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Directory🇺🇸 Sparks · Nevada · United States· Sparks, Nevada

Great Basin Brewing Company

🌍 United States · Regional · ★ Award winning · Known for a full range of styles
Award winningKnown for a full range of styles

Founded on December 4, 1993 by geologist Tom Young and brewer Eric McClary — Nevada's oldest and most decorated brewery. Young was inspired by pub culture in Yugoslavia in 1983, and after years as an award-winning homebrewer, he and McClary lobbied the Nevada Legislature to allow brewpubs before opening in Sparks. Their debut beer, the Ichthyosaur 'Icky' IPA named after Nevada's state fossil, won silver at the 2006 World Beer Championships. 16 GABF medals and 9 World Beer Cup awards later, the Outlaw Milk Stout alone has won seven national and international awards. Great Basin donates over $35,000 to paleontological expeditions in Nevada and bakes daily bread from Icky IPA spent grain.

4Beers
4Styles
5.5%Avg ABV
1993Founded
Consistency· share of beers above catalogue avg
50%
catalogue avg 45%

Beers by Great Basin Brewing Company

4 beers

← scroll to see all 4 beers →

Brewery DNA

The recurring character behind the beers

Drawn from all 4 beers in the catalogue.

Emerging signature · based on 4 beers
Signature
What keeps showing up across their beers.
maltyevery beer
4 of 4 beers
crisp
3 of 4 beers
light
3 of 4 beers
hoppy
2 of 4 beers

With 4 beers, only recurring notes are shown — one unusual beer moves this a lot.

Portfolio range
How broad they brew.
Broad4 beers · 4 style families
Lager 1IPA 1Stout 1Amber 1

Their signature has to hold across very different styles — which makes the notes that do recur more telling, not less.

What sets them apart
Each beer measured against others of its own style, then averaged across the range. Compared with 597 other breweries making American IPA.
Three beers is enough for a first read, not a full house style — one unusual beer moves this a lot.
typical for American IPAGreat Basin Brewing Company
in no beersin every beer
spicy
in 2 of 4 · typical American IPA brewery: fewer than 1 in 5
Notably more spicy than typical.

Across 4 beers in 4 style families, one trait still carries through — a broad range makes a shared signature harder to hold.

Brewery performance
How their beers place in the hopIQ ranking.
Top 37%
average beer performance
0
beers in the Top 100
3 / 4
beers above the median
#233
best ranked beer
Cerveza Chilebeso

Their beers place in the Top 37% of the catalogue on average, across 4 ranked beers. Consistent rather than spiky — no single standout carrying the rest.

Similar Breweries

hopIQ exclusive

Based on style overlap and flavor profile

Honolulu Beerworks
United States
95%match
Augustiner-Bräu
Germany
92%match
Bayerische Staatsbrauerei Weihenstephan
Germany
92%match

About Great Basin Brewing Company

Founded on December 4, 1993 by geologist Tom Young and brewer Eric McClary — Nevada's oldest and most decorated brewery. Young was inspired by pub culture in Yugoslavia in 1983, and after years as an award-winning homebrewer, he and McClary lobbied the Nevada Legislature to allow brewpubs before opening in Sparks. Their debut beer, the Ichthyosaur 'Icky' IPA named after Nevada's state fossil, won silver at the 2006 World Beer Championships. 16 GABF medals and 9 World Beer Cup awards later, the Outlaw Milk Stout alone has won seven national and international awards. Great Basin donates over $35,000 to paleontological expeditions in Nevada and bakes daily bread from Icky IPA spent grain.

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Location
Sparks · Nevada · United States
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