New Glarus Brewing Co. was founded in 1993 by Deborah Carey as a gift to her husband, Dan, who has a passion and talent for brewing one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted beer. Deborah has the distinction of being one of the first women in the United States to found and operate a brewery.
The idea of starting a brewery became a reality when Deb and Dan were living in Fort Collins, Colorado, with their two young daughters. Dan was working for Anheuser-Busch and Deb was running a successful regional arts and antiques business.
With little experience and even less capital they came across a warehouse in New Glarus that would make an ideal brewery. Deb has been extremely innovative in keeping down costs and setting New Glarus Brewery beer apart from the competition. She also did something rare in the industry, by writing her own distribution contract and convincing the wholesalers to agree to terms.
The brewery has gone from a warehouse that was producing about 2,300 barrels of beer in the first year to a new state-of-the-art facility in 2010 that produced about 92,000 barrels and is expected to exceed 100,000 barrels in 2011.
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