Get to know Against the Grain Brewery, a craft brewery in Louisville

Kentucky is home to more than 40 craft breweries cranking out beer in cities both big and small.

We probably all know that Louisville and Lexington have become craft beer hotspots, with brands like Against the Grain and West Sixth expanding from single locations to huge community presences.

But as the industry grows nationally, it's also reached into smaller areas like Elizabethtown and Danville, where microbreweries can serve as community connectors.

Here, learn about one of the breweries that are fermenting in Kentucky.

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AGAINST THE GRAIN BREWERY

401 E. Main St., Louisville | atgbrewery.com | Facebook: @atgbrewery

Opened: 2011

Owners: Sam Cruz, Jerry Gnagy, Adam Watson and Andrew Ott

Bio: Since the beginning, Against the Grain has been throwing caution to the wind and making beer the way we want. It all started in 2011 with four owners who wanted to change the way beer was viewed in Louisville.

From day one, they promised to produce different beers all the time under an array of styles. This promise was extraordinary, impossible even, to some who believed a pale ale should be a pale ale and a porter should be a porter. They were told they couldn't do it, but with a few crude names, a couple risks and quality liquid, they proved everyone wrong.

Three years later they found themselves needing some elbow room outside of the brewpub downtown. In 2014, they bought a production facility in the Portland neighborhood and began producing an eclectic line of canned and barrel-aged beers. They grew bigger, that's a fact, but they never lost sight of that original promise. They looked to the packaging to tell the story of Against the Grain and to share their philosophy with the world. Beers like The Brown Note, Citra Ass Down and Sho'Nuff are now on shelves reaching all four corners of the globe.

Top three beers: 

• Citra Ass Down, double IPA
• Bo & Luke, barrel-aged imperial smoked stout
• 70K, imperial stout

Most inventive beer: Gosh! Just one? Well, I suppose if we had to pick one, it would be Kamen Knuddeln, our dark sour.

Fun fact: We don't make beer at all. JUST KIDDING. One time we randalled the Brown Note with Whitie Tighties.

Edited for style and clarity.

Bailey Loosemore: 502-582-4646; bloosemore@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @bloosemore. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/baileyl.