Bill Owens, photographer and craft beer pioneer turns 79

On 25 September, Bill Owens turned 79. In case you have never heard of Bill (shame on you), in the course of his life he has worn many hats: he was a homebrewer, campaigner, brewpub operator, accidental inventor of the IPA style (his Alimony Ale was billed “the bitterest brew in America”), founder of the Alpha King Challenge, publisher of the American Brewer magazine and author of “How to build a small brewery”. Last but not least he was and still is an acclaimed photographer.

Bill founded one of California’s (and America’s) earliest brewpubs, Buffalo Bill’s, in Hayward, a city south of San Francisco, having started out as an ingenious homebrewer who managed to put a cooler box and a garden hose to good use as brewing kit.

The brewpub opened in 1983, but in 1994 he sold it to his then-brewer, Geoff Harries, who still owns and operates it. Bill also founded American Brewer magazine, which today is owned by Jim Dorsch, Jamie Magee and Bill Metzger.

Bill is also an accomplished photographer, who has published several volumes of his photos, the most famous of which is “Suburbia” (1972). His work can be found in many museum collections around the world. More recently, he’s been involved in micro-distilling, founding the American Distilling Institute in 2003.

But it’s for another reason that Bill has to be feted on his birthday. He must be the first living former craft brewer who has a MA thesis in history (no less) devoted to himself. It’s by Patrick Falls from the University of San Diego and called “Bill Owens: A US Craft Beer Pioneer, 1982 – 2001”. It came out earlier this year.

Anyone interested in how craft beer happened upon the US thanks to this charismatic guy needs to read this thesis.

It can be found at http://digital.sandiego.edu/theses/18/