Background – Iron John’s Brewing
John Adkisson opened Iron John’s Brewing in 2014.
After several years of intense home brewing, Adkisson decided to take his craft to the next level. In 1996 John left his accounting job and began brewing on the ten barrel brewpub system at Habaneros. John attended a professional training course in brewhouse procedures, setup the brewhouse operations and ran the brewery until Habaneros closed.
Next up: John went to work at Nimbus Brewing Company and helped with the brewery’s transition from a ten barrel to a thirty barrel brewhouse, documenting the brewery’s procedures, and training two brewers over the next year. John then led a homebrew group, armed with knowledge and strong opinions helped him develop as a brewer through lots of discussion and beer experimentation. It was with them that John made his first experiments with barrel aging and souring beers.
In 2013, Atkisson was offered financial backing to open a small commercial brewing operation to introduce Iron John’s line of beers to Tucson and hopefully attract investors for future expansion. The challenge was how small could the new brewery be to save on startup costs while still being
big enough to survive? The result, Iron John’s Brewing Company, opening with a two barrel brewhouse assembled from re-purposed commercial stainless equipment, giving it a 500
barrel per year production capacity.
big enough to survive? The result, Iron John’s Brewing Company, opening with a two barrel brewhouse assembled from re-purposed commercial stainless equipment, giving it a 500
barrel per year production capacity.
In 2018 John opened Iron John’s Congress Taproom downtown on Congress Street. It has at least 10 different taps that will sell an ever-changing lineup of Iron John’s beer, as well as a few wines, cold-brew coffee and a house Kombucha.
Experience
Iron John’s Brewing in Tucson is like no other brewery we have visited. It is a small storefront in an industrial area. Tastings were only available on Saturdays when we first visited a year after opening. A large cooler holds a surprising variety of unique hand crafted brews. A board lists all that is available with brief descriptions. This is a family run business. During our first visit John Adkisson’s son gave us a tour of the brewing area, his wife poured the samples while John worked in the office. We purchased a couple of bottles, a Saison and a green chili spiced ale.
We returned several months later with our empties and John told us what new beer’s had recently been created. The offerings had tripled in those few months. We left with 5 fabulous beers. It was an interesting assortment that included a barrel aged sour, a couple of Saisons (one brewed with coffee) a green tea wheat ale and German white ale. The beer made here is definitely “artisan”. It worth the effort to find this little brewery. We even encourage those visiting Phoenix to make the road trip to visit this unique, boutique brewery.
