Leatherback Brewing Company

Leatherback Brewing Company is the craft brewery on St. Croix, a production brewhouse and taproom in the William Roebuck Industrial Park at Kingshill, a few minutes from the airport. The U.S. Virgin Islands tourism board calls it St. Croix's first craft brewery. It brews with harvested rainwater, cans and kegs on site, and runs an indoor-outdoor tasting room open daily. This page is the full reference: who started it and when, why it carries a sea turtle's name, what it actually brews, what a visitor finds at the taproom, where the beer is poured and sold around the island, and how the brewery fits the island's small craft-drinks scene.

Two things to know before you go. First, this is a working brewery, not a restaurant with a brewing theme. The beer is made, packaged and sold on the premises, and the kitchen is there to feed you while you drink it. Second, the taproom sits by Henry E. Rohlsen Airport rather than in either town, which makes it a natural first-afternoon or last-morning stop and a poor walk from a cruise dock. Bring a designated driver, and keep in mind that traffic here runs on the left.

St. Croix's craft brewery

Leatherback started with a conversation. The partners came together over beer in December 2016 and decided to build a brewery on St. Croix; the company was incorporated in 2017 and held its public grand-opening party on May 12, 2018. The managing partner, Aaron Hutchins, grew up in Frederiksted, and the brewery's origin is partly his: a Crucian coming back to make something on the island. He built it with Packy Gilbert, Scot McChain, and John Giannopoulos, the last of whom came out of Sly Fox Brewing Company on the U.S. mainland and brought production experience to the project. Sly Fox is an established Pennsylvania craft brewery, and the link gave a start-up on a small island a line back to a working mainland operation for recipes, equipment and the practical business of canning and distribution — the parts that are hard to learn from scratch a thousand miles from the nearest brewhouse.

The Virgin Islands tourism board describes Leatherback as St. Croix's first craft brewery. Other breweries operate elsewhere in the territory — St. John Brewers dates to 2004 on St. John, and Frenchtown Brewing opened on St. Thomas in 2015 — but on St. Croix, Leatherback was the one that put a production brewhouse on the ground and packaged beer for the shelf. One plain measure of what that changed is draft beer. By the brewery's own account, its arrival lifted the number of St. Croix restaurants pouring beer on draft from two to twenty-two, because Leatherback supplied the kegs and the tap systems to pour them. Before the brewery, packaged imports in bottles and cans were most of what the island drank; a local brewery running a keg route was a new thing here.

Why it carries the turtle's name

The name honors the leatherback sea turtle, the animal that hauls out every spring to nest on the sand at the island's southwest corner. The brewery's telling is that the turtle stands for its connection to St. Croix and for the idea of returning home, which fits a founder who did exactly that. The turtle appears on the cans and on the wall, and it is the piece of the brand that ties a beer company to the island's most-watched wildlife. This guide leaves the animal itself to the pages that cover it. What the leatherback is and how it lives is in the guide to the leatherbacks at Sandy Point; the nesting beach and its access rules are in the Sandy Point refuge guide; and the island's other nesting species are in the sea turtles guide. What the name asks of the brewery's conduct — the recycling, the composting, the eco-certification — is covered further down, where it can be measured rather than assumed.

Rainwater as the base

St. Croix has no rivers and no natural freshwater lakes, and municipal water on the island is expensive and largely desalinated. Leatherback's answer is the one Crucian households have used for centuries: catch the rain. The brewery collects rainwater in large holding tanks, runs it through a purification system, and uses it as the primary ingredient in every batch. Beer is mostly water, so the choice is not a slogan; the water is the base the malt and hops are built on. Rain is also the island's most dependable free resource, which makes it a sensible starting point for a business that needs a great deal of clean water and sits far from a cheap supply.

The same instinct runs through the island's other drink makers. The Cruzan Rum Distillery cuts its imported molasses with collected rainwater, and Sion Farm Distillery proofs its breadfruit vodka with it. On St. Croix, rainwater is a shared house ingredient across the drinks trade, and Leatherback simply put it at the center of a beer.

The flagship beers

Two beers do most of the work, and both are canned and labeled on site as the brewery's market brands. Island Life is the lager: a German-style beer built on pilsner malt for a dry, crackery base and hopped with German and Czech varieties for a clean, faintly floral finish. It is the everyday pour, the one that turns up on draft at restaurants around the island. Reef Life is the IPA and the brewery's registered flagship: pilsner malt with two kinds of oats for a rounded body, then loaded with Citra, Mosaic and Ekuanot hops that push it toward citrus, mango and pineapple.

Between them sits All Ah We, a hazy IPA in the New England style, brewed with pilsner and wheat malt and flaked oats, fermented with an East Coast ale yeast, and hopped with Rakau, Sabro, Citra and El Dorado. Its name is the Crucian phrase for all of us, and it is the beer that reads most local on the menu. If you order a flight and taste nothing else, these three sketch the house: a crisp lager, a juicy West Coast-leaning IPA, and a soft hazy one.

Island-ingredient and specialty brews

Beyond the flagships the tap list rotates, and this is where the island shows up in the glass. The brewery buys much of its produce and herbs from Caribbean farmers and builds seasonal beers around what is ripe and around the island's holidays. Guanabana is a double IPA made with soursop, the tart green fruit that grows across the Caribbean and lends the beer its name. Carite is a tart ale fermented with passionfruit puree and finished with Madagascar vanilla, sweet and sharp at once, and named for the Spanish mackerel that Crucian fishermen chase. A mango beer appears when mangoes do, built on fruit puree with a light tartness.

The dark end of the list runs to a stout made with Madagascar vanilla and Ecuadorean cocoa, rich and chocolatey with enough roast to keep it from turning sweet, and a low-strength coffee beer around 3.5 percent that leans on roasted coffee and dark chocolate for flavor rather than on alcohol. Holidays get their own releases. A Thanksgiving imperial stout has been brewed as a coquito-inspired version, an island take on the Puerto Rican coconut-rum eggnog, with toasted coconut, cinnamon and nutmeg over a heavy stout base. Not every beer is pouring on any given day; the specialty list is a rotation, so the sensible move is a flight, which lets you taste across it before you commit to a pint.

Beer reference

The rotating and seasonal beers come and go, and the recipes change between batches; the flight at the bar is the current list, and the printed board there is the final word on what is pouring.

The taproom

The tasting room is an indoor-outdoor space. There is a bar inside and a bar outside, a patio that opens onto an event field, and from the outdoor seating you look toward the ocean on one side and the airport runway on the other. A walking trail of about three miles runs next to the property for anyone who wants to move before or after a beer. Inside, you can watch the brewing operation through the glass while you drink; the tanks and the canning line are part of the room rather than hidden behind it.

The standard order is a flight, a set of small pours that lets you work across the flagships and whatever specialties are on that day. The kitchen keeps it simple and filling: pizzas, calzones, sandwiches, wraps, salads and daily specials, the kind of food built to go with beer. The room is set up for families, welcomes cruise visitors, and lists itself as LGBTQ+ friendly. Because the beer is canned and kegged on site, you can buy cans to carry out on your way home. It is a taproom rather than a formal factory tour, so the experience is a relaxed one: a beer, the view, and the works running behind the glass.

Hours, location and getting there

Leatherback sits at 9902 Industrial Park in Kingshill, on the island's south-central side, beside Route 66, the Melvin Evans Highway, a short way west of Route 64 and within a few minutes of Henry E. Rohlsen Airport. At last check the taproom was open Monday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m., with a Sunday brunch on the calendar; hours at any island business move, so treat these as a starting point and confirm before a special trip. The phone number spells out the point: 340-772-BEER.

The airport-corridor location is the planning fact that matters. This is one of the few island stops that folds cleanly into an arrival afternoon or a last hour before a flight, and it is a short drive from almost anywhere our guests stay. Plan a driver either way, and remember the roads keep to the left; see driving on the left and, for the shape of day one, the first-time visitor tips.

On a cruise day

The brewery lists itself as cruise-friendly, and it works as a cruise-day stop with one caveat: distance. Cruise ships dock at the Frederiksted pier on the west end, and the taproom is out by the airport in the middle of the island, roughly a twenty-minute drive away. There is no walking it, and there is no Uber or Lyft on St. Croix, so you will need a taxi or a rental car for the day. If beer is the main goal of a short port call, a taxi straight to Kingshill and back is the simplest plan; if you want more, fold the brewery into a wider loop. The cruise-day guide lays out realistic port-day plans, and the taxis and getting around guide explains how the island's shared-taxi system works. Keep the plan loose enough to make the ship.

Events at the brewery

The taproom runs a schedule of events, and the event field and stage are built for it. Regular nights have included trivia and, in a local twist, hermit-crab races. The brewery's anniversary parties are the large ones: for its fifth anniversary the taproom put on live music and a DJ, food trucks, face painting and games for children, and a visit from the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center, which brought adoptable dogs to the event field. Food trucks turn up for the bigger events to supplement the kitchen.

What is on in any given week changes, so check the brewery's own calendar or social pages for the current lineup rather than counting on a specific night. The events are part of why the room reads as a community space as much as a bar; the fifth-anniversary party was pitched as an all-ages afternoon, families and dogs included, not a beer-only night.

How the brewery gives back

The turtle on the label sets an expectation, and it is worth stating what the brewery does and does not do, so the name is not mistaken for more than it is. Leatherback's stated mission is the celebration and stewardship of Caribbean life, and the measurable part of that is environmental rather than a check written to a turtle charity. The brewery donates its spent grain — the malt left after brewing — to local farmers for animal feed, mulch and compost, and reported giving away 226,000 pounds of it in 2020 alone, which keeps a heavy waste stream out of the landfill and on island farms. It runs an aluminum-can recycling program it calls Show Your Island Love. It is certified as an eco-business under the Virgin Islands Clean Coasts program. And it is moving its power off the grid: the St. Thomas location runs on solar, and the company has said it means to get both breweries fully solar-powered.

What we did not find is evidence of direct sea-turtle conservation funding, so this guide does not claim any. The name is a tribute to the animal and to a founder's return home; the give-back that can be verified is the grain, the recycling, the eco-certification and the solar. That is a real record on a small island, and it stands on its own without being dressed up as something larger. If you want to support the turtles themselves, that is a separate act — the Sandy Point refuge guide covers the research program that actually counts and protects them.

Where to drink Leatherback beyond the taproom

You do not have to visit the brewery to drink the beer, though the taproom is the only place with the full rotation. Leatherback distributes across the U.S. Virgin Islands through the West Indies Company, so its cans and kegs reach bars, restaurants and stores island-wide. On draft, the flagships turn up all over St. Croix — the keg route the brewery built is the reason so many restaurants have taps at all. The Landing at Cane Bay on the north shore pours it, and it shows up at beach bars around the coast.

For cans to drink at the villa, the supermarkets carry it: Plaza Extra East at Sion Farm, Plaza Extra West near Frederiksted, and Quality Food at Castle Coakley, along with gas stations and neighborhood stores. Our groceries and provisioning guide covers where those markets are and how to stock a kitchen for a stay. The beer also travels off-island: Leatherback distributes into parts of Florida and South Carolina, so a can you took to on the island may be findable back home.

The St. Croix tasting trail

Leatherback is the beer stop on a short circuit of island-made drinks, and each of the others has its own guide. The rum end is the oldest: the Cruzan Rum Distillery on the west end is a working factory you can walk through, and the Captain Morgan Visitor Center mid-island tells the story of the territory's largest rum plant. The spirits scene is not only rum: Sion Farm Distillery turns breadfruit into Mutiny Island Vodka, with free tours and a tasting room. Up in the rainforest, the Mt. Pellier Domino Club pours its house MamaWanna infusion and keeps the island's bush-rum tradition alive, with beer-drinking pigs as the draw.

Put together, that is beer, vodka, rum and bush rum on one island, a full tasting trail without leaving St. Croix. A workable day pairs one distillery with the brewery: tour Cruzan or Sion Farm in the early afternoon, then finish at Leatherback near the airport as the light drops. The Mahogany Road drive reaches the Domino Club, and the rainy-day plan folds the indoor stops into a wet-weather route. Beer is the low-proof leg of the trail, which is one argument for making the brewery the last stop rather than the first.

Cans to take home

A four-pack of Leatherback is the island beer souvenir. The turtle cans are made and filled at the brewery, they are hard to find off-island, and they cost a fraction of what a bottle of aged rum runs, which makes them an easy gift. Buy them at the taproom on your way out, or from any of the supermarkets above. Beer goes home in checked luggage, not a carry-on, and the Virgin Islands duty-free allowance, along with the on-island screening steps, is spelled out in the no-passport guide; the Cruzan guide works the alcohol math through with a full example if you are also carrying spirits. Cans weigh more per drink than a bottle of rum, so most people carry a few for the memory rather than a case. The beer is best fresh in any event, and it is meant to be drunk on the island where the rain that made it fell.

The St. Thomas side

Leatherback outgrew one island. In 2020 it opened a second location on St. Thomas, at Estate Thomas near Charlotte Amalie, which added a taproom and brewing on the territory's other main island. For a St. Croix visitor the St. Thomas site matters mainly if you are island-hopping. The beer is the same brand, and the Kingshill brewhouse is the original and the one covered here. The two rooms are not run identically: the St. Croix side is the production brewhouse, where the flagship cans are made and packaged, while the St. Thomas location has leaned toward experimental small-batch brews and craft cocktails alongside the core beers. If a day trip to St. Thomas is on your plan, the second taproom is an option there, with its own weekday hours; on St. Croix it is the Kingshill room you want.

Questions guests ask

Is Leatherback really St. Croix's first brewery?

The Virgin Islands tourism board calls it St. Croix's first craft brewery, and the timeline supports the spirit of the claim: the company was incorporated in 2017 and opened to the public in 2018. Other breweries in the territory predate it on other islands — St. John Brewers goes back to 2004, and Frenchtown Brewing opened on St. Thomas in 2015 — and there have been small beer operations on St. Croix over the years. Leatherback was the first to put a full production brewhouse on the island, package its own cans, and run a keg route. Its own marker of the change is that St. Croix restaurants pouring draft beer went from two to twenty-two after it arrived.

What should we order if we only have one?

Order a flight if you can; it is the point of a taproom and the only way to catch the rotating beers. If it has to be a single glass, match the moment: Island Life, the lager, for a hot afternoon; Reef Life, the flagship IPA, if you want hops; All Ah We for a soft hazy one; and Guanabana or Carite if you came for the island-fruit angle. Non-drinkers are not stuck, since the kitchen puts out real food and the view over the field toward the water does its own work.

Is it family- and dog-friendly?

Family-friendly, yes. The event field, the kids' games at anniversary parties, and the casual kitchen menu all point that way, and the room is set up for groups with children. On dogs, the brewery has hosted the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center's adoptable dogs at events and the outdoor space suits a well-behaved dog. We could not confirm a published everyday dog policy, so call ahead if you plan to bring one rather than assume.

Can we tour the brewing side?

You can see the operation through the glass from the taproom while you drink, which is the standard look here — the tanks and the canning line are in view rather than behind a locked door. It is an informal window on the works, not a scheduled hard-hat tour with a guide. For a full walk-through-a-plant experience, the Cruzan distillery across the island runs guided tours through its production floor.

Where can we buy the beer for the villa?

Cans are sold at the taproom to take out, and at the island supermarkets — Plaza Extra East at Sion Farm, Plaza Extra West near Frederiksted, and Quality Food at Castle Coakley — plus gas stations and neighborhood shops. On draft, look for it at north-shore and beach-bar spots like the Landing at Cane Bay. Our groceries and provisioning guide maps the markets, and we can flag the current tap list before you arrive.

Can we fly cans home?

Yes, in checked luggage. The territory lies outside the U.S. customs zone, so returning residents carry a bigger duty-free allowance than a foreign trip would give them; the specifics, and the screening steps on island, are in the no-passport guide. Cans are heavier per drink than a bottle of spirits, so most travelers carry a few as gifts rather than a full case, and pad them well in the middle of a bag.

Where to stay near the brewery

Because Leatherback stands mid-island next to the airport, it is a short drive from wherever our guests are based, which is what makes it an easy first-afternoon or last-evening stop. From our East End villas it is a straight run across the island; from Frederiksted and the west end it is minutes up the road, simple to pair with a Cruzan tour and a west-coast sunset. Every home in our collection of villas and condos comes with a full kitchen and somewhere to stash a cold four-pack, so the cans you carry out of the taproom have somewhere to land. Ask us and we can point you to the current tap list and the markets that stock it before you arrive.