Alabama craft beer lost one of its founding fathers this week. Jason Wilson, the man behind Back Forty Beer Company, died Wednesday at 46 after suffering a heart attack on August 5th. He was also serving as a Gadsden City Councilman at the time of his passing.
Wilson wasn’t a hobbyist who got lucky. He spent seven years in logistics at Georgia-Pacific before deciding Alabama needed what he’d seen brewing in Colorado. He raised $36,000 from five family members and friends, then spent 18 months driving from Atlanta to Kiln, Mississippi most weekends to brew at Lazy Magnolia because Alabama didn’t have a facility of its own yet. In 2009, he brought Back Forty home to Gadsden, eventually building a 27,000-square-foot brewery inside a former Sears distribution center.
That’s the easy part of the story to tell. The harder part is what he did after: Wilson and a handful of other brewers spent years lobbying the Alabama Legislature, eventually getting seven pieces of legislation passed that rewrote the rules for the state’s brewing industry. When he started, Alabama had two licensed craft breweries. By 2019, there were 53, with the industry now approaching a billion dollars in economic impact statewide. Every Alabama brewery operating today owes something to that work, whether they know his name or not.
Founder: Jason Wilson (1980–2026)
Brewery: Back Forty Beer Co. — Gadsden, Alabama
Founded: 2009
Legacy: Helped grow Alabama craft beer from 2 breweries to 50+
When Wilson’s health first declined, his other business, Coldwater Mountain Brewpub in Anniston, announced a closure with a line that’s now making the rounds across Alabama’s beer community: “the captain is down.” He held a council seat, ran two businesses, and helped birth an entire industry in a state that wasn’t looking for one. Gadsden and Alabama craft beer are both worse off without him.
Raise one for Jason tonight. There’s no Alabama craft beer scene without him.
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