Minhas Craft Brewery is on fire.

Original Recipe!

 

This place is great and brews some solid beers. $10 for a tour all you can sample, glass and six pack, can't go wrong for a brewery tour. It was a lot better when it was Huber though. $2 bombers at TJ are fine, not the best but for $2 they're good.

 

Ah! Thanks for the timely brewery and Breweriana refresher, Jess!

Au contraire, mon frère! A mint Zodiac flat top can fetch up to $5* nowadays -- at least that's what I spent at the last big show in La Crosse.

The older Meister Brau cans are still hella collectible (the Miller era ones not so much.) But there is definitely a cadre of collectors out there who are into that last, transitional phase of packages coming out of Huber's briefly-revitalized Hand brewery, including vintage-/-revived Braumeister; this much I've learned over the years.

But back to Minhas for a moment. I still drink Huber Bock semi-religiously, and pick up a 12 of the Premium cans for outdoors activities (it's not a terrible beer!), but I don't see very much in the way of market presence for their own brands. Those eight packs never really caught on, and the heavier glass they used was also an odd choice -- don't even get me started on the weird 'rabbit' brands, the Rhinelander 'Shorties' (or the fruity 'Belgian' concoctions they make for Canada and package in those very same bottles.) Whatever works for the Minhas clan, I guess, and keeps those workers paid...

I really hope that the brewery can rebound from this. Dodgy beer or no, the place is a living, breathing part of Wisconsin brewing history, and it's a real pain in the keister to bring an old brewery back after a major hit like fire.

(* I'm normally a skinflint, so it must've been all the Point Amber and Pearl Street Brown I was drinking... )

 

As of a year or so ago, Minhas was brewing a beer called "Regal Brau." I thought it might have been an old Meister Brau knock off, so I picked some up. It was okay.

 

Regal Brau seems to have been an original Huber brand - unrelated to Meister Brau or the Peter Hand labels Huber owned. Jackson's first Pocket Guide (1982) described it as "...similar but lower-priced beer..." to Huber's Augsburger. There used to be a "beer urban legend" that Huber put Augsburger in deposit returnable/refillable bottles under a different brand - may have been Regal Brau (?).*

Of course, that's not to suggest that the current Minhas use of the brand name means it is the same recipe.

* Edit: Checked my Huber files and found this "Classified Ad" from a Wisconsin paper.

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"Hans" is Hans Kestler, German-born and trained brewmaster at Huber at the time. Apparently he was featured in local radio ads for Augsburger at the time. (Later worked at Heileman's "Val Blatz" microbrewery in Milwaukee now run by Leinenkugel).

 

Hans Kestler did a bunch of radio ads and was a pretty good spokesman for the brand.

He always ended his spots with the tag line "Drink a Little Beer".

 

I got to meet Hans a few years ago at a Madison-area beer fest. He was slowing down, but still had that twinkle in his eye.

I always liked that tagline because of its double meaning -- ahead of its time in the mid-80s.

 

He started with commercials for Berghoff when Huber and The Berghoff were teamed up -- Hans would do this little "rap" number for the Berghoff's Oktoberfest -- "The wurst party of the year…" Pretty funny in the mid-80s.

He left Huber for a while then came back -- probably the days when Fred sold the brewery then bought it back.

Found this article from 85 -- great stuff.

 

That sucks but It's hard to care considering how terrible their beer is. The world would be better off if the whole thing burned down and they never rebuilt it.

 

No they need a new brewmaster

 

They did indeed. Later the management sold the Augsburger brands to Strohs. Unless they really needed the cash, that was a bad move.

 

Sorry to dispute your opinion, but there is a lot of brewing history there and that is of value. The perceived lack of beer quality is something that can be fixed.

By picking up six-packs and cases of local beers as we traveled - to use in our trade stock - we beer can collectors help wean some of our friends from BMC brands in the 1970s, making them more receptive to craft beers when they came on the market. I visited the Huber brewery (along with Walter's, Stevens Point, and Leinenkugel's) in 1982. In other words, the survival of the historic local and regional breweries into the 1970s and 1980s helped "prime the market" for the better stuff that came later.

 

Nothing to mourn. Their beers out of this brewery are disappointing, IMO. I heard an interview with a brewer there a couple years back and I was really hopeful for something good, but so far it's been gimmicks (chocolate bunny, or whatever), overly sweet beers, diacetyl, and misplaced ester character.

PS: I'm sorry about the fire, glad no one was hurt, and remain hopeful that this brewery improves.

 

Huber at the time of deal with Stroh for the Augsburger brand was owned by an outside company, MTX- which was started by two former Pabst execs. Supposedly they gained control of Huber through a leverage buyout (early reports had Fred Huber initially remaining with the company). One of the ex-Pabst execs - William Smith - had previously turned around Pittsburgh (Iron City) Brewing, and was hired to do the same for Pabst only to be canned after Paul Kalmanovitz's S&P Corp. (General/Falstaff/Pearl) took over Pabst.

Their agreement with Stroh for "Augsburger" brands was (at least initially) only a licensing deal but when only a few months later they put the Huber brewery and brands up for sale, the Augsburger brand was not included - it was kept by Smith/MTX. Oh, and the two ex-Pabst officials - soon to be ex-Huber owners also wound up with jobs at Stroh, too.

Also, contrary to many reports, Fred Huber, after buying back the brewery, re-hiring Hans Kesler and creating what was then called "Berghoff-Huber Brewing Co." was quoted:

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http://walgreens.shoplocal.com/walgreens/default.aspx?action=entryflash&
I just picked up a 3 pack of Gnarly Oak bombers with a glass at Walgreens for $10.99, brewed by Minhas. I had not heard of them prior to this purchase. It must be a new off brand for them, there are zero reviews on the Gnarly Oak brand.

In the box was (I believe) a chocolate stout, winter bock, and a brown. I just picked the box up a few hours ago and have yet to try them.

 

Maybe they can rebuild the brewery using the millions of dollars of Albertan taxpayer's money they've collected over the years.

 

You overpaid

 

I tried the brown last night and was pleasantly surprised. I like Northern browns, they were my first go-to way back when I jumped the macro wagon. However, I have grown quite picky with them. All too many are lackluster, a muddled mess of malt. While the hazlenut flavor came across a tad artificial, it was still an enjoyable brew. The color was on the light side with a clear, rusted amber.

We don't get very many sub $4 "craft" bombers in my neck of Florida. If this were sold separately I could see myself sporatically picking one up.

 

It's just a different branding of TJ's beers and other assorted stuff they brew, like Chocolate Bunny. We likely have the highest prices in Continental US and I got a Chocolate Bunny for $2.50. TJ's bombers are $2. Brown likely is the best of the bunch. Chocolate Bunny is now my ice cream base.

But I'm sure this is as close as you can get to "craft" in some pockets in the South.

 

Yes...Auggie was brewed there by Huber...loved Augsburger Bock.