Almanac Beer Company is part of a wave of breweries that have somewhat nimbly skipped over the high initial costs associated with a more traditional start-up brewery model by renting out the excess capacity of larger breweries to produce experimental beers and novel collaborations that larger operations aren't able to support. So-called gypsy breweries like Baltimore, Maryland's Stillwater Artisanal and Copenhagen-based Mikkeller have begun to spring up particularly within Europe and across the United States.


Gypsy brewers have tended to focus more on beers that incorporate non-traditional ingredients, using spices and fruits to make new and hybrid styles.

Almanac Beer Company was founded in 2010 by Jesse Friedman and Damian Fagan, two San Francisco homebrewers with a passion for brewing unconventional beers. Drawing from Northern California's history of craft beer and of superior produce, Friedman and Fagan began using ingredients found in local farmer's markets as the inspiration for their homebrews. Going on to begin brewing on a larger scale, they began partnering with local breweries to produce their beers. They have gone on to win several awards and the attention of craft beer writers across the country.

In 2012, the San Francisco Bay Guardian awarded Almanac Beer Company editor's pick in their annual Best of the Bay and in 2013, their Farmer's Reserve No. 4, a wild ale brewed with Cara Cara oranges, Meyer lemons, and Buddha's hand citrons and aged in wine barrels was granted a spot on Draft Magazine's top 25 beers of the year.

In 2014, the similar Farmer's Reserve No. 3, brewed with strawberries and nectarines won a spot on the Good Food Awards.

Almanac's approach to beer is relatively novel, where most craft brewers have taken the approach of producing a portfolio of staple year-round offerings occasionally speckled with limited or seasonal releases. Instead, their production approach has taken more cues from wine producers than it has from craft brewers, only bottling in larger format 750 ml bottles, pricing their beers closer to wine prices, and aging most of their beers in used wine barrels. Their website even offers suggestions for foods that would pair well with their beers (Farmer's Reserve No. 4 pairs well with "Flaky white fish, Chicken Piccata, Not-too-sweet Lemon Bars.").

The first beer that the brewery produced was a Blackberry ale. The beer is a mix of Belgian yeasts, American hops, and California blackberries from the small family owned Sebastopol Berry Farm. The beer was brewed in the style of a Belgian golden ale and aged in oak red wine barrels for eleven months and bottled at 8% ABV, blended with non-aged "base-beer".

Almanac beers

The brewery now produces four series of beers. Introduced in August 2012 as California Table Beers, Almanac began producing year-round beers starting with their Honey Saison brewed with Bay Area honey and Extra Pale Ale brewed with Mandarin oranges. Their Farm to Barrel series carries on "the tradition of aging beers in oak barrels" and generally highlights higher gravity styles that benefit from aging. Almanac also features a Chef Collaboration Series where they have partnered with chefs such as ICHI Sushi's Tim Archuleta to produce Ichibeer, New American Lazy Bear Restaurant to create the Lazy Bear Honeypot Stout, and Monk's Kettle, a gastropub to create their Porchbier saison, naturally to be enjoyed outside on the porch.

Almanac Beer Company has produced almost fifty commercially available beers to date.