George Stranahan Flying Dog Owner Rebel Artist Beer Brand Craft Brewery

The man who started it all.

While on a Fear and Loathing trip of his own in the Himalayas, an inspiring series of events led George to create the Flying Dog brand. Stranahan is a man cut out of the Gonzo mold himself and Flying Dog mirrors his life as an activist, rebel and artist. It started with art, branched out to beer, and now Flying Dog has it's eyes set on complete world domination.

George has always been a supporter of the arts and a amateur photographer himself. "Art is a reflection of the human condition," George comments. So, when picking an artist to do Flying Dog's labels George tapped longtime friend Hunter S. Thompson to get an artist that reflects the Flying Dog condition - Ralph Steadman.

George Stranahan (born November 5, 1931) owner of Flying Dog Brewery, educator, activist.

Owner of Flying Dog Brewery, educator and activist

George was born during the depths of the Great Depression and grew up in Perrsyburg, Ohio, just outside of Toledo. The Stranahans, a wealthy family who made their fortune as pioneers in the automobile industry, were highly respected for the care and concern they had for their community. As one story goes, when the market collapsed in 1929, causing banks across the country to fail and widespread panic among depositors, George’s grandfather, with balls and cash, saved the local bank by standing in front of it telling people “The bank will not open today, but if you show me your savings book I will give you the cash out of my pocket”. George inherited that same spirit of care and concern along with the bold, adventurous, entrepreneurial style of the Stranahan family.

After being graduated from Caltech (where as an undergraduate he had a paper published in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal), George went on to earn a PhD in Physics from Carnegie Mellon University. George then served as a professor at Michigan State University for several years before permanently moving to Woody Creek in 1972, a town he had been visiting and comfortable with since the mid-1950’s.

Gonzo Spirit

Always a critic of traditional schools, George founded three schools based on the principles of the progressive, alternative, free school movement. While the list of George’s other adventures and accomplishments is too long to recount in its entirety, it includes tracking into the base camp of K-2 through the Braldu Gorge and the Baltoro Glacier (a trek that one of the world’s greatest mountain climbers described as “the most dangerous thing he has ever done”) - which trek led to the discovery of the name “Flying Dog”; founding the Aspen Institute for Physics - a world-class center for theoretical physics; professional photographer; creating the “Mountain Gazette”; founding the Woody Creek Tavern as a place for locals to congregate and connect; opening an art gallery for artists that would help them avoid being exploited by traditional galleries; winning concessions from huge multinational companies for the betterment of its employees; a 40-year friendship with Hunter S. Thompson with whom he shared such common interests as drinking, talking politics, guns, noise, and some drugs; and, a leader of the Needmore Fund, which helps others make the world a better place. George, a lover of beer since taking his first sip at age 12 on a hot summer day while watching his father play tennis, founded the Flying Dog brewpub in Aspen, which later evolved into the Flying Dog Brewery.

George still lives in Woody Creek and, with his spirit of purposeful irreverence, continues on his consciousness-raising binge, helping others learn that they don’t have to eat shit from corporate, government, military monoliths or suffer injustices at the hands of local authorities.

The arrogant young professor learning to be an anti-war activist.

My last year as a draftee was spent in NEI company, New Equipment Introductory, and everybody there was a college graduate draftee, i.e. not entirely happy with their situation. FTA began slowly and softly, we’d whisper it, then in shaving lotion on the bathroom mirror, then perhaps in the dust we might leave as we cleaned (not) the battalion commanders desk. A real hero patted the Colonel on his back and left an FTA sticky note. Nobody didn’t know that FTA stood for, “Fuck The Army.” I witnessed a true breakthrough arriving at the post one day at 5 am to see the parade field ablaze with burning coal laid out in the letters FTA. This was a bit much for an army at serious war in Korea; the CID came in from Washington to find and punish the perps, which were all of us. New guys are easily recognized and not soon trusted, the CID learned nothing. The army is dumb, but not entirely innocent of how to deal with our ilk of saboteurs. They transferred in a combat hardened battalion commander who fell us out a 5 am in dress code, 6 am in fatigues, 7 am dressed for parade and so on. I was able to transfer out.

This was all a bit safer than my lock picking of an air force recruiting gizmo, a jet plane on a flat bed. We dissidents determined to drive the recruiting device to the AFROTC Colonels home and park it on his front lawn. With the lock picked, it was driven to the destination passing under an overpass that unfortunately removed the empennage, the tail of the bird. Destruction of military property during wartime; the FBI was on it by the next morning. They promised vast amnesty for snitching, and promised a firing squad for the offenders. Remarkably we held.