legal, and sent the rest to Saskatchewan.
- Calgary · 1936 and 2006
The Brewery in a WWII Air Force Hangar
A 1936 Quonset hut at Calgary's Currie Barracks became a microbrewery in 2006. The roof never changed.
- Calgary · 2019–2020
The Nine Months That Took Two Calgary Breweries
Wild Rose went to Sleeman in May 2019. Banded Peak went to Labatt in January 2020. Both kept their names, their recipes and their taprooms.
- Alberta · 2012–2013
The Tool Shed That Changed Alberta's Brewing Law
Alberta required half a million litres a year before it would licence a brewery. Two men brewing in a backyard shed got the rule deleted.
- Calgary · 21 December 2011
The First Village Keg Race
Thirty kegs, six partners, and two men in separate cars racing across Calgary to make the first sale. Both bars still claim they won.
- Dover · 1864
Divers Find 162-Year-Old Guinness in a Shipwreck
A bottle of Guinness Extra Stout came up off the wreck of the Mindoro, lost in the Channel in 1864. Belgian scientists are now trying to revive its yeast.
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