We’ve all been watching the news coming from Bell’s Brewery in Michigan. Mostly for selfish reasons, waiting for Two Hearted Ale and the others to arrive in bottles. (You can find it on-tap now, so be sure to keep your eyes open.) But the real news lies in stories like this one, where true craft brewers stay the course and don’t cave in to industry bullies.

Larry Bell, the “maverick brewer” behind Bell’s has yanked all his beer from Illinois. It’s interesting to note that he is from Park Forest, Ill. and grew up there. Why in world would he do this?

Bell pulled his popular beers from Chicago–and the rest of Illinois–during a nasty business dispute with his new distributor. He didn’t like the way his longtime beer broker sold the rights to his products to one of the Midwest’s largest distributors, which represents Miller and other major labels.

Illinois’ arcane liquor laws left him with few options. So Bell wrote off his fourth-largest market and a thirsty populace that had accounted for 11 percent of his $12 million in yearly sales. …

Industry observers say it’s unusual for a brewer to abandon such a lucrative market. For Bell, though, it bolsters the maverick reputation he has cultivated since he started making beer in the early 1980s with a giant soup kettle and a pair of plastic garbage cans.

It’s just a darn shame Chicago has to suffer, but we raise a toast to Larry and his willingness to stick it to ‘em. He knows he’s got a good product, stands behind it, and refuses to be beat-up by the big guys. Cheers to craft beer!

Source: Chicago Tribune (registration required)