Carol Stoudt

Carol Stoudt (born 1950) is an American brewmaster who founded Stoudts Brewing Company in Adamstown, Pennsylvania in 1987. In addition to owning the company, she was the brewmaster, salesperson, and mentor. She was one of the first female brewmasters since Prohibition in the United States and the nation's first female sole proprietor of a brewery in 1987.

Pre-brewing Stoudt was born in 1950 and grew up in a teetotaling family. She was a kindergarten teacher, has a master's in early childhood education, and was a negotiator for her teachers union. She married Ed Stoudt in 1975 and they have five children. Carol joined the business after she and Ed were married. There was a fire in 1977, and after the business reopened the Stoudts added a European beer garden. They wanted to serve their own beer, but brewpubs were not legal in Pennsylvania until 1989, and a married couple could not legally own a restaurant and brewery. She attended the Siebel Institute and had Karl Strauss and Greg Noonan as mentors.

Her brewery's first beer was Stoudts Gold Lager. "Stoudt’s beers are made solely with spring water and the finest barley, hops and brewers yeast, to provide an all-natural product with no preservatives and are brewed in accordance with the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516." "Originally they used a vintage 1902 bottler combined with a hand labeler that for years sat in a museum and had been stored in an old barn. The filler just happened to fit champagne bottles which became a virtual trademark of Stoudt's beers. Those original green bottles have been replaced with brown to better protect the beer." At the time, it was Pennsylvania's first “microbrewery” and one of just 73 breweries in the country. They founded a local Oktoberfest celebration in 1979. She also earned a gold (1996) and bronze (1998) at the World Beer Cup International Competition, as well as several World Beer Championship awards.

Retirement Stoudt retired in spring 2020 and ceased brewing operations at her namesake brewery.