Stillwater has always been a reflection of my journey through this world. The places I’ve visited. The culture I’ve consumed and experienced. The friends I’ve made along the way – musicians, visual artists, vintners, chefs, hop growers, fellow brewers. It’s a dialogue with the things that excite and challenge me.

Stillwater can be profound or profane. Deadly serious or a dirty smirk. Excessive or wholly deconstructed. Rooted in tradition or travelling towards an unexplored future. It can be all of these things at once. It is forever open to your interpretation.

Stillwater was envisioned as a nomadic project. From the moment production was untethered from the shoddy origins of my Baltimore basement, it was always on the move. Stillwater’s beer would go on to be made at countless breweries around the globe — each one presenting a unique environment within which to explore, to create, to learn. But now Stillwater has planted roots in the Pacific Northwest and the English city of Leeds. It’s a new chapter for me. I hope you’ll read on.

An excerpt from New School Beer

“Brian Strumke was a Baltimore, MD record producer and DJ when he founded Stillwater Artisanal ales in 2010 and helped kickstart the nomadic brewery movement. It was at the onset of the craft beer renaissance and the public and media were just starting to take notice, it helped that his Saisons and assorted new wave American Farmhouse ales seemed unusual and foreign concepts that quickly piqued the interest of talent agencies and enthusiasts across the world. In 2011 arguably the most influential beer source of the time RateBeer.com named Hill Farmstead #1 and Stillwater #2 on their annually published list of the best new breweries in the world. Strumke went from homebrewer to traveling international beer celebrity with Stillwater beers splashed across magazines and clubs from the east coast to Denmark.”

Read the full article written by Ezra Johnson-Greenough at New School Beer

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