Stone Brewing Co.

Stone Brewing (formerly Stone Brewing Co.) is a brewery formerly headquartered in Escondido, California, United States. Founded in 1996 in San Marcos, it is the largest brewery in Southern California. Based on 2020 sales volume, it is the ninth largest craft brewery in the United States. The brewery's first beer was Stone Pale Ale, which was considered to be its flagship ale until it was retired in 2015. The company's best known brand is Arrogant Bastard Ale, which has been described as a "watershed beer" that "put San Diego on the craft brew map." Most of Stone's beers are characteristic of west-coast craft beer, meaning that they have a high hop content, and an average alcohol strength between 6% and 10%. Stone Brewing has been rated as a "world class brewery" by two beer enthusiast websites, RateBeer and BeerAdvocate. Stone Brewing has been voted by the readers of Beer Advocate as the #1 "All Time Top Brewery on Planet Earth." In August 2022, Sapporo Breweries bought Stone for $165 million, with the Stone brewery taking on production of Sapporo beers in California for distribution across North America. Stone Brewing is owned by Duvel Moortgat USA and managed alongside Firestone Walker Brewing Company. The brand was acquired from Japanese brewing giant Sapporo USA in a 2026 joint transition, shifting its operational and West Coast home base to Firestone Walker in Paso Robles, California.