Craft beer has a way of showing up in the most unexpected corners of the map. Hit these four breweries and you’ve pulled off a true American beer bucket-list feat — the Brewery Grand Slam, a pint at the absolute edges of the country: as far north, south, east, and west as a brewery gets in the United States. Grab your passport (and maybe a parka and some sunscreen), because this itinerary spans the Arctic Circle’s doorstep to Hawaii’s Big Island, and the tip of the Pacific to the Bay of Fundy tides of Downeast Maine.
Furthest North: Silver Gulch Brewing & Bottling Co. — Fox, Alaska(1999)
Eleven miles up the Steese Highway from Fairbanks sits the tiny mining town of Fox, Alaska — and inside it, America’s most northern brewery. Silver Gulch Brewing & Bottling Co. brewed its first batch in February 1998, the brainchild of lifelong Alaskans Glenn Brady and Chilkoot Ward, who scaled Brady’s homebrewing hobby up from five-gallon batches to a full 24-barrel system built with equipment salvaged from a defunct Ontario brewery. Alaska’s brewpub laws back then were so strict that breweries couldn’t legally sell beer for on-site drinking, so Silver Gulch got creative: “Free Beer Fridays” let locals sample the goods for free, and the tradition of the free pour became part of the brewery’s DNA. Today it’s Alaska’s third-oldest brewery, using water straight from the legendary Silver Gulch Spring.
The lineup leans into the Last Frontier theme hard — Coldfoot Pilsner, 40 Below Imperial Stout, Fairbanks Lager, and Apple Tundra Ale all nod to the brutal, beautiful climate a few degrees shy of the Arctic Circle. Fun fact: Silver Gulch now has a second outpost right inside Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, so travelers can sip “America’s Most Northern Brewery” beer before their flight even leaves the ground — no trip to Fox required, though the original brewpub with its restaurant and banquet hall is well worth the drive if you’re chasing the aurora.
Address: 2195 Old Steese Hwy N, Fox, AK 99712
Opened: 1998
Coordinates: 64.958° N, 147.614° W
Website: https://silvergulch.com
Furthest South: Kona Brewing Company — Kailua-Kona, Hawaii(2010 & 2019)
By latitude, the real southernmost brewery in America isn’t in Florida at all — it’s on the sunny side of Hawaii’s Big Island, sitting more than 300 miles closer to the equator than Key West. Kona Brewing Company was founded in 1994 by father-and-son duo Cameron Healy and Spoon Khalsa, who fell for the islands on a visit and set out to build a brand as beloved as Primo, the old-school Hawaiian lager Healy had admired as a young man. They raised their first glass together on Valentine’s Day 1995 out of a converted warehouse, added a reclaimed-materials brewpub in 1998, and never looked back. Today Kona is the state’s longest-running craft brewery and one of the best-known craft beer brands on Earth, sold in all 50 states and more than 30 countries, even while a 2019 investment built a new 100,000-barrel, solar-powered brewery back home in Kailua-Kona.
The tap list reads like a postcard from the islands: Longboard Island Lager, Big Wave Golden Ale, Fire Rock Pale Ale, and the seasonal Pipeline Porter, brewed with 100% Kona coffee from a neighboring farm. Fun fact: their Rift Zone Indigenous Red Ale is fermented with wild yeast cultured right from the volcanic rift zones of the Big Island — meaning the volcano itself has a hand in the brew. (Worth noting: Key West’s First Flight Island Restaurant & Brewery — housed in the building where Pan Am sold its very first airline ticket in 1927 — proudly brands itself “the Southernmost Brewery in the USA,” and it’s a genuinely fun stop with a great story. But by the map, Kailua-Kona sits at roughly 19.65° N versus Key West’s 24.56° N, so the real geographic title belongs to Kona.)
Address: 74-5612 Pawai Pl, Kailua-Kona, HI 96740
Opened: 1994
Coordinates: 19.650° N, 156.000° W
Website: https://konabrewinghawaii.com
Furthest East: Lubec Brewing Company — Lubec, Maine
Lubec, Maine sits at the very tip of Downeast Maine, connected to Canada’s Campobello Island by an international bridge, and it holds the title of the easternmost incorporated municipality in the United States (its neighbor Eastport is the easternmost city, but Lubec’s town line stretches a hair further east to catch the first sunrise in the country). Right on the working waterfront, Gale White opened Lubec Brewing Company in April 2015 with a one-barrel system — one of the smallest brew houses in a state already famous for small, scrappy breweries. That tiny footprint gives the brewers room to experiment constantly, and the beer names read like a love letter to the region: Quoddy Head Red (named for the nearby lighthouse at America’s easternmost point), Johnson Bay IPA, and Bailey’s Mistake, named after a local landmark with its own bit of nautical folklore.
The hops in the fermenter often come from just up the road in Aroostook County, and the barley, wheat, and rye are organically grown in Maine. Fun fact: Lubec’s location on the Bay of Fundy means the tides here are some of the most dramatic on Earth, rising and falling 20 to 28 feet twice a day — so depending on when you visit the brewery, the harbor view out the window looks like an entirely different body of water.
Address: 41 Water St, Lubec, ME 04652
Opened: 2015
Coordinates: 44.860° N, 66.984° W
Website: https://lubecbrewing.com
Furthest West: Kauaʻi Island Brewing Company — Port Allen, Hawaii(2019)
The westernmost brewery in the country — and, thanks to the International Date Line, arguably the westernmost in the entire world — sits in the industrial harbor town of Port Allen on Kauaʻi’s south shore. Owners Bret and Janice Larson trace the brewery’s roots back to 1996, when their original operation, Waimea Brewing Company, started brewing five-barrel batches at the historic Waimea Plantation Cottages. It officially opened in 1998, ran for thirteen years, and then in 2012 the Larsons partnered with their longtime brewmaster of 13 years, Dave Curry, to relaunch as Kauaʻi Island Brewing Company in a bigger warehouse space near the harbor — a nine-month planning process and seven months of construction later, the doors opened on July 9, 2012.
The tap list is pure island flavor: Lilikoi Ale, Cane Fire Red, Waiʻaleʻale Golden Ale, West Side Wheat, and an Alakaʻi Stout brewed with oatmeal and Kauaʻi-grown coffee for deep chocolate notes. Fun fact: because the International Date Line technically loops out past American Samoa, Kauaʻi Island Brewing likes to point out that a beer drinker heading due west from their taproom would actually be traveling east once they crossed the dateline — making this brewery a strong contender for westernmost brewery on the entire planet, not just in the U.S.
Address: 4350 Waialo Rd, Eleele/Port Allen, HI 96705
Opened: 2012 (as Kauaʻi Island Brewing Company; roots trace to Waimea Brewing Company, 1996/1998)
Coordinate: 21.901° N, 159.594° W
Website: https://kauaiislandbrewing.com
That’s the Grand Slam — four breweries, four compass points, thousands of miles apart, and all pouring beer that couldn’t have been brewed anywhere else. Silver Gulch keeps the lights on near the Arctic Circle, Kona Brewing pours the real southernmost pint in America (sorry, Key West), Lubec Brewing catches the first sunrise in the country, and Kauaʻi Island Brewing might just be serving the world’s westernmost beer. Cheers to the edges of the map.
1960s: Expansion Under Michael Lewis
