Like the foraged ingredients that Marika Josephson and Aaron Kleidon toss into their kettle, Scratch Brewing sprouted up in this woody patch of Illinois and then grew organically.
Scratch sits in a part of the state where the tilled flatness, as it stretches southward, starts to get a bit hillier. There was nothing in this spot before 2012—just a gently sloping property with lots of trees, amid the farms about 20 miles northwest of Carbondale. Kleidon’s family owned the land. The friends and business partners built the small, house-like main building—while homebrewing hundreds of batches and experimenting with ingredients—before they opened the brewery’s doors in 2013.
The place has grown bit by bit, since then. They’ve done most of it themselves. After the taproom and brewhouse/kitchen, they built the wood-fired brick oven, used for pizzas, sourdough bread, and for toasting various ingredients. Here and there, they salvaged bits from elsewhere. The bricks on the patio came from an old shoe factory in nearby Murphysboro. “We just started on a shoestring budget, as most people do,” Kleidon says. “But then as more money was available, we were able to build on here and there, little bits and pieces.”
Left: The patio outside the taproom. Right: Josephson pouring a beer in the taproom. Photo: Joe Stange