A few years after our Co-Founders, Mike Stevens and Dave Engbers, left their steady jobs to pursue their dream of opening a brewery, they found themselves facing bankruptcy. They had written business plans, taken out giant loans and worked hard to create the kind of beers they thought people wanted. The problem: those beers were good, but they were unremarkable.

With the threat of a failure looming, they risked it all on brewing a beer with big attitude, bigger flavor and a name that lived up to both: Dirty Bastard Scotch Ale.

As Mike often says, there’s something indefinable about our culture here at Founders and it’s all rooted in the story of Dirty Bastard. It’s when we stopped listening to our investors or our self-doubt. It’s when we stopped brewing what we thought people wanted and started brewing the kind of beers that inspired us to get into brewing in the first place. It’s when we decided to live life with no regrets.

When we say “Brewed For Us,” this is what we’re talking about.