Lesser Arts is a cottage-industry brewery and homestead located in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California.
We create de-industrialized, living beers shaped by regional harvests,
seasonal rhythms, and microbial collaboration.
“Our ground is that it is not only possible to make the matters needful to our daily life works of art,
but that there is something wrong in the civilization that does not do this.”
-William Morris “The Lesser Arts of Life”
Select, whole, non-synthetic ingredients.
House-propagated & wild-captured microbes.
Site-specific spring & well water.
Learned & improvised cellar techniques.
Ambient & open wort chilling.
Barrel conditioning.
Carbonation in package.
Organic waste composting.
We source ingredients from small suppliers and regional farms in Northern California and Oregon. Some ingredients are cultivated and foraged on our homestead and neighboring properties in Amador County.
Each batch of beer we make is unique and seasonal. We brew on simple equipment, chill using ambient temperatures, and ferment without refrigeration. Brewing byproducts return to on-site orchards, gardens, and pastures as compost, irrigation, and livestock feed.
We do not operate a tasting room and are not open to the public.
We sell and sample our beer at local farmer’s markets.
We supply and cater our beer for private and public events and pop-ups. Inquire here.
Sign up for the Lesser Arts Journal to learn more about how we make our beer, when and where it is on sale, and future events.