Chad Brown
Chad Brown’s path to becoming a Wyoming distiller did not begin in a rickhouse or a family stillhouse. It began in a garage hundreds of miles from Pine Bluffs, where a hobby brewer with Wyoming roots was living in the Las Vegas area and trying to make something honest in a world built on bright lights and regulation. In the early 2010s, Brown was employed in Las Vegas as a corporate securities investigator for the Nevada Gaming Control Board, working inside a system where documentation, compliance, and details are not optional.
Brown was born in 1979 and raised with Wyoming connections, but early on, his family had moved west to Nevada, where he had watched his father home-brew beer, until he eventually took up brewing himself. After earning a college degree in business, he went to work for the Nevada Gaming Control Board and kept brewing in his spare time, enough that his home setup became a talking point when family visited: his house had a two-car garage, Brown later recalled, and his patient wife let him completely take over one bay for brewing.
In March 2012, Brown had a visitor at his Nevada home. It was his cousin Gene Purdy, a wheat and barley farmer from Pine Bluffs, Wyoming. Purdy saw Brown’s brewing system and recognized the math behind it. The two started talking about grain costs and where the margin was going. Purdy was getting only a fraction of what Brown was paying for barley. The conversation quickly shifted from brewing to supply chains: if the grain was grown in the region, why was so much malt being shipped away to be processed and then shipped back? That question became the seed for a bigger plan: build local malting capacity and keep more of the value in the community. As Brown later described it, a handful of major facilities supplied nearly all the malt used by the regional brewers, and much of the barley grown across the Great Plains was shipped long distances for malting before returning to the region. Brown and Purdy’s idea was straightforward: grow locally, malt locally, sell locally, and then distill locally.
By March 2014, their planning turned serious. Brown moved to Pine Bluffs with his family. Brown recalls that before long, he realized that Pine Bluffs was not as a temporary stop, but as a place to put down roots with his wife and three daughters. From day one he felt that it was “a great place to raise a family.” And as his project grew, it took on two linked identities: a malting operation called Wyoming Malting, and a distilling brand named Pine Bluffs Distilling. The cousins, now partners, formed a business plan, worked with economic development organizations, and broke ground in 2016. By March of the next year, they were cutting a ribbon on the malting and distilling facility. The plan was to produce malt for brewers and distillers while also creating their own spirits under the Pine Bluffs name. Pine Bluffs Distilling became even more anchored as a family-owned business, when, later that year they brought in Chad’s aunt, Kathy Brown, as the third owner, further stabilizing financially and ensuring that the company structure revolved around relatives, not outside investors.
By the mid-2020s, Pine Bluffs Distilling was presenting a lineup that reflected both experimentation and the realities of what local farmers can grow: bourbons, rye, and also less common categories like oat whiskey. In a June 2024 feature, Brown described building relationships with multiple local grain-growing families and seeing their pride when their grain became a finished product on store shelves.
Back in Pine Bluffs, milestones are often celebrated face-to-face. A tradition which Brown created caught on: he celebrates his birthday on June 27 each year with a special whiskey release. Evidence like that captures the kind of hometown scene that can’t be manufactured: Brown celebrating alongside his father, Charles “Charlie” Brown, with music, pizza, cake, and neighbors coming through the distillery to mark the day.
Chad Brown’s story is the story of a modern rural distillery built the hard way: not by inheriting a still, but by tracing a supply chain back to the farm; not by chasing trends, but by building local capacity, then malting, distilling, and sewing seeds in the community; one permit, one batch, and one relationship at a time.
Sources
Pine Bluffs Post, “Pine Bluffs cousins cut ribbon on Wyoming Malting”, Gary Collins, March 23, 2017, pinebluffspost.com
The Counter, “How Wyoming’s unlikely craft beer and liquor boom is rekindling a state's entrepreneurial spirit”, October 23, 2018, thecounter.org
Pine Bluffs Post, “Keeping the crop in Pine Bluffs”, November 16, 2017, pinebluffspost.com
Cowboy State Daily, “Drinking Wyoming: Pine Bluffs Distillery’s Coming-Of-Age Whiskey And Spirits”, Renée Jean, June 15, 2024, cowboystatedaily.com
Visit Cheyenne, “Chad Brown: Cheyenne Trailblazer” , cheyenne.org
Laramie County Community College, “About”, lccc.wy.edu
The Great American West, “Grains to glass: Drink hyperlocal at Pine Bluffs Distilling”, February 25, 2021, greatamericanwest.com
Lost Lantern Whiskey, “Discovery Club January 2026: Pine Bluffs”, January 15, 2026, lostlanternwhiskey.com
Pine Bluffs Post, “Pine Bluffs Distilling holds a Chad’s Birthday Barrel Release and Party”, Karen Lipska, June 29, 2023, pinebluffspost.com
Contributed by Tracy McLemore, Fairview, Tennessee