Tap Talk: LTD Brewing
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. Next up, LTD Brewing in Hopkins.
In the decades since the 1950's the idea of the 'American Dream' has been prolific.
We're told from a young age that the ideal we should strive towards is a successful career that is as stimulating as it is profitable.
It's this idea that motivates many people as they make their way through their careers. But it's also this same idea that motivates others to leave their jobs, create brand new businesses and live their 'American Dream.'
While a business may not have been what Blake Verdon and Jeremy Hale set out to make, their journey did begin when they felt they could do better.
As freshmen studying at the University of Minnesota, Verdon and Hale began home brewing.
"We figured we couldn't make stuff that was worse than we were drinking at the time," co-founder and brewer Verdon said.
They continued throughout their college years and what started as a desire for a cheaper, and hopefully, better version of what they were already drinking turned into a passion.
After graduation, the two went out and got jobs outside the brewing world, but continued to play around with different styles.
Then, in 2012, they decided they wanted to turn their passion into a business.
"We were going to go into Northeast Minneapolis three-and-a-half years ago," Verdon said. "And basically the lease fell through on us last minute."
Instead of succumbing to the potential setback, the pair took the time to really think about their branding and what kind of brewery they wanted to be. They decided to focus on community and wanted to bring their beer to one that may not already have its own brewery.
Which lead them to Hopkins.
And in May 2014 they opened their doors just off of the main strip in downtown Hopkins.
Now, after only being in operation for a year and four months, they're seeing tremendous growth and continued support from their chosen community.
Verdon, and assistant brewer Zak Granata, sat down and spoke with me about their experience and their plans for the future.
LTD Brewing
Follow them: on Twitter @ltdbrewing, Facebook at LTD Brewing or visit their website LTD Brewing online.
Owners: Blake Verdon and Jeremy Hale
Brewers: Blake Verdon, Jeremy Hale and Zak Granata
Location: 8 8th Avenue North, Hopkins
Hours: Wednesday: 4 – 10 p.m. Thursday: 3 – 10 p.m., Friday: 2 p.m. – 12 a.m., Saturday: 12 p.m. – 12 a.m., Sunday: 12 – 7 p.m.
Contact: 952-938-2415
View more photos from LTD Brewing here.
Let's start with an easy one, why did you choose the name LTD?
Verdon: It's a multi-meaning name. The main meaning of the name gets back to what we do, and that's we brew limited batches. We're constantly rotating our beer so it was the idea of limited batch brewing, which [LTD] is obviously the abbreviation for limited. Mostly it's limited batch brewing, but there's a secondary meaning. Kind of just under the radar, to us, it gets back to that experience you're having when you're having a beer; having great conversation and having a good time. It's living the dream. And it's not that we're living the dream, which we are, but it's more the experience that we wanted people to have – to be living the dream when they experience the beer and the place.
You put a lot of emphasis on the experience customers get when they enter the taproom and when they are drinking your beer. What does the experience of drinking a beer mean to you, and why is it so important?
Verdon: One of the things that you would experience back in the day was you'd go to the taproom [is] you'd be able to get a Pale Ale, an IPA [and] maybe a stout, and sometimes that was it. We wanted to be able to give someone a wide variety of an experience as it relates to trying different varieties of beer. We always have the four standards, but then we always try to expand. [We] try to do a different take on something so that someone can not only get a variety, which is an experience, but also have an experience beyond variety in something that they haven't tried before. It's the atmosphere, too. We try and make it a fun place to hang out, have a good conversation [and] a good time. Not just drinking a beer to drink a beer, but the experience that goes along with drinking a beer, which is great friends, great conversations and good times.
You and Jeremy began brewing in Dinkytown, why not try and open a brewery there? What was it about Hopkins that drew you to this community?
Verdon: Believe it or not, we have owned our equipment [for] just over three-and-a-half years. We were going to go into Northeast Minneapolis three-and-a-half years ago. And basically the lease fell through on us last minute. It was all happening really quickly and after that happened we took a step back and said, 'Is this really what we want to be?' We had taken trips out to Portland, Seattle and looked at models [and] places that were a little bit further ahead in legislation that Minnesota was. We had a sense of, 'Okay, what is a model that really speaks to us and what we like to do and how we like to do it?' And we kept on coming back to breweries that were smaller and were embedded into a community. At that time Northeast was just getting Indeed, they were just getting Dangerous Man. You could kind of see that that community already had their breweries and, to us, we wanted to bring beer to a place that didn't have beer. I grew up in Eden Prairie so I've been coming to downtown Hopkins because there's really nothing like it in the west metro. So ,I loved coming here as a kid, and we wanted to bring it to a community. I just happened to get in contact with a city development manager and they were thinking about changing legislation and bringing a brewery at the time. So, it was perfect timing as well as it was the perfect community in our minds to bring a brewery to.
Well, it seems like it has been a really good fit! You've obviously seen considerable growth here at LTD since you opened just a short time ago. One sign of that being having a beer on tap at the Minnesota State Fair. Tell me about that experience.
Verdon: It was kind of fun. It was the first time we were at the fair with [Pineapple Wheat] and we didn't know what to expect. [The Ballpark Café] had told us probably about 10 kegs that they thought they would do, and the day that they brought it on, [they] asked us 'So, how much of this did you make?' [And we said,] 'Well, you said 10. We made 32.' And they said, 'I'm probably going to need all of those.' It was only one place and only one tap! [It] got second place at the Ballpark Café's 'Beer of the Fair.' Lift Bridge's Mini Doughnut beer won first and the White IPA from Badger Hill was third.
That's really exciting! Mixing unexpected flavors, like the Pineapple Wheat, seems to be something you're known for doing. How do those flavors that may be misses help you to make better beers?
Verdon: Think about an Orange Julius, right, it's orange juice and ice cream. At least when I was a kid I didn't think that sounded like a good combo. But it's that 'You know, let's try it' [mentality.] As you get to understand the scientific background behind it you make less mistakes, but it's always that kind of adventurous aspect of trying things that don't necessarily sound like they'd be a good idea. [And sometimes they] end up being some of our beers that are our most popular beers. We've always had kind of a crazy experimental aspect just because that is kind of who we are. We like to try fun things and crazy things. The crazier they are usually the more of a miss they are. But every now and then you find something that is pretty awesome.
So let's talk a little bit about the beers. You have quite a large rotation (there were 12 on tap at publication time) do you have any that are your staple beers?
Granata: Probably the one that's been on tap for the longest amount of time since I've been here is Nightmare, which is our Irish dry stout. Very tasty beer. Right now we have it on with cocoa and vanilla. [It's] 7.5 percent [alcohol by volume]. It's just delicious. That's probably the one staple beer that I know we have right now.
Verdon: One of the things we are trying to establish this year is [a staple IPA.] We've heard a resounding request, people want us to have a staple IPA. [Currently,] the most staple IPA that we probably have is a tie between a double IPA and our IPA which is Stargazer. [Stargazer] is a single IPA that's 7.2 percent alcohol by volume. Our double IPA we call Brewed Awakening. Those are kind of our two most staple IPAs. We're going to pick one and go with that. More than likely it's going to be Stargazer.
Granata: I suppose Ale to the Queen, the brown ale, is another one that we've done a few batches of.
Verdon: Ale to the Queen is most definitely our staple brown. It's a really nice, clean, very traditional northern brown ale. Hints of coffee, hints of roasted malts, but really light body and really pleasant drinking at all times of the year. Whether [it's] 90 degrees out or whether [it's] 20 below, that beer seems to always hit your taste buds alright. Behind Nightmare, I would say that's probably our second most staple beer that we have.
That leaves quite a bit of seasonal, or rotated, beers! Can you tell me a little bit about those?
Granata: We've got our Oktoberfest. Our Schwartzbier is a little different. It's kind of like a black lager. [It has a] lot of coffee, chocolate-ly notes, but [it's] really refreshing at the same time. We always have root beer. That's kind of something about LTD that a lot of people enjoy. Sweet Dreams is the pineapple wheat that was at the State Fair. The Midnight Terror is really tasty. That's our one nitro beer that we have on right now. It's a chocolate milk stout. Very delicious, very creamy. The Traumen has been the only pilsner that we've really done, this summer at least, and that's been going really well. We did a double batch of that earlier this summer and that's been cruising along really well.
Sounds like a really great mix of styles. You have a number of lagers on tap, can you tell me about how you decided to brew them?
Verdon: Something that we've tried to do since early summer is always have a lager on tap. A lot of breweries won't do a lager because of the capacity that you give up with it. It takes roughly double, sometimes triple, the amount of time to do a traditional lager. So, we kind of took the stance after so many people were like, 'Doesn't anyone do a lager?' Well, yeah, we will. It may not be the same lager, but right now we have three of them tap. The Schwartz beer is a traditional German dark lager. Oktoberfest is a Marzen style lager and then the pilsner. While we may not always have the same lager on tap, we're always going to try and have one of those.
Another thing that you are doing that not a lot of breweries tackle is consistently offering a sour. How did you decide to have a sour option?
Verdon: Something that we thought was kind of crazy and an experience that we were giving people by just doing a sour has now become a series that people are always angry about when we don't have one on tap. You're angry that I don't have a sour?! And that happened recently. We ended up pulling the Emily's Dream #3 (their sour series) sooner than we had originally anticipated because we ran out. We had to brew #4 much quicker in our cue of brews just based on how fast it was going just in the taproom. It's amazing. It's not like every brewery has a sour like they all have an IPA. IPA drinkers are passionate, but sour drinkers are almost to a different level. I don't know if that's because it's a more difficult thing to get, if it's more difficult to execute or what, but it seems like you start becoming known within a small subset of a community that, 'Hey, these guys do sours!' And they just expect you to have it all the time. [So,] now we have to have a sour on tap at all times. Which is the craziest thing. I never expected that we would. That's definitely a staple that's become ours is the sour beers. We call them Emily's Dream because Emily is one of our beer tenders that works in the taproom and she is so passionate about sours. Just about every day she would come in she would say, 'When are we doing a sour, when are we doing a sour.' And finally it was like, 'Alright we're going to do it and here's how we're going to do it.' So, we named it after her because she would just not stop until her dream was executed, which was for LTD to do a sour. You can tell which beer she pushes when people come in.
How cool for her to have a beer named after her! I can see why she would push it on customers to at least give it a try. So, do you have any new beers that you've been working on?
Verdon: Probably the most notable one is Sleepwalker.
Granata: In the BFF (one of the fermenters) right now we have our triple IPA, Sleepwalker. It's brewed with honey and just an enormous amount of hops. It should be amazingly delicious. It's tasting really nice in the fermenter right now and it's almost done.*
Verdon: That's by far the most requested beer. We only do it once a year and it's released late summer/ early fall. We can only do it once a year because it uses a particular type of locally harvested basswood honey. It's limited and it's also ridiculously expensive, along with the ridiculously expensive hops that we do. It's definitely not a moneymaker for us but it's more, 'This is so ridiculous it's fun.' It tastes as balanced as a triple IPA can be; just a hint [of honey] which is to try and balance the hops. A lot of times you'll have an IPA and it will just blast your face off. That's kind of what this does but it's more like a barrel-aged Russian Imperial where you have so many different characteristics coming out at the same time because of the variety of hops used, the variety of malts used and the adjuncts that we used like the ridiculous amount of honey. Its such a fun beer and its really tough to execute too.
*Sleepwalker has since been released and is now available in the taproom.
Sounds like a really intricate beer! Any other beers you're working on?
Verdon: Dream Girl is coming back out. That's our standard blonde. It's not really a flagship but we've had it a lot. We've got a barrel program. We've got nine barrels, and we're continuing to try and grow it. Right now probably the next release is going to be our staple Irish stout with cocoa and vanilla, the Nightmare, that's been aged on temper rye whiskey barrel and then also, separately, a smooth amber 8-year bourbon. We did the same thing with the Russian Imperial and we're going to bottle them separately so people can taste the difference. The same beer aged in two different barrels. It's amazing how different a beer will be just aged in different barrels.
Sounds like there is a lot to look forward to! Obviously Sleepwalker is the most requested, but what is the best seller?
Verdon: Anything that says IPA on it is the most popular beer. (laughs) Second to that, which is pretty unique, it's probably Nightmare with cocoa and vanilla, the Irish stout. The beer that went the quickest was the barrel-aged Russian Imperial. That was for our anniversary party and it was gone within two hours. We bottled half of it [and] we put half of it on tap, and they were both gone in the same amount of time. It was nuts. Sleepwalker, when we had that one tap last year, was gone in a sixth of the time that it took to brew it.
Wow! Sounds like the limited batches really help create a demand for your product. So, tell me, what are your favorite beers?
Granata: Oktoberfest is my favorite. Along with the Stargazer and the Nightmare. But I'll go with Oktoberfest now because it's just the time and the season.
Verdon: I would say Stargazer. I love IPAs and that one is as IPA as it gets.
I can imagine it must be hard to choose with all of the options you have available. How about competitions, have you entered your beers into any?
Verdon: No. The only competitions we've been involved in are ones we haven't known about (laughs). Part of it is because we rotate our beers so much, so entering a beer into a competition [it could be] frustrating for people if you can't always get it. We'd rather just let people tell us through drinking it what they really love and what they don't, as opposed to pushing it onto something and trying to win awards. It's not to say that we'd never do it and never send a beer out to a festival, because it would be fun to bring back awards for the state and show that the state has good beer, but for us we just never got into the whole beer competition thing.
Granata: You know when a beer is good based on the people that come in here and how fast a beer moves – like Stargazer. That was put on tap two weeks ago and now it's gone. That's faster than a lot of the beers that are still up on the board. It's really good to see that. That's almost in itself an award for us.
I think that organic feedback can be really helpful because people won't feel like they are supposed to like something just because it won an award. So, tell me, what has been the biggest challenge in opening a brewery?
Verdon: Trying to keep up with demand. There's so much to that, too. It's not just by making enough beer, but making enough of the right kind of beer and acquiring the right kind of ingredients to do that in a timely fashion. Just one example of that is, one thing that Zak and I are always looking for are the right style hops. The right variety of hops to make the styles of IPA that we make. Also what goes with that is staffing accordingly. Since we started, I think we had maybe five employees, including myself and Jeremy. Now we have 14. A lot of those are part time, but we added Zak on full-time as our assistant brewer and Steve on full-time as our cellarman and aspiring assistant brewer. The biggest challenge I think is really trying to make sure that you're constantly having the variety and the styles that people are looking for.
Granata: Just to think about the growth that I've seen just in the seven months that I've been involved with you. I started volunteering here that's how I got involved. I just wanted to learn stuff about brewing beer because I love beer and always have. So I started volunteering and they taught me how to fill growlers. It was my responsibility one day to fill growlers and I remember I filled probably six of each beer that we have, and I probably filled like 60 growlers. Looking back, and that was probably in the spring, now we fill hundreds of growlers. It's unreal. Based on just growler sales. It's pretty nuts.
Verdon: It's nuts. I'm not complaining. It's just still a challenge.
I like to end my interviews by asking how you would describe the brewery in one word. So, what is one word for each of your that sums up LTD Brewing?
Granata: Progress. We're always doing things around here. There's never a day where we come in and say "Oh, it's a slow day. I guess I'll go home early." We're always doing stuff; always progressing, always adding new things to the bar. Something. Always. The growth that I've seen here in seven months has been unreal.
Verdon: Experiential. To sum it up, we're always shooting for an experience. You're always going to be able to try something different, you're always going to be able to have, we hope, an experience as it relates to the beer.
Learn more about LTD as Matt Brickman visits them in Guest Pass.
