Golf Courses Add On-Site Breweries, Signature House Beers

A growing number of golf clubs are opening on-site breweries or launching proprietary house beers, turning clubhouse taprooms into a second revenue stream that does not depend on tee sheets or the weather.

Which golf courses have their own brewery?

Ironclad Golf & Beer Garden in Hampstead, North Carolina, shows how far the model can reshape a struggling club. Ironclad Brewery bought the site after Belvedere Country Club, which had operated there since 1970, closed in 2020. The new owners redesigned the course, swapped the tennis courts for pickleball and filled in the swimming pool to build a beer garden that holds more than 500 guests, with a music stage, fire tables and a tap shack by the driving range. A taproom turns a rained-out tee time into revenue instead of a cancellation, which is the appeal for clubs weighing the investment.

On the West Coast, Canyon Lakes Golf Course in San Ramon, California, added a 10-barrel brewing operation in September 2017. Its O.B. Brown Ale won gold at the 2018 Best of Craft Beer Awards, and the brewery now pours 18 rotating taps near the 18th green. In Portland, Oregon, Von Ebert Brewing, founded in 2018, runs a seven-barrel brewhouse at Glendoveer Golf Course, where the East course is celebrating its 100th year.

Smaller clubs have built breweries out of hobbies. At Shawnee Inn and Golf Resort in Pennsylvania, host of the 1938 PGA Championship, ShawneeCraft brews with ingredients grown on the resort's own farm; its Clubhouse Kolsch took first place in this year's Pennsylvania Farm Show Beer Competition. In Mechanicville, New York, two high school teachers who started homebrewing in a clubhouse basement in 2013 grew that hobby into Hank Hudson Brewing Company, which opened a taproom at the Fairways of Halfmoon in 2018. Fraser Edmundston Golf Club in New Brunswick, Canada, took the same route in reverse, opening a taproom for an outside brewery in May 2022 before launching its own house-brewed beers later that year; golfers there can now choose from 21 beers on tap. Remedy Oak in Dorset, England, started even smaller: founder Stu Betts brewed 100-litre batches in a farm building on the club's grounds beginning in 2018, then partnered with the course's owner to convert a barn into a commercial brewery, releasing its 1552 Amber Ale in October 2020.

Which clubs sell a signature beer without running a brewery?

Clubs that don't want to operate a brewery can still commission one. Match Play Brewery, co-founded by a Royal Cinque Ports member, designed the Kent club's Hut Lager, a 4.2% ABV pilsner named for its halfway hut and canned in club colors; the brewery has since made similar beers for Royal St George's, Worplesdon and Hesketh. Oakmont Country Club in Pennsylvania commissioned Links Brewing, started in 2016 by a member inspired by Augusta National's branding at the 2017 Masters, to create 1903 Ale, named for the year Oakmont was founded. The club has hosted eight U.S. Opens and is scheduled to host two more, in 2033 and 2042. Augusta National sells its own Crow's Nest wheat ale, served only during Masters week in green souvenir cups; it replaced Blue Moon as the club's featured beer in 2021. St Andrews Links in Scotland worked with the St Andrews Brewing Company to launch Road Hole Lager and Tom Morris Scotch Ale in September 2019.

A taproom turns a rained-out tee time into revenue instead of a cancellation.