Why Craft Brewers Are Migrating From Cities to Suburbs

Living in suburban Collierville, Tennessee, some 30 minutes southeast of Memphis, Maggie Emerson was used to traveling for locally brewed beer. Memphis and greater Shelby County counted more than 15 breweries, but “there wasn’t one with a taproom within a 20-to 30-minute drive,” says Emerson, a married mom of two kids. The city market was well served with breweries, but “Collierville is the far outskirts of our county.”

Emerson, who swapped the software industry for brewing, resolved to shorten the commute for cold beer by opening a hometown brewery. She canvassed Collierville for a central location, settling on a strip mall off the suburb’s main drag, and leased a former meat and seafood market. “The highway hit right at the front door,” says Emerson, who made Collierville core to the brewpub’s business plan.”

Maroon Brew Co., which opened last June, takes its moniker from the local high school’s colors, and Emerson’s beers such as Pickwick Pale Ale, West Poplar Porter, and Gazebo Golden Ale are named after local roads and landmarks. Adults and offspring are equally welcomed. The brewpub serves kids’ meals, the drinks list includes Kool-Aid pouches, and Montessori toys keep children occupied. “We’re positioning ourselves as a community gathering spot,” Emerson says, little reason to travel far for fresh beer. “People tell us, ‘We’ve always wanted this for Collierville.’”

Craft beer’s 2010s surge saw breweries settle in many cities’ run-down precincts, bringing manufacturing and nightlife to vacant factories and forlorn storefronts. The boom, in part, rewound the clock to pre-Prohibition times when hulking urban breweries met the beer-drinking needs of the nation’s ascendant cities. But as the pandemic sent city-dwellers seeking square footage to rural and suburban towns, the math shifted on the cost-benefit of brewing and selling beer in metropolises with expensive leases, pricey utilities, hollowed-out offices, and diminished foot traffic.

Seeking customers and more affordable real estate, breweries are moving to the suburbs and installing equipment in strip malls and former department stores, setting up near housing subdivisions that provide built-in clientele. The economic grass is a little greener in the suburbs. While urban and rural breweries saw production volumes drop 4 and 5 percent, respectively, from 2022 to 2023, according to the Brewers Association, suburban craft breweries stayed flat by bubbling up close to homes.

Last spring, Standardized Brewing opened in Lewis Center, Ohio, a suburb north of Columbus, in the growing Evans Farm development. “It’s the downtown moving out into the suburbs,” says Mark Robinson, a co-founder and the brewer. “Do you really want to drive 30 minutes to drink a couple of beers when you could stay close to home and get to know your neighbors?”

In postwar America, the spreading suburbs ringing urban cores radically shifted the country’s population maps and retail landscape. Cities shed citizens and jobs as suburbs grew, part of a decades-long pattern of families swapping apartments for starter homes in search of space, a slower pace, and better schools. Fast-forward to today, and craft beer fans that spent their 20s and 30s drinking hazy IPAs in downtown taprooms, driving the industry’s explosive growth, are older and grayer. “The average age of the craft beer consumer has been ticking up,” says Matt Gacioch, the staff economist at the Brewers Association. “Some are having families and moving to suburbs.”

Many suburban breweries place families front and center. Mom and Dad want beers, and some crayons and juice boxes, too.

Many suburban breweries place families front and center. Mom and Dad want beers, and some crayons and juice boxes, too. “The majority of our clientele has kids,” says Standardized Brewing’s Robinson, who lives in Evans Farm with his wife, Amy, and their three kids. (She’s also involved with the brewery.) Children are top of mind at Standardized. There’s a grassy lawn for romping, Shirley Temples, a token-operated vending machine stocked with kids’ snacks, and Lego building events. “We want this to be the most kid-friendly brewery in the entire state,” Robinson says. The former high school math teacher also plans to offer free tutoring. “Parents can drop off their kids and we’ll work them,” he says, perhaps as parents pass time with pints.

Finding activities to fill weekend hours with young children can mean an endless parade of playgrounds, playdates, and parks. In Orchard Park, a suburb of Buffalo, Wayland Brewing hosts themed brunches that cater to the under-12 crowd, like ones with Santa that “were just mobbed,” says PJ Dunn, head brewer, co-owner, and dad of two. The brewery, which opened in 2023, has also offered a brunch with actors dressed like Disney princesses. “We’re paying attention to who’s coming through the door, and young families area driver.”

Parent-focused specials help Wayland fill tables on traditionally slow nights like Monday, when kids eat free, choosing from cheeseburgers or chicken nuggets while adults order Detroit-style pizzas and pilsners. Wayland is a meeting place after youth sports games, a modern upgrade on Dairy Queen. Recently, after a local hockey game, around 40 people of all ages hit Wayland for lunch. “The grown-ups had beers,” Dunn says. “That’s what this place is.”

Hell hath no fury like a thirsty, hangry kid. Catering to kids requires a commitment to quick service. California’s Headlands Brewing operates three locations in and around the Bay Area, including the suburbs of Lafayette and Walnut Creek, where “we aim to engage with all guests within seconds of them arriving, and ensure their first drink or snack is with them almost immediately,” says Austin Sharp, the CEO and a parent of two. “There’s a narrow window between success and failure.” Headlands benefits from work-from-home policies by attracting parents, who might otherwise commute to San Francisco, for weeknight dinners. “By the time you get home at seven o’clock and you’re exhausted, you want to stay home,” Sharp says.

At its core, a taproom is a gathering place to enjoy beverages, alcohol not always included. In New Brighton, Minnesota, a suburb northeast of Minneapolis, Northern Soda’s taproom only serves nonalcoholic sodas containing cane sugar, such as crisply tart Minnesota Apple and Sunday Purple grape soda. The taproom hosts birthday parties and authors reading children’s books, while the bar serves floats and fizzy soda flights. “We feel pretty confident that if a parent brings their kid to the taproom, we’ll provide an experience they won’t find anywhere else,” says Davod Zarghami, a co-owner.

Grown-ups also use the taproom as a co-working space, nursing root beers as they Slack on laptops, and kids can ride bikes to Northern Soda to grab sodas and play arcade games. Anybody is welcome, anytime, to call the taproom home for an afternoon or evening. “Parents will say that their kids tell them, ‘We’ve got to go back to the kids’ bar,’” Zarghami says.

The rise of suburban malls hastened the fall of downtown shopping districts, before online shopping mauled the appeal of malls’ food courts and anchor department stores. Nonetheless, strip malls remain vital economic corridors, their parking lots beckoning customers to easily acquire groceries, pet food, and increasingly, beer from breweries like Roaring Table in Lake Zurich, Illinois, a northwest suburb of Chicago.

The brewery is in a shopping center by a Petco, OfficeMax, and Trader Joe’s. “We get a lot of guys drinking a beer who are like, ‘In case anybody’s wondering, I’m shopping at Trader Joe’s,’” says Lane Fearing, who founded the brewery with his wife, Beth May. “They have a limited window to do their chores, and they can grab a beer at our place.” Initially, the couple was hoping to avoid a strip mall. But after spending two years hunting for locations, including older standalone buildings requiring renovations, the benefits of a strip mall storefront’s utilitarian appeal, and installed utilities, became clear. “We realized that being practical is probably smart,” Fearing says.

May, a graphic designer, transformed a former furniture store into an elegant taproom with tufted banquettes, wallpaper, and frosted-glass windows to transport customers away from a strip mall. Roaring Table opened in 2017 with appealing IPAs and stouts, gradually introducing English-style cask ales, pilsners, and esoteric styles like a rauchbock, a stronger, smoky lager. Couples will even grab four-packs and head to the nail salon next door, drinking beer while getting manicures and massages. “We made the right decision to be in the mall because it’s so convenient,” Fearing says.

In part that’s because of parking. Suburban drivers are accustomed to the ease of ample parking spaces. Since Bonesaw Brewing opened in 2018 in Glassboro, New Jersey, a southern suburb of Philadelphia, the brewery has twice expanded its parking lot. “On a busy Saturday, we’ll still have every space filled and cars circling,” says A.J. Stoll, the brewmaster. He started his brewing career in California, becoming brewmaster at Figueroa Mountain, before helping start a brewery in Ireland. When the call came about Bonesaw, “my gut reaction was, ‘I’m not moving to New Jersey,’ ” Stoll says.

Glassboro, though, called home to fast-growing Rowan University, and the local market lacked breweries, especially compared to his home state. “It’d be difficult to try and open another brewery in California,” he says. But what about another Bonesaw, maybe 15 minutes away? In fall 2023, the brewery opened a second location in the nearby Deptford Mall, taking over part of a former Sears along with an arcade and bowling alley. The mall attracts a steady stream of customers primed to buy, but the downside is shopping’s seasonality. November and December bring mobs of holiday shoppers, but “then January 1 hits and it’s a ghost town for a couple of weeks,” Stoll says.

During the last few decades, a brewery’s location was largely immaterial as people traveled to great lengths for great beer. “Now you must be geographically positioned,” says Jerry Siote, director of brewhouse operations for Lone Tree Brewing in the Lone Tree, Colorado, suburb southeast of Denver. John Winter, a former pilot, opened Lone Tree in 2011 as the town’s first brewery, stationed in an industrial park near the Park Meadows Mall. “When John first told me where he was going to put Lone Tree, I said, ‘This is crazy. There’s nothing out here,’” Siote recalls.

That was the point. Rent at the industrial park was affordable and offered ability to grow, while the town also had ample acreage for housing. The brewery now rents three units in the industrial park, totaling about 12,000 square feet, and subdivisions sit directly behind the brewery. “We have a stable clientele and demographic of drinkers that don’t have to drive too far out of their way,” Siote says.

As breweries add taprooms to open more avenues for beer sales, they’re covering all retail bases by targeting cities and suburbs. Breakside Brewery opened in 2010 in Portland, Oregon, and it now operates seven locations in and around town, including the suburbs of Lake Oswego and Beaverton. (Breakside also has an Astoria, Oregon, outpost.) Broadening into the suburbs is “not just an offensive strategy; it’s responsive,” says Ben Edmunds, the brewmaster and a co-owner.

Less than 10 miles west of Portland, Beaverton has long lived in Portland’s shadow. But as restaurants steadily opened in Beaverton, residents had less incentive for driving into Portland for dinner and beer. “We didn’t want to lose those customers,” Edmunds says. Breakside tailors its neighborhood-focused outposts to meet customers’ levels of interest. That might mean more stouts at one spot, more IPAs at another, or an expansive bourbon list. As a hospitality-driven brewery, “we have to respond to what people want.”

Customer desire is a moving target. In 2013, when Arizona Wilderness Brewing opened in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert, Arizona, customers went wild for the brewery’s beers that used native ingredients like white Sonoran berries, a nearly extinct grain. The following year, ratings-website Rate Beer named Arizona Wilderness the world’s best new brewery, sparking international beer tourism to Gilbert. “We had so many Danish, German, Swedish, and Brazilian fans coming in,” says Jonathan Buford, a co-founder and the CEO. Over time, chasing best-in-world status became less important than serving customers in the brewery’s backyard. Arizona Wilderness leaned into restaurant operations at its Gilbert brewpub, meeting the needs of families by adding high chairs and showing sports on TV. Brewing is a business, and “we like customers happy,” Buford says.

This year, the brewery removed production equipment from the Gilbert brewpub to expand restaurant operations and bring brewing to a 10,000-square-foot building in Phoenix that was home to a laundromat. “Adaptive reuse is something we believe in, and Gilbert doesn’t have the same level of options,” Buford says. Prices, too, have flipped. Phoenix is now more affordable than Gilbert. The new taproom, restaurant, and production brewery opened this spring, helping the brewery reach a fresh customer profile. “We get a lot of suitcases and briefcases downtown that we would never see in Gilbert,” Buford says. (The brewery also operates a Phoenix beer garden.) “That suburb-city mix is very important.”

Few brewing companies navigate that divide like Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, a chain of brewpubs that opened its first location in Newark, Delaware, in 1996. Iron Hill’s founding mission was to build brewpubs that prioritized great beer and food. But as early locations helped revitalize beleaguered suburban main drags in Philadelphia suburbs of Media and West Chester, the brewpubs became economic anchors. “It’s great when people give directions and say, ‘Make a left at Iron Hill,’” says Mark Edelson, a co-founder and the VP of beer. “You’re the center of the community.”

Iron Hill also places brewpubs in cities, including a prominent downtown Philadelphia location, but more expensive leases often mean “we make the most money in the suburbs,” Edelson says. Opening in the suburbs isn’t a guaranteed moneymaker. Last year, Iron Hill closed locations in suburbs of Philadelphia and Atlanta, and it’s looking to be less of a pioneer on downtrodden retail strips. Instead, the company looks for dense populations and locations near traffic-generating businesses like a Wegmans grocery store or Starbucks. “We’re not a destination brewery,” Edelson says.

For suburban breweries, sales opportunities can extend beyond taprooms. This year, Vitamin Sea Brewing, which has locations in Plymouth and Weymouth, Massachusetts, a suburb southeast of Boston, will start selling canned beer at area farmers markets. “We’ve got a very vibrant farmers market scene in the suburbs,” says founder Dino Funari. “It’s another way to move cans and hopefully get people to find out about our brand so they visit.” That increasingly means families, who fill taprooms on weekends. Kids sip on complimentary juice boxes, and parents are pacified with fruited sour ales and hazy IPAs. But a lively taproom doesn’t necessarily translate to a robust bottom line. “Kids do take up space,” Funari says. A brewery is in the business of selling beer, and underage kids are not ponying up for pints. “We do see a great number of families during the weekends.”

This can put suburban breweries in a bind. “Our No. 1 complaint is that there are too many kids, but it’s also our niche,” says Robinson of Standardized. The objective is to have families on Friday nights, kids playing, the brewery on the agenda before and after games at one of the local high schools. “We’re a hub,” Robinson says. 

Wherever humans work or live there’s an intrinsic need to gather, all the more imperative in an increasingly isolated and divided nation.

Wherever humans work or live there’s an intrinsic need to gather, all the more imperative in an increasingly isolated and divided nation. There’s an equal need for convivial taprooms in both cities and suburbs, where a brewery’s address has no bearing on quality. Several years ago, at the influential World Beer Cup, Roaring Table won a bronze medal for its saison Beth, and a silver for its altbier Easy Hour. “People should not discount strip mall breweries,” Fearing says.

Bringing more people into craft beer requires breweries to meet customers on their home turf, intersecting with their daily routines and to-do lists. Grabbing eggs at the grocery store? Why not pop by the neighboring brewery for burgers and beers brewed by a local mom? A brewery taproom, especially one that welcomes kids, “is such a paradigm shift for many folks, especially in the Bible Belt,” says Maroon’s Emerson. “But there’s nothing wrong with having a couple beers with your supper and going home. It’s a responsible way to live and teach your kids that alcohol is not a bad thing.”