The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Athens’ Creature Comforts Brewing turns 10
Creature Comforts Brewing in Athens celebrated its 10th anniversary earlier this month with a party and several special beers brewed for the occasion.
The company first opened for business in April 2014 at the former Snow Tire Co. building on West Hancock Avenue in downtown Athens.
Since then, Creature Comforts has grown to include a state-of-the-art production brewery at the historic Southern Mill complex on Athens’ North Chase Street, and in late 2023 it opened a third brewery and taproom in the City Market South community in Los Angeles.
“I am not sure anyone could have ever imagined what Creature has accomplished in these first 10 years,” co-founder and CEO Chris Herron said. “We became recognized for our world-class beer, grew to become a nearly top 30 brewery in America, sold over 1 million cases in a year, opened a brewery in Los Angeles, got Thor to drink our beer in the world’s biggest movie, and on top of all that, stayed focused on our purpose and solidified it by becoming a certified B-Corps.”
Herron was referencing Creature Comforts’ flagship beer, Tropicália, which the character Thor favored in the 2019 film “Avengers: Endgame.” And “B Corps” refers to for-profit companies that meet certain standards for building a more inclusive and sustainable economy.
“To say that we had planned for this would be a blatant lie, but when you assemble the right people around the right product and build a company focused on doing the right things, clearly anything can happen,” Herron said.
Creature Comforts’ stated corporate mission is to foster human connection and build a culture where all people feel welcome and where any person can thrive. Vice President of Brand Impact Fenwick Broyard spearheads that effort .
“Chris told me when I first got hired that he needed me to be the champion of that purpose,” said Broyard, who has been connected to Creature Comforts since its first year. “One percent of our revenue is going to our philanthropic work every year, no matter how big we get. That excites me because that gives us reason to continue to grow.
“That’s both in the way we impact our community and also the way that we honor our commitments to sustainability and the work that we do to ensure that we’re producing our products as efficiently as we possibly can, with a minimal amount of waste and environmental impact.”
In his role as brewmaster, co-founder Adam Beauchamp is responsible for the quality and quantity of the company’s products.
From the beginning, Beauchamp said, the plan was to go big. “When we started Creature, we were definitely aware that we had to be successful in distribution to survive, because the laws are so different back then. We were not going to start a small brewery. We started with a 30-barrel, three-vessel brewhouse, which was a pretty big investment, and definitely some high aspirations.”
Creature Comforts’ biggest seller always has been Tropicália, a soft, juicy version of the popular beer style known as India pale ale.
“It’s always been right around 70% of our revenue,” Beauchamp said. “That’s definitely a large majority of our sales, but the other brands hold their own. Athena has been the No. 1 wheat beer in Georgia since its inception. Bibo was the No. 1 craft lager until we passed it with Classic City Lager.”
Beauchamp currently spends a good bit of time in Los Angeles, getting the new brewery and taproom there off the ground.
“I get to go out there every few weeks and spend some time with that team,” he said. “Doing the startup thing all over again is fun. You have to do a little bit of everything. I was kegging Tropicália in a basement in downtown Los Angeles last week, which was kind of a trip.”