Tap Talk: Bemidji Brewing Co.
Over the last five years, the craft brewery movement has grown exponentially in Minnesota. The Associated Press says licensing records show two-thirds of Minnesota breweries have opened just since 2010. So, we decided to help you – and your livers – keep up with the taproom trend by stopping by some of these Twin Cities brewhouses. But as the love of craft beer expands, so too do the breweries. So this time we're talking brewing up north with Bemidji Brewing Company.
In 2010 a lot was happening in the Minnesota beer world.
The Surly bill was working its way through legislation and a small group of beer producers were beginning to emerge in the Twin Cities.
Up north, things were brewing as well.
Megan and Tom Hill, along with Justin and Tina Kaney, were beginning to plan their brewery, before any of them were living in the city that would soon be its home.
"At that time there weren't very many breweries, but most of the breweries were in the Twin Cities area," Megan said. "Two of the four co-owners met while they went to Bemidji State…and decided that [it] would be a great place to start a brewery."
So the group got to work on the Bemidji Brewing Company.
They began a Kickstarter campaign in the fall of 2011 and raised over $17,000 to start their brewery.
In 2012 they launched a nano-brewery, sharing a space with a community kitchen that opened at a local co-op.
From October 2012 to April 2013 the foursome moved their brewing equipment in and out of the space at Harmony Cooperative as they continued to raise money and look for their own space. And in April 2013, they found it.
In July 2013, the doors of Bemidji Brewing Co. opened at the corner of Beltrami Avenue and 4th Street.
And after two years, they're still going strong.
"We're actually maxed out at our current space," Megan said. "So, we are currently trying to identify some places that we will be able to grow our system larger and we're hoping to be moving toward that system in 2016."
So, while it may be known as the home of a big lumberjack and his big ox, it may soon it be known for its big beer.
Bemidji Brewing Company
Follow them: on Twitter @BemidjiBrewing, Facebook at Bemidji Brewing Company or visit their website Bemidji Brewing online.
Owners: Megan Hill, Tom Hill, Justin "Bud" Kaney and Tina Kaney
Head Brewer: Tom Hill
Location: 401 Beltrami Ave. NW, Bemidji
Hours: Wednesday & Thursday: 4 to 10p.m., Friday & Saturday: 2 to 11 p.m.
Contact: 218-444-7011
Aside from having history in the town from attending Bemidji State University, why did your group feel that Bemidji was the right place for your brewery?
Megan: [We] decided that this would be a great place to start a brewery because of the love of craft beer, but [also] a great community we thought would be incredibly receptive to it.
That makes sense. So, being that a lot of the brewing scene is located south of Bemidji, how has it been starting a brewery here?
When we opened in 2012 there were very few craft taps just around town. You could find Summit most places and that was about as craft-centric as bars got. And since that time, we have seen so many other craft beers locally in Minnesota expand to our region, which we're really excited about because it exposes our customers more to just craft beer in general. So, in our taproom we have really focused on educating folks a lot on craft beer. That means we talk a lot about styles. We don't come up with different names for our beers, we really stick to the style name. And that way we're able to educate our customers on different styles that they may not have been exposed to before, so then when they go and try lots of different other beers they have this great base knowledge to build on and they had a great example of it from us. But it's really great being in Bemidji. People might have some preconceived notions about what folks like to drink up here, but we are so excited because what we've released has had such a great response. Especially some of the more esoteric beers, like the sour beers, we just sell out of those really quickly. They're just game for anything, so it makes it exciting to be up here and making beer for people in Bemidji.
Sounds like you guys play a really pivotal role in teaching people about craft beer in your city. Do you foresee Bemidji becoming a brewing destination like the Twin Cities? Is that something you would want?
Well it's not bad to be the only one right now, for sure. But we do expect there to be more breweries popping up in Bemidji and around Bemidji. We just kind of expect [it] to be a matter of time. I think that we welcome that. It will make us a little bit better. I think that it will be great for the community, and to kind of build a craft beer destination here in Bemidji would be fantastic.
That would certainly help draw even more people up to the area! So, tell me a little bit about your beer. What do you have on tap now?
We only have about four beers that are standard and we consistently have them on. Right now that would be a German blonde, a Belgium saison, an IPA and a porter. And then we rotate through different beers. So, right now we have a session red ale, a summer IPA and we will be releasing another sour beer. We'll be releasing a blackberry raspberry sour red ale in July.
So you have a sour program! Tell me a little bit about that.
We have released a Flanders Sour Red in 2014, and in that same year we also released a raspberry sour red. So this will be our third one.
When do you plan to release it?
We're releasing that July 11. This will be the first sour beer that we're also releasing in bottles. So, we're going to have a limited number of bottles for sale of that as well. And we're having kind of a sour beer tap takeover for that event. So, we'll have our two vintage beers on, our Flanders Sour Red and our Raspberry Flanders Sour Red, and then our Berliner Weisse and our blackberry raspberry sour red. It's common for Berliner Weisse to have a syrup in them, so we're [also] hoping to come up with some unique syrups to have as an additive to our Berliner Weisse.
That sounds delicious! So, what is your most popular beer?
People up here love hops. So we go through an incredible amount of IPA and summer IPA. But our sour beers just really fly out of our tap handles, too.
That's great that people are so receptive to those flavors! Have you entered any competitions? What is your most awarded beer?
This is going to be the first year that we will be entering the GABR, Great American Beer Festival. We've gone to festivals and things such as that, but we haven't gotten any awards at any of those.
Well hopefully you'll get some good feedback this year from the GABR. Seeing as you have done a lot of education, what would you suggest to someone who is new to craft beer?
When we have folks who come in who are new to craft beer, or new to us, we really like to start out and have a conversation about what kind of beer they usually get. And we use that to pull out flavors and things that they like. So, people might come in and say "Oh, I really like Coors Light," or something on the lighter macro spectrum. And we're able to say, "Well, we have a German blonde and that's going to have a lot similar characteristics. It's going to be light; it's going to be refreshing. It might have a fuller body, or more flavor, than you're used to, but we would recommend [it]." So it's really a conversation, seeing what someone might like and giving them some samples of what we have on tap so that they can find what they would really enjoy having.
What would you suggest for someone who is sort of a beer snob?
I would suggest a flight so they can try a little bit of everything and see what they kind of like. But I think that our sour beers really stand up to anyone else who is producing that in the state. And when we have those on tap, I would really recommend those because I think they're stellar.
How many beers do you have in a flight?
We do six beers in our flight. We usually have between six and eight beers, so they get to choose six of those and it's 5 oz. each. So, it's about 30 oz. of beer.
Is there any flavor, or type of beer, that you are looking to experiment with in the future?
This fall we're hoping to increase our sour production here. We're looking forward to consistently having sour beer on tap. And this fall we'll also be restarting our single hop beer, we take a little hiatus in the summer. So we've done about seven of those. We'll [also] be re-releasing our Oktoberfest, which people were really excited about last year as well.
Sounds like there are a lot of great things on tap! Tell me, what is your favorite beer?
My favorite beer is our summer IPA. It has really great grapefruit notes in it and it's just awesome right now. Especially since it's been so nice and it's been so nice early. But then, I'm also a big fan of our Raspberry Flanders Sour Red. That beer is fantastic. We haven't had it on very much because we don't have very much of it. But man, I would just drink that all the time if we had the volume of it. It's great.
It sounds like that new one may take over as your favorite then! So for the people in the cities, can your beer be found down south?
Unfortunately, not right now. We sell a majority of our product over our own counter, about 95 percent, and we have four accounts here in town. So, we're not in the cities yet but hopefully as we expand we'll be able to access that market.
Well I'm sure lots of people hope that happens soon. Finally, what would be one word that encompasses your brewery?
Inviting.
