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.
- The Americas · today
Regional Beer Favorites Across the Americas
From Wadadli to Polar: the beers that became cultural markers across the Americas, each linked to its brewery record, with every owner read live from the archive so the page is never out of date.
- Alberta · 2026
Alberta Makes Great Beer. So Why Is It So Hard to Make Money?
Eight or nine dollars a pint, and the brewery still struggles. The invoice price versus the wholesale price, a markup that climbs with every band, the cans, the kegs, the van, and a national beer market that has shrunk nine years running. Where the money in an Alberta pint actually goes.
- Ontario · a life so far
A Girl's Guide to Beer
A Labatt's Blue carried up a ladder at eight, a Molson 50 accepted at the cottage, draft by the pitcher behind a small-town bar. Cathy Dadson — author, freelance writer, Tally's sister — on what beer comes down to: the aftertaste, and the memories it brings back. The archive's first guest Take.
- Munich · 1328–today
The Rule of Six: The Beers That Own Oktoberfest
Augustiner, Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Löwenbräu, Spaten, Hofbräu — the only six breweries allowed to pour at Oktoberfest, six different ways a brewery survives two centuries, and the festival beer that turned from amber to gold while nobody was looking.
- London · Munich · Copenhagen · Burton · 1758–today
Beer Got Better Every Time We Measured Something
A thermometer, a hydrometer, a microscope, a refrigerator, a water analysis and a pure yeast culture given away for free. Six instruments, six dated leaps in what a brewer could know — and the case that AI in the brewhouse is the seventh, not a new kind of thing.
- Cockermouth · Sheffield · Netherton · 1988–2025
The Breweries That Wouldn't Stay Dead
Jennings, Kelham Island, Ma Pardoe's — three British breweries this archive recorded as CLOSED, and every one of them is brewing today. One night of source-checking brought all three back, and the pattern they share says something about what actually dies when a brewery closes.
- India · late 1800s–today
Kingfisher: The Beer That Outlived the Empire
From colonial cantonments to the King of Good Times, a stronger India, an airline that fell out of the sky and a Heineken boardroom — Tally's time machine follows the green bottle that survived every owner it ever had.
- Honolulu · 1901–today
Primo Outlived Every Brewery That Ever Made It
Born in 1901 Honolulu, killed by Prohibition, reborn in a new plant, canned in aluminum before almost anyone, shipped out of Hawaiʻi for the last time in 1979 — and still pouring. The beer brands layer of this archive opens with the brand that proved why it exists.
- Seattle · 1878–today
Rainier: The Beer Beneath the Mountain
From Andrew Hemrich's 1878 Seattle to running bottles, a screaming motorcycle, a giant red R over Interstate 5 and a brand that outlived its brewery — Tally's time machine follows the beer the mountain named.
- Somewhere in the Crowsnest Pass · a stormy night
The Night Shift
A storm over the Crowsnest Pass, an old miner with a printed coin, two brewery mugs that earned their stories — and four little machines building tomorrow out of almost nothing, one layer at a time.
- The Cotswolds · a day's drive
A Pilgrimage to Clarkson Country
Three stops, one Cotswolds beer trail, and a very suspiciously early pint — the Farmer's Dog, Diddly Squat and Hawkstone Brewery, walked as one modern farm-pub-brewery ecosystem.
- Kailua-Kona, Hawaiʻi · 1994–2026
There Are Two Konas. Only One of Them Is in Hawaiʻi.
The Longboard you drink in Kailua-Kona is brewed by an independent craft brewery. The Longboard you drink in Ohio belongs to Anheuser-Busch. Same name, same wave on the label — and the ocean between them was drawn by the Department of Justice.
- Lahaina, Maui · 2015–2025
The Fire Took the Brewery. It Didn't Take the Beer.
Koholā Brewery burned with Lahaina in August 2023. Two years later its beer pours in Wailea and Upcountry Maui — because a brewery, a company and a brand are three different things, and the fire only got one of them.
- Massachusetts · from 2011
Tree House Didn't Build a Brewery. It Built Gravity.
A brewery that could have simply expanded production instead built places — seven of them — and made the journey part of the product.
- Brewing technology · looking forward
The 4D Brewing Revolution
Digital twins, fermentation simulated through time, and robots that practise in a virtual brewhouse before touching a real one — and the one question none of it can answer.
- 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.
- St. Petersburg, Tokyo, Surrey BC, Kamloops · 2015–today
Changed Hands
The annual ownership ledger: every dated change of control in the archive since 2015, year by year — who bought, sold, merged or took over which brewery, with the grade and the sources. It rewrites itself from the ownership layer on every build.
- Jakarta, London Ontario, Burton, Waitsfield · 1929–2026
Whose Beer Is It?
The name on the can, the company that owns the name, the brewery that made it and the company that runs the brewery are four different things. Bintang is Heineken; Budweiser in Canada is Labatt; Bass is brewed under licence. Why the archive keeps them apart.
- Nevada City, Victoria, Nelson, Wrexham, Iqaluit · 1851–today
Ice Before Refrigeration
Lager is a cold beer, and for most of its history cold was something you cut from a lake or dug a cellar for. The geography of lager is the geography of ice — and the archive holds the breweries that were, by name, ice companies.
- Fairfax, Mobile, Regina, Haarlem · 1907–2026
The Building Outlived the Brewery
One Fairfax address, three breweries in twenty-eight years; a Regina brewery closed in 2002 whose address brewed again in 2025; churches, fire halls, petrol stations and a Navy warehouse. The site layer read for what a building does after the company is gone.
- Guatemala, Red River, Suva, Birmingham · 1729–2026
The Law That Shaped Your Beer
Why the beer is the strength it is, in the size it is, sold by whom to whom: the archive's law layer read as four questions — who may brew, who may drink, how strong, what it costs — from a 1729 petition in Guatemala to Alabama's 13.9% ceiling.
- Birmingham, Rossland, Burlington · 1852–1933
Dumped in the Street
Prohibition did not arrive on one date. It came county by county and province by province, a decade early in some places and a century early in one — and the archive's closure records show the waves. Plus the 300 barrels Birmingham may or may not have poured away.
- Everywhere · 2020–2026
The Closure Wave
More than 300 breweries in the archive closed between 2020 and 2026 — nearly four times the whole of the 2010s — and the count climbs every year. Directories delete a closure the day it happens. This is what they deleted, and what moved into the room.
- 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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