Locations
Award Winning
Innovative Beers & Local Ingredients
Our Story
Over many years of entering and judging beer competitions, we noticed a simple, but largely unrecognized insight: some of the best, most innovative beers in America are being brewed by homebrewers. In almost every competition we judged, the award-winning homebrewed beers were more inventive and daring than the majority of commercially available beers on the market. That insight, along with an enduring passion for the craft of beer making, led us to create Barebottle, a San Francisco crowd-inspired craft brewery.
Barebottle Brewing Company was co-founded by Lester Koga, Michael Seitz, and Ben Sterling, three friends and former classmates at Cornell Business School in Ithaca, NY. After moving from Ithaca to the Bay Area in 2007, the three began homebrewing, became certified beer judges, and began winning medals at homebrewing competitions. Barebottle brews innovative beers inspired by the San Francisco Bay Area using local ingredients wherever possible, and partners with local homebrewing groups to develop new beers using a competitive method.
Our philosophy and process are pretty simple….
1. Use the things that inspire us every day from the Bay Area as the foundation for each new beer we make.
2. Inspire our merry band of super talented brewing comrades (head brewer, the founders, and the Bay Areas best homebrewers) to create new beers.
3. Just like in regular competitions, we pilot brew a select group of beer finalists and ask the public to vote for their favorite. may the best beer always win.
We believe this approach will lead to some amazing beers, we hope you are eager to help us try some of them.