There wasn’t much in the beer aisle back in the ’70s when Jack McAuliffe went to the local supermarket, just the usual Budweiser, Miller, Coors, Falstaff, and maybe some Pabst Blue Ribbon. The limited selection didn’t seem to bother the typical American drinker. But it wasn’t enough to suit McAuliffe.
A former naval submarine electrical technician, McAuliffe had fallen in love with full-bodied ales and stouts while serving in Scotland. He started brewing his own when he returned to San Francisco. His friends thought they were pretty good. McAuliffe didn’t disagree. “I said to myself, ‘Man, what I need to do is build a brewery and start selling this stuff. I can get rich doing this,’” he recalls. In 1976, McAuliffe opened the New Albion Brewing Co. in Sonoma, Calif., one of the earliest American craft breweries.
