This item was shared with us by Gary Dillabough, co-founder will Jeff Arrillaga of Urban Community, an innovative development and investment company dedicated to San José’s future as a truly vital urban center. He sent the story with this note: 

“This is the brewery that recently moved into one of our retail spaces on Santa Clara Street. Jeff A. was huge advocate of them - we gave them free space at the Armory for a year.” 

The Best New Breweries for 2022 – Hop Culture

It’s official: There are a s**t ton of breweries in the United States. And what amazes us is that every year this number continues to grow. Despite a worldwide pandemic. Despite a potential recession. And despite countless continued challenges and ongoing supply chain issues. 

In fact, the Brewers Association recently reported that the industry reached new heights in 2021, climbing to 9,118 craft breweries. (And if you include all 1,886 microbreweries, 3,307 brewpubs, 3,702 taproom breweries, and 223 regional craft breweries, the number actually jumps up to 9,247.) 

Last year, 646 breweries threw open their doors for the first time. And while that number did technically decline from 2020, it’s still a pretty impressive mark. We don’t have any exact stats yet on how many beer-soaked spots opened in 2022, but we’re going to hypothesize it’s around the same. 

Which is why we’re here. Because you probably can’t possibly visit all 600+ places. That would be insane, right? That would be like hitting up two breweries a day, which we suppose isn’t impossible. #2023goals 

Honestly, this is one of the most exciting parts of our job: finding and exploring new breweries and brands pushing the boundaries of the industry forward. 

So below you’ll find a list of the top new breweries we (and you) discovered in 2022. For the most part, these are places that opened a taproom for the first time or started a new brand in the past twelve months (but like we tend to do, you’ll find a couple on here from the waning weeks of 2021). 

To get a representative list, we called on folks across the Next Glass team from different backgrounds and geographies. And this year for the first time, we put out a call on Instagram asking all of you to share your favorites! https://www.instagram.com/p/CjaWsG-AY__/?hl=en 

To that end, we’ve presented the best newly opened craft breweries in no particular order except for Fox Tale Fermentation, which popped up repeatedly on IG as an answer to both your favorite breweries of the year and favorite new breweries of the year. 

Of course, any “best” list is open to interpretation, so take these picks with a grain of salt. But without further ado: Here are our picks for the best new breweries of 2022. 

The Best New Breweries of 2022 

Fox Tale Fermentation Project  (https://www.f

oxtalefermentationproject.com/)

San Jose, CA 
Submitted by: You all via Instagram! 
And Kyle Roderick, Executive Vice President of Product, Next Glass… 
And Grace Weitz, Managing Editor, Hop Culture 

After two of us on the team plus a bunch of fans on Instagram wanted to name Fox Tale Fermentation Project the best new brewery of the year, the decision seemed easy. -- Kyle Roderick 

Fox Tale has become one of my favorite places to stop on my trips through The Bay Area this year. You might never guess that one of the most creative new breweries in the region was nestled tightly into the back of this unassuming little shop. Their fridge is always stocked with different condiments, kimchis, michelada mixes, and other interesting fermented options that clearly inspire the incredible beers, mixed drinks, and non-alc cocktails.This is a tough one, but my favorite beer was either Zombie Army: Collab with Hella Coastal or Poetic Memory: Collab with Yeast of Eden.  - Grace Weitz 

After seeing the name Fox Tale Fermentation pop up repeatedly as an answer to the question we put out on Instagram, “What Is Your Favorite Brewery of the Year?” I did what all good journalists do nowadays. 

I Googled them. 

Imagine my surprise when I discovered Fox Tale Fermentation had set up shop in San Jose, a mere forty-five-minute drive from me. So I reached out to co-founders Wendy Neff and Felipe Bravo. 

Spend any amount of time talking with both, and you’ll be magically transported down a rabbit hole. 

Here’s just a taste of what I mean: At Fox Tale, Bravo has been magically whipping up beers with ingredients like candy cap mushrooms, lacto-fermented lemons, or pawpaws. 

For example, a new light rice-based beer called Head Space includes those aforementioned lacto-fermented lemons, green tea, and locally foraged leaves from a Ginkgo Biloba tree in the neighborhood. “You have tartness from the lemon rind, fruity aromatics from the jasmine green tea, and herbalism from the Gingko Biloba,” says Bravo, who says this is his favorite beer he’s made this year. “We’re trying to use all these ingredients to create something special.” 

Meanwhile in the kitchen, Neff oversees the fermented foods. Leveraging her background leading the Superfoods program at Facebook Headquarters, she creates dishes that engender exploration and nourishment. “I want people to walk away having tried something they’ve never tried before and learn about something they would have never eaten before.” 

For example, an avocado toast. Ubiquitous right? Not at Fox Tale Fermentation. Something you think you’ve seen in every form transforms under Neff’s wizardry. 

Firebrand sourdough gets topped with California avocado: One gets pickled beets, Guindilla peppers and sage cream. While the other includes cultured seed and a fermented ratatouille “chopenade.” 

“It’s easily one of my favorite things I’ve ever made,” says Neff, who takes tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, peppers, and basil from a Portuguese and Spanish family farm and ferments them all together. “It turns into this very cool, colorful, rich, flavorful spread,” she says. “These are flavors everyone knows but in a way they’ve never had.” 

And we haven’t even mentioned the mocktail program. I’ve never seen someone go to such lengths to make a non-alcoholic drink. 

Neff’s process for one drink often includes creating a fermented syrup, making a fermented tea, and adding a whimsical rim with ingredients like toasted coconut sugar. 

The most popular, according to Neff, is a fermented strawberry lemon verbena syrup mixed with butterfly pea flower rose hips and violet. It comes with a rim of lemon paste and sugar infused with rose hibiscus and damiana, an herb known as a powerful aphrodisiac. Neff calls it her “love potion.” 

“It’s a deep dark purple base that’s sparkling with a super beautiful hot pink syrup,” says Neff. “It is so refreshing and decadent at the same time.” 

But that’s just the ethos at Fox Tale. 

They want to create an inclusive space that supports local ingredients through beer, food, kombucha, mocktails, and more, where everyone from the community can come and be a part of their magical world. 

Fox Tale Fermentation isn’t just breaking the rules, they’re fermenting them. As Neff says, “The fun part is deciding whatever rules were made before, we have no obligation to follow them and we can create our own new way of doing things.”