The United States is a very urban society. Approximately 83% of Americans live in urban areas, up from 64% in 1950. More than 300 urban areas in the U.S. have populations greater than 100,000. I live in one of them – the city of Toledo, OH has a population of ~271,000, while the Toledo Metropolitan Area has a population of ~641,000. The largest city in the country is New York City, with a population of ~8.4 million.

Not surprisingly, most of America’s craft breweries are to be found in urban areas. Some calculations that I did for a 2018 paper that I wrote estimated that 72% of America’s craft breweries are located in metropolitan areas with populations of at least 250,000, while 16.2% of America’s craft breweries are located in just ten metropolitan areas. Brewing beer, it appears, is a big city business.

But what about brewing in small-town and rural America? I recently started thinking about that question after a Zoom conversation I had with Nicki Werner, Co-Founder and Brewer at Jefferson Beer Supply, in Jefferson, SD. Jefferson Beer Supply is a brewery in planning; it is not open and operational yet; but should be by the summer of 2021. Nicki was preparing a presentation to be made to the city council and loan approval board. She had been following my blog for some months and was reaching out to see if I could help her craft some arguments about the beneficial impact of craft breweries on small towns. Jefferson does not have a craft brewery – hardly surprising given that it has a population of 622. However, the addition of a craft brewery to the Jefferson landscape will mirror what is happening in other small towns and rural communities across America. Between 2013 and 2018 the number of breweries located in places with a population under 2,500 grew by 129%.

Just as craft breweries can breathe new life into urban neighborhoods, they can do the same for smaller communities. In Valentine, NE (population 2,706) Bolo Beer Co. is contributing to a renewed sense of economic vitality. Other examples of craft breweries playing a similar role in their communities are Hand of Fate Brewing in Petersburg, IL (population 2,214) and Driftless Brewing Company in Soldier Grove, WI (population 541).

Rural communities face a number of socio-economic challenges. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, rural communities, compared to their urban counterparts, “have less internet access, fewer educational institutions, see more hospitals close and experience less economic growth.” In the past, many rural communities could depend on agriculture for their economic well-being. That is no longer the case, however. And it has been that way for some time. A 1999 report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis noted that, “agriculture is no longer the anchor of the rural economy”. In many rural economies manufacturing is the dominant income generator . . . if policymakers want to help shape the economic future of all of rural America, they must engage a much broader range of issues and economic engines.”

Now I am not naive enough to think that craft breweries are the answer to the socio-economic challenges facing rural and small-town America. But having a successful craft brewery in town can surely do no harm. In the aforementioned Valentine, NE the Bolo Brewing Company has become a place for the community to gather – or what the urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg called a Third Place. Third Places play a critical role in human societies. There is research that suggests that Third Places can combat loneliness while also strengthening community cohesion. In research conducted with colleagues, the highly regarded British Anthropologist Robin Dunbar provides evidence which suggests that enjoying a beer with friends provides us with “the single most important buffer against mental and physical illness”.

While many craft breweries function as Third Places in America’s large urban areas, Jeff Alworth believes that their importance as community gathering places “may even be stronger in smaller communities. Little towns are often underserved with regard to cool places to hang out. When they open up shop, they provide much-needed social hubs . . . They’re not only a nice place to spend an evening, but serve as venues for events like meetings, weddings, and even children’s birthday parties.” Nicki Werner of Jefferson Beer Supply shared her brewery’s business plan with me. One of Nicki’s goals for her brewery is to create “a tasting room and experience that offers a family oriented gathering space for our community.” As the business plan notes, “there are no family oriented spaces in Jefferson and very little in the surrounding areas, which offer primarily dive bars with casino machines, no children’s menus, and focus primarily on one demographic.” A family-oriented craft brewery would be a tremendous asset to Jefferson, SD. In Valentine, NE local resident Whitney Mayhew describes the taproom of the Bolo Beer Company as a “community gathering place”.

Craft breweries can also attract tourists to a small town. Beer Tourism is “a thing” and is becoming more popular every year. According to the Brewers Association, in the United States, 1.6 percent of craft-beer drinkers take 10-plus trips annually to visit breweries more than two hours from their home. Attracting tourists is critical to the success of small-town breweries as it lessens their dependence upon local residents. I recently co-edited a book with two Italian colleagues that explored how craft beer tourism, wine tourism, and agritourism can make a positive contribution to the economies of geographically peripheral areas. Last year (about 6 weeks before Covid-19 resulted in lockdowns) I gave the keynote presentation at the Beer Marketing and Tourism Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. One of the things I highlighted in my presentation is that craft beer tourists have above average incomes and, as a result, have a fair amount of disposable income to spend. A challenge facing craft breweries in small towns is that they often exist in geographic isolation – in other words, they are the only brewery in town. This contrasts with larger cities where we see the emergence of brewery districts, providing beer tourists with the opportunity to visit three of four breweries, often on foot, within the space of an afternoon or evening. Craft breweries in small towns can utilize a number of strategies to overcome their geographic isolation. For example, they can collaborate with other breweries as part of an Ale Trail. This literally puts them on the map and they become one of the suggested stops for Ale Trail participants. An excellent example of an Ale Trail in is the Finger Lakes Beer Trail in New York State. The trail, which includes both larger cities and smaller towns, comprises over 75 craft breweries, tap houses and brewing-affiliated businesses across an area spanning over 200 miles.

Another strategy is to collaborate with other attractions in their region. Marketing a larger geographic region and its multiple attractions is a smart approach for smaller communities. Greenbriar Valley in West Virginia is an excellent example of a rural area that does an excellent job of promoting the area’s 80+ attractions, including Greenbriar Valley Brewing Company in the town of Lewisburg (population 3,897). If a small town is located in an agricultural region, it may be possible to develop a tourism industry around agritourism. The National Law Agricultural Center sees agritourism as the “crossroads of tourism and agriculture” and defines it as “a form of commercial enterprise that links agricultural production and/or processing with tourism in order to attract visitors onto a farm, ranch, or other agricultural business for the purposes of entertaining and/or educating the visitors and generating income for the farm, ranch, or business owner.“ Example of agritourism include pumpkin picking patches, U-Pick operations, demonstration farms, cut-your-own Christmas tree farms, and petting and feeding zoos. As craft breweries are utilizing agricultural crops (hops and barley primarily) it is hardly a stretch to include them within a region’s agritourism attractions. A brewery in a small town where opportunities for outdoor activities such as hiking, kayaking, and camping exist may want to utilize these assets in attracting beer tourists.

The arrival of a craft brewery in a small town can also be the catalyst for additional development. The opening of Hand of Fate Brewing in Petersburg, IL (population, 2,226) in May 2017 had a beneficial impact on the small community. According to one observer:

“After just a year, the small brewery has brought good fortune to the town. After taking over an old Dollar General discount store in the sparsely occupied town square, the brewery-and-taproom has become a community hub and a catalyst keeping businesses open later. It’s encouraged others—including two new boutiques—to open shop, and drawn visitors from across the region. “

Neil Gurnsey, Assistant Vice President of the National Bank of Petersburg, noted that after the brewery opened, “life was just injected into the square”.

Finally, because a brewery is in a small town does not mean that it has an inexperienced brewer and does not produce great beer. Nicki Werner, the Brewers at Jefferson Beer Supply, has a wealth of brewing experience. Prior to relocating to a Jefferson Nicki worked in the brewing industry for six years at three different breweries in three different states.  She learned to brew at Brenner Brewing, a midsized production brewery in Milwaukee, WI. After Brenner, she took a job brewing for Left Hand Brewing company in Longmont, CO. In 2019 she moved to South Dakota to be near family and worked as a brewer at Fernson Brewing Company (the state’s largest brewery) in Sioux Falls, SD. Nicki also received a scholarship from the Pink Boots Society and spent time in Bavaria, Germany visiting breweries and learning about brewing methods. Chris Hernstrom, brewer at the aforementioned Bolo Beer Co. in Valentine, NE, cut his teeth as a brewer in the craft beer mecca of Bend, OR, before moving to Nebraska. Yes, many small town brewers come with an impressive pedigree.

Further Reading:

Dunbar, Robin I. M., Jacques Launay, Rafael Wlodarski, Cole Robertson, Eiluned Pearce, James Carney, and Pádraig MacCarron. 2017. Functional Benefits of (Modest) Alcohol Consumption. Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, 3:118–133.

Pezzi, Maria Giulia, Alessandra Faggian, and Neil Reid (eds.). 2021. Agritourism, Wine Tourism, and Craft Beer Tourism: Local Responses to Peripherality Through Tourism Niches. New York: Routledge, 264pp.