(left to right: Lloyd Knox(Grandpa), Kevin, Annabel, Grace, Carol, Polly (Sparky not in Photo)

Knox Brewing, makers of SPARKY'S FRESH DRAFT ROOT BEER, is a small family business. It all started back in the late 80's, here in my home in Pacific Grove, California, with a beer brewing kit. Somehow I got hooked on home brewing, but that's another story. Anyway, I don't drink much, so most of the beer I brewed I gave away to friends. Later, my beers went on to win gold and silver medals for the American Homebrewers Association Annual Competition, (the largest home brew competition in the world) for my Coconut Wheat Beer and Smoked Beer. My beers have won many state and local awards as well.

Many of our friends don't drink alcohol. We wanted to come up with something to give them so I began brewing root beer as well. It took many years and many five-gallon batches before our recipe became fine tuned. All during that time we hand bottled the root beer in the same 22oz. amber longneck bottles used for the home brewed beer and gave it away as gifts, especially at Christmas.

'One day Carol and I were talking about how everyone loves our root beer and what fun it would be to go into business making it. Carol said the classic words, "It's so crazy it just might work!" And so SPARKY'S FRESH DRAFT ROOT BEER, made by Knox Brewing, was born on April 1, 2000.

We set out to find a place to brew our root beer and found a commercial kitchen that we were able to convert to a root beer brewery. Producing five gallon kegs only, we started serving it at the local Farmer's Market in Monterey, California as well as many other festivals and street fairs on California's Central Coast. We were amazed at the overwhelmingly enthusiastic response we recieved!

We were soon bombarded with requests for SPARKY'S in bottles. After a few test runs of bottling one at a time, we decided we needed some real help. We found the perfect situation at The Coast Range Brewing Company in Gilroy, CA. We now brew SPARKY'S there and bottle it on their bottling line in the same 22oz. amber longnecks we first used when brewing beer and root beer for friends. We brew our family recipe using the best ingredients and the same technique as always. We are proud to be able to offer SPARKY'S FRESH DRAFT ROOT BEER for the public to enjoy.