Celebrating 25 Years of Craft in Columbia

Twenty-five years ago, a 30-barrel brewhouse and a borrowed bar lease was all it took to start what would become Downtown Brewery and Co. We opened our doors on Business Loop 70 in October 1999 — back when the Loop was still the main drag, before the chain restaurants moved in and most of the character moved out.

The original lineup was four beers: a blonde, a stout, a wheat, and whatever the seasonal was that month. We had twelve bar stools, a kitchen window, and a regulation pool table that nobody could ever figure out how to fold. By Christmas, we’d sold out of our first batch of Old 70 Stout three times. We took that as a sign.

What Hasn’t Changed

The thing we’re most proud of isn’t the awards (there have been a few) or the expanded menu or the new barrel aging room. It’s that the regulars who walked in during our first week still walk in today. Some of them have kids now. Some of those kids are in college. A few of them have started drinking beer themselves, which is terrifying in the best possible way.

Columbia is a town that cycles through people every four years. The university keeps it young and keeps it restless. We’ve always loved that. But we’ve also always tried to be the place that stays — the constant underneath all the change. The locals’ brewery, not the tourist stop.

What Has Changed

The kitchen is almost unrecognizable from 2005, when we graduated from burgers and pretzel baskets to an actual culinary program. Our head chef, Dana Reyes, joined us in 2018 and turned the food side into something we’re genuinely proud of. The Smoked Brisket Sandwich exists because of her. So does the Chocolate Stout Cake, which has probably generated more sincere compliments than anything else we’ve ever done.

The tap list has grown from four to twelve rotating handles. We contract-brew two specialty releases each year — one in spring and one in late fall — and the barrel program has produced some genuinely interesting things we didn’t expect. The 2023 Barrel District Amber aged for fourteen months and came out tasting like nothing we’d planned. That’s still our favorite kind of accident.

To the Next 25

Columbia has been good to us. We try to give that back — locally sourced ingredients when we can, local musicians on weekends, local charities when the occasion calls. We’ve never tried to be the biggest thing in Missouri. We’ve just tried to be the most worth your Tuesday evening.

Thanks for being here. The next round is on us — metaphorically, unfortunately, but the sentiment stands.

— Marcus Calloway, Head Brewer