Stone Brewing (formerly Stone Brewing Co.) is a brewery headquartered in Escondido, California, USA. Founded in 1996 in San Marcos, California, it is the largest brewery in Southern California. Based on 2020 sales volume it is the ninth largest craft brewery in the United States.
The brewery's first beer was Stone Pale Ale, which was considered to be its flagship ale until it was retired in 2015. The company's best known brand is Arrogant Bastard Ale, which has been described as a "watershed beer" that "put San Diego on the craft brew map." Most of Stone's beers are characteristic of west-coast craft brews, meaning that they have a high hop content. Compared to the macro-produced lagers, many Stone brews feature alcohol percentages that are well above average, ranging from 4.8% to 13%.
Stone Brewing is rated as a "world class brewery" by the two largest beer enthusiast websites, RateBeer and BeerAdvocate. Stone Brewing has been voted by the readers of Beer Advocate as the #1 "All Time Top Brewery on Planet Earth."
In June 2022, Stone and Sapporo Breweries announced that they had reached an agreement for Sapporo to purchase Stone Brewing, with the purchase expected to close in August 2022.