Solemn Oath was born high above the great expanse of the American West.

John Barley sketched out a concept for a brewery on a return flight from visiting his brother Joe in San Diego. On that trip, the Barley brothers had hosted a beer tasting party for a couple dozen of their friends. The excitement, the community, the passion, and the discipline around making and drinking beer had hit a nerve that was pulsing too hard to ignore. It was on.

John put together a business plan and started interviewing brewers. It took one meeting with Tim Marshall, then of Rock Bottom, to know he would man the brewhouse. His experience with Belgian-style beers and barrel-aging made him the perfect fit for Solemn Oath. Together, Tim and John scouted locations in Chicagoland. They were looking for a space in the middle of a large population with an underdeveloped local beer supply. Naperville was the perfect location. Solemn Oath leased space in one of the city’s only light industrial parks and worked with the city council to craft a new liquor license that would allow Solemn Oath to operate as a production brewery with an on-site taproom.

As he placed tank orders and Tim signed hop contracts, John convinced Joe to move back to Chicago to be part of the team and manage sales. Over the first half of 2012, we built out the space and fired up the brewhouse. In May, the taproom opened and we sent our first beers into the market during Chicago Craft Beer Week. It was an exceptionally rad week to share our beer for the first time alongside breweries that inspired us.

Since opening, little has stayed the same. It’s a constant cycle of experimenting with new beers, hiring staff, growing volume, upgrading equipment, putting beer in new packages, filling more barrels, and dialing in every side of our company to make this thing the best damn brewery it can possibly be. What is constant, however, is our commitment to making beer of consistently high quality with clarity of flavor. That’s the organizing principle around which the whole universe of Solemn Oath spins.

Of course, we couldn’t do any of this without Windy City Distributing and the sales reps who are out there everyday making the case for Solemn Oath and getting it into your hands through your favorite places to drink. Or the beer buyers, managers, and owners at the most badass bars and restaurants in Chicagoland. And you. That’s right, you, the person who just read 493 words to this point because you want to find out what we’re all about. Thank you. You’re kind of our story, too. We’ll be damned if we know how it all turns out.