Urban Forest Craft Brewing
Urban Forest Craft Brewing opened its doors on Rockford’s east side in May 2020, an audacious moment for any new business, let alone a brewery built around a taproom during a time when taprooms couldn’t fully operate. Co-founders Alex Cando and Heath Myers pushed through on carryout beer alone in those early months, and six years later the brewery is still standing, still brewing, and still pouring for a growing crowd along the East Riverside Boulevard corridor. Tucked into a plaza near Rockford’s Sportscore complex and the area’s newer hospital development, the brewery has benefited from a neighborhood that keeps bringing in fresh foot traffic, even for a spot that isn’t immediately visible from the road.
Step inside and the vibe is unmistakably a neighborhood taproom rather than a polished brewpub: a working brewhouse in view, a rotating lineup of a dozen or so house taps, and a laid-back crowd that treats the place like a regular hangout. Outside food is welcome, food trucks and neighboring restaurants fill in the menu gaps, and dogs are welcome on the patio, which makes it as much a stop for families and pet owners as for serious beer geeks working through the tap list.
“Authentic Ales, Legit Lagers.”
What sets Urban Forest apart in the Rockford beer scene is its range: German-style wheatbiers and hefeweizens brewed with imported malt sit on the same tap wall as triple dry-hopped New England IPAs, Australian sparkling ales, and nitro oatmeal stouts, alongside a running roster of fruited “Soft Tickles” sours. The brewery also leans into local collaboration, teaming up with other breweries in Rockford’s 815 area code — along with area coffee roasters and neighboring businesses — on one-off releases that celebrate the region’s growing craft beer identity rather than compete against it.
Urban Forest is worth the trip for anyone who wants a genuine neighborhood taproom experience rather than a tourist-brewery spectacle: come for trivia night or live music, bring the dog to the patio, order in from a neighboring restaurant, and work through a tap list that swings confidently between old-world lager tradition and modern hazy IPA excess. Six years in, it’s a Rockford fixture that’s earned its staying power one pour at a time.
