Brewer Spotlight – Lagunitas Brewing Company

This week I want to highlight one of my favorite craft brewers that you have heard me mention many times on the show – Lagunitas Brewing Company, pronounced LAH-GOO-KNEE-TUSS.

I believe I first came across this brewer in 2006 when I saw a uniquely labeled six-pack with a big black label across the front with the word “CENSORED” on it. Great advertising ploy, because of the bad boy in every one of us, we will be forced to buy it just because we shouldn’t. At the time I had never heard of this brewery and I was taking a chance on a beer from a company whose name I could not even pronounce!

Well I am glad I did. The Censored beer was actually a Red Ale (actually a Rich Copper Ale) that was very tasty and caught my attention right away. I then made it my mission to try other beers from this brewery. I found their IPA and it became my go-to beer for a long time. When I came across an Imperial IPA called Maximus I swore I just entered hophead heaven. This is still a beer I will pick up randomly as I pass by it in the store. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. Before long a flood of different beer styles started arriving in Boise and I found myself in craft beer ecstasy.

Lagunitas is currently based out of Petaluma, California, but got their humble start in 1993 in Lagunitas, California, a small unincorporated community in Marin County. Their flagship beer is the Lagunitas IPA, and has been regularly rated as the best selling IPA in the state of California. Lagunitas is known for their clever beer naming and descriptive text found on their labels. One I like in particular is the “Wilco Tango Foxtrot – A Malty, Robust, Job Recovery Ale.” Also the 2011 winter release of the Lagunitas Sucks Holiday Ale was a fitting label for the Brown Shugga’ lovers who were thinking just that thing. It is refreshing to find a brewer who is not afraid to poke fun at themselves and continually provide high quality beers to their fans at a reasonable cost.

Currently Lagunitas Brewing Company is undergoing a huge expansion, costing roughly $9.5 million and raising their capacity to about 600,000 barrels per year. This is fantastic news because this will allow them to create all our favorite beers on a regular basis. I absolutely love every beer I have consumed from this brewery, and I have tasted almost everything released outside California. I can’t wait to get more beer distributed to my area and out to all my friends in other states. Currently they distribute to 32 states, so go out and find some of their beer. I guarantee you will enjoy it, unless you are not a craft beer drinker.

Rating by LuceScrew: 5.0 stars