Jack McAuliffe, Suzy Denison, and Jane Zimmerman Found New Albion Brewing Company

In October 1976, Jack McAuliffe, Suzanne “Suzy” Denison, and Jane Zimmerman founded New Albion Brewing Company in Sonoma, California. McAuliffe brought brewing plans and equipment-building experience; Denison and Zimmerman supplied capital and shared the work required to establish the small brewery. Denison’s surviving oral history describes securing permits, construction, brewing, and deliveries among her responsibilities. New Albion began production in 1977 with improvised, small-scale equipment and closed in 1982 after struggling to finance expansion. It is widely treated as a foundational modern American microbrewery because it demonstrated a post-Prohibition model for very small, independently operated production and influenced later brewers. That significance belongs to the three founders and their collaborators, not to McAuliffe alone.