Good People Brewing Company

Tucked into the Southside neighborhood a short walk from Regions Field, Good People Brewing Company has been part of Birmingham’s beer scene since the mid 2000s, back when the city had almost no craft breweries at all. The taproom sits at 114 14th Street South, a plain brick building that fills up on weeknights with off duty nurses from the nearby hospitals, baseball fans before a Barons game, and regulars who have been coming since the early days.

The beer list leans toward approachable, well made styles rather than novelty. The Good People IPA is unfiltered, with herbal and earthy hops balanced against a light caramel finish, and it has been a staple of the lineup for years. Snakehandler, the brewery’s double IPA, is a bigger and boozier project with aromas of pine, citrus, flowers, spice, and pineapple layered over a biscuit and caramel backbone. For drinkers who want something lighter, Muchacho is a crisp Mexican style lager, and the seasonal Hazy Snake IPA brings juicy tropical fruit, grapefruit, and berry notes for fans of the hazy style. A rotating Blueberry Sour rounds out the lineup for anyone who wants something tart.

Good People also runs a barrel aging program called Funk Farm, dedicated to sour and wild ales that spend time in wood before release. It is a smaller, slower side of the operation that beer geeks tend to seek out specifically, separate from the flagship cans found on grocery store shelves around the state.

The taproom itself does not run its own kitchen. Instead, Los Valedores Tacos operates as the resident food partner from Wednesday through Sunday, and outside food is not allowed on those days as a result. Earlier in the week, guests are free to bring in their own meal if they want to pair it with a pint. The space is casual, with long communal tables, a bar that wraps toward the brewhouse windows, and enough room to spread out during a Friday crowd.

Good People keeps late hours by taproom standards, staying open until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays and closing at 10 p.m. on weeknights, with a slightly earlier Sunday close at 8 p.m. That makes it a reasonable stop either early in the evening for a flight of four or five samples, or later on for a nightcap after dinner elsewhere in Southside or downtown. Merchandise, growlers, and cans to go are all available for anyone who wants to take a piece of the visit home.

For visitors new to Birmingham’s beer scene, Good People is a reasonable first stop precisely because it is not trying to reinvent the wheel. The beers are dependable, the taproom is unfussy, and the Southside location makes it easy to combine with a ballgame, a walk through Railroad Park, or dinner nearby. It remains one of the longer running names in Alabama craft brewing, and the taproom still reflects that history in its straightforward, neighborhood feel rather than a polished tourist attraction.

Southside itself has grown up considerably around the brewery over the years, with Railroad Park, UAB’s campus, and Regions Field all within a short walk or a quick rideshare away. That makes Good People a natural stop before or after a Barons game, since the ballpark sits just a few blocks off. The taproom does not typically require reservations, and visitors can expect to walk in and find a seat at the bar or a table on most nights, though weekend evenings around a home game can get busy closer to first pitch.

Because the brewery distributes its flagship cans widely across grocery and convenience stores throughout Alabama, many visitors will already recognize the Good People name before they ever set foot in the taproom itself. What the taproom offers that the grocery store cannot is access to the Funk Farm barrel aged releases, one off collaboration beers, and fresh pours straight from the tanks, along with the chance to see where the beer that shows up on shelves across the state actually gets made. For a first time visitor to Birmingham’s beer scene, that combination of familiar flagship beers and taproom exclusive releases makes Good People a useful anchor point before branching out to the city’s newer breweries.