Macon Magazine

February/March 2025| maconmagazine.com 69 ABOVE Sales manager Andrea Smith explained the process of brewing, quality control, and distribution at Fall Line to us. LEFT A batch of Cloudbreaker IPA goes through the canning process. W alk into Park Bar in downtown Atlanta on a weekday at noon. Surprisingly, there's lots of life packed in the wooden stools. Even at an off-peak time, the prime location keeps business moving. Named one of Atlanta Magazine's 2024 best bars, their website calls the watering hole "your pre and post event bar for all of downtown's best venues," with photos of arenas, theaters, and museums nearby. Just off Centennial Olympic Park, five-star hotel Ritz Carlton and attractions like SkyView Atlanta are a stone's throw away. Along the draft line, colorful tap handles advertise big-name brands in the craft space like Sweetwater, a 25-year-old ATL brewery sold to Tilray Brands, Inc. for a cool $300 million, or Tampa-based Cigar City Brewing, which boasts 170,000 barrels a year shipped to all 50 states. Nestled in the middle is a taste of Macon – Fall Line Brewing Co., which opened in a historic industrial building just five years ago, right in time for the COVID pandemic to hit. How did tourists from around the world come to say, "I'll take a Fall Line," in locations across Georgia, from the Germanic mountain village of Helen to the coast of St. Simon's Island? The answer will surprise you, in a complicated industry shaped by a generational trend that may be starting to wane. Even as other players in the market duke it out and a bevy of beverages call your name at a bar, the argument to choose local is stronger than ever. B R E W I N G A U T H E N T I C I T Y To know what craft beer is, is to understand its value in America. The story starts far from Central Georgia – all the way to where Otis Redding crooned he was

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