Since 2014
Built on one
stubborn IPA
Two founders, a leaky garage and a town that kept showing up. This is how Ironbark came to be — and why we still won't ship a beer across the country.
Why we do this
Good beer, made close to home
Ironbark trees are the kind that survive a fire and come back tougher — thick-barked, stubborn, rooted deep. It felt like the right name for a brewery started by two people who refused to brew anything they wouldn't drink themselves.
We brew everything you drink here in the tanks next door, pour most of it ourselves, and measure success by how full the room is on a Tuesday — not by how far the beer travels.
12
Years brewing
30+
Recipes on rotation
1
Stubborn first IPA
The long pour
How we got here
- 2014
A garage and a 10-gallon kettle
Dana and Will Okafor started Ironbark in a leaky garage off Forge Street, brewing one stubborn West Coast IPA until they got it right. The neighbours did the taste-testing.
- 2016
The old foundry
We took over a shuttered iron foundry — concrete floors, twenty-foot windows and good bones. The taproom went where the casting pit used to be.
- 2019
The barrel cellar
We dug into the building's cold back room and filled it with bourbon barrels. Iron Cask Porter was the first beer to come out of it twelve months later.
- 2023
Hop contracts in the valley
We signed direct contracts with two Yakima Valley hop farms, so the Citra and Mosaic in your glass were on the bine a few hours up the road.
Grain to glass
Four steps, no shortcuts
Every beer we pour walks the same path — from milled grain to a fresh line a few feet from the bar.
01Mill & Mash
Grain is milled the morning of the brew and mashed in at 152°F to coax out the sugars the yeast will eat.
02Boil & Hop
Ninety minutes at a rolling boil, with hops added in waves — bittering early, aroma late, and a whirlpool charge at flame-out.
03Ferment
Cooled and pitched into our stainless tanks, where the yeast works for two weeks. Dry-hops go straight into the cone.
04Condition & Pour
We carbonate, cold-crash and let it settle bright — then run a line straight from the tank to the tap a few feet away.
What we won't budge on
Three things we hold
Fresh beats far
We don't ship across the country. The beer is best the day it leaves the tank, so we pour most of it ourselves, right here.
Hops, honestly
No extracts, no shortcuts. Whole-cone and pellet hops from farms we've shaken hands with, dosed heavy and dry-hopped in the tank.
The taproom is the point
A brewery without a room full of people is just a factory. The bar, the trivia, the food trucks — that's the business, not the marketing.
The crew
Who's pouring
Dana Okafor
Co-founder & Head Brewer
Chemist-turned-brewer who still writes every recipe by hand.
Will Okafor
Co-founder & Cellar
Runs the barrel program and knows every keg by its dents.
Priya Raman
Taproom Lead
Pours straight, hosts trivia, remembers your regular.
The rest of the story is on tap
Come see the foundry, meet the crew, and find out which stubborn beer becomes your regular.