Back Forty Beer Company

Back Forty Beer Company’s name is inspired by an old agricultural term referring to the 40 acres of land situated furthest from the barn.  The back 40 acres are historically the most challenging land to maintain and are often overlooked due to their remote location.  Likewise, Alabama is widely seen as the wasteland for craft beer in America.  With mass produced light beer being the drink of choice for many Southerners, the craft beer market here has been largely ignored.  However, if you dig a little deeper into the story of the back 40, you will see that because the soil is rarely used, it’s very fertile and is actually capable of producing a tremendous yield.  And just like the farm the Deep South’s craft beer culture is fertile and primed for harvest.

From the beginning, the Back Forty team had been amazed by the positive impact that micro breweries have on their communities.  And having grown up in a blue collar town that was chewed up and spit out by the industrial revolution, it didn’t take long for Wilson to settle on Gadsden as the permanent home for Back Forty Beer Company.  Back Forty secured a 27,000sf warehouse that was built in the 1940s, and Back Forty’s four employees spent eleven months working themselves and with contractors restoring the space and installing equipment.