Grizzly Beer is a fictional worker-owned brewery based in Louisville, KY. Opening doors in 2024, Grizzly Beer takes inspiration from queer history and present.

This project started with a name drawn from a hat. The name is shared with a real-life brand that sells exactly what one would imagine—a beer you can have after a long day of fishing, hunting, or whatever else your typical rural straight man may be up to on a relaxing weekend—and I wanted to take things in a different direction.

As a queer person, I immediately thought of my annual pilgrimage to the Leather Archives in Chicago, IL and of queer community and solidarity throughout history. Most people now know the gay term “bear,” though its origination in George Mazzei and Gerard Donelan’s “A Glossary of Gay Animals” published in The Advocate in 1979 is a bit of a deeper cut. When I read the original and found that the bear’s favorite food is beer, I knew I was on the right track.