Breweries opening in Minnesota 2015/2016

Bob likely was asked to brew what they thought was a good fit with their brewery. I have tried his beers at Townhall and Great Waters both were of quality. Bob is now working for Scott Johnson one of the grandfathers of the Minnesota craft beer and import beer scene. Scott's story is remarkable he had the best beer book in America and by far the best sales staff in the state of Minnesota. His business was ahead of its time and there is no doubt his brewery in due time will be one of the best craft breweries in the state. It will deserve the hype. Now we wait to see what they have planned.

 

Lucid's Warehouse District taproom plans, as described by @Bravak, confirmed:

Lucid plans to build a 100-seat taproom, retail shop and brewhouse in the one-story building, at the corner of Fifth Street North and Seventh Avenue North. Lucid's North Loop location is slated to open in October. Lucid will continue to produce at its original location in Minnetonka.​

http://www.bizjournals.com/twinciti...id-brewing-minneapolis-brewhouse-taproom.html

 

i misread that at first and thought it said 3rd St N & 7th Ave N. That would've put it on hallowed ground, but being close is pretty good,

Why Hallowed Ground? http://www.startribune.com/plaque-w...934-truckers-strike-in-minneapolis/308195201/

 

Stopped at Insight this evening. The rebranding that was mentioned here before is complete. For example, the "Curiousity IPA" is now "Troll Way Citrus IPA"

You can see the results of their work on the website - http://www.insightbrewing.com

 

Ewwww. I can only hope he will be following someone else's recipes.

 

I drove around the vast Perham Industrial Park recently looking to see how much progress is being made. I saw one site with some dirt being moved around that looks like the spot but there was no signage. It appears construction has not started yet.

 

Wow, I really like their new style. Those cans are damn fine.

 

I read somewhere about rumors of a brewery opening in grand rapids but now can't find the info. Is this a rumor that has been going around and is likely BS or is there some truth behind it? I'll be moving up there in a couple months and don't want to hold my breath if it ain't gonna happen

 

"I was only an apprentice at the time. How could I know not to fit the stolen Ruby of Ag-On-Dray into the Foreboding Wyrmsdoor, and plunder my way through the Cavern of Draconic Spoils, and nimbly avoid the booby traps along the Bridge of Serpents to reach the now-allegedly-locked door at the end? If I had known what I would face on the other side, perhaps I would have been more cautious. Probably not, but perhaps..."

OK, this lost me.

Artistic style is totally subjective, so my opinion means squat, but I can't say I like the new style. I am wondering if they did this in-house or with an agency? Insight may have made a classic branding mistake when it comes to consumer packaging design. In a nutshell, they narrowed the focus and identification of their potential brand equity versus creating a more open and inviting brand promise. Another way to put this - consumer packaging should draw as many and various people in and give them a pretty clear idea what they are looking at within 2 seconds. Insight's new approach is confusing and is most definitely not concise. More importantly, unless you like mid-evil themes, the style may not hit. You want to draw in "the masses" and to have a potential consumer take a second more lengthy look at your product, or, have them identify immediately what it is. There is a reason so much work goes into tag-lines and 1 word descriptors.

As a brain excercise, think of the great consumer packaging out there. Solid inviting colors, inviting palates and easy to understand value propositions (via naming, labeling, descriptions (Odell IPA - as simple as is gets, or, Furious. Both brands you know essentially what you are getting either through naming or logo)). I showed the packaging art work to an executive MBA class yesterday without describing what it was. 34 people in attendance, and I asked them to pick the general industry the new approach represents. Not one person picked consumables, the majority picked industrial product with a close second being game/entertainment. Instant impression score was 15 negative, 11 neutral and 8 positive. None of this means much, but it was interesting to see results from a new branding approach.

A question was asked - Did Insight change their branding approach because the opportunity was there, or did they change because they are struggling? No idea. It would be interesting to know because it would be a look into the exploding MN craft beer scene reality for new entrants. The myth that tap rooms can fund expensive brewing operations is just that. I am guessing that Insight needs about $70k per month in revenue just to break even. If the owners all quit their full time jobs and are taking salary or disbursements, well, all the more stress on financials.

Companies are very rarely motivated to change what works, especially out of the gate. If I were a soon-to-be launching craft brewery in MN, I would pay really close attention to what is happening here.

 

Bob was Excelsior Brewing Co.'s head brewer so likely recipes were his.

 

I just liked their cans. I also like Fulton's cans, and Bauhaus. So perhaps I'm non-standard.

As for who did the work, I found some references to Riley Hayes, which appears to be a Mpls based agency.

 

I read about it in the Grand Rapids paper maybe six months ago. It was not certain but one of the ideas they were discussing for their old school house building redevelopment (which is right along the main drag). Now I am not sure if the redevelopment is even going forward or what was decided but I would imagine you could call their chamber of commerce and dig around for some info...and report back here or course.

One of the state's top brewers Mike Hoops of Town Hall Brewing actually lives up that way but unfortunately he has not been mentioned in this project. We can hope though! Actually there is a pretty strong home brew club up there so it would be logical to assume (but again this has not been mentioned) that someone from that group could be involved. That is just a guess on my part and nothing I read.

 

I believe it was an outside agency that helped with the rebranding. From what I heard, the agency picks one project per year to do as a pro bono project of sorts. They then can enter the project in various awards contests and such for advertising and marketing.

As for Insight's motivation for changing their branding, I was told that they wanted to standout more in a crowded market.

 

An update to the Jordan plan (Note: An opening date is not mentioned in the article)
http://www.startribune.com/jordan-brewery-plans-still-buried-a-year-after-mudslide/310814641/

EDIT: Beer for life, anyone?
http://www.citypages.com/restaurant...h-lake-monsters-crowdfunding-campaign-7433342

 

From the outside it doesn't look like anything has happened at Roets in the past 3-4 months. I peak in when I walk the dog past there and nothing has changed in quite a while.

Was really hoping they would be open for summer but not looking good. Talks of a patio got me excited. It would be smart of him to have beer ready for the town celebration in September, Heimatfest. I hear he'll be making German beer and that seems like too good of a fit to screw up.

 

Well, I think Insights new look is really snazzy. The cask balloon with the spigot propeller is very nice. I also like the beer/can designs, and sure, they aren't wildly coloured so they don't pop or whatever, but I can think of a bunch of beer labels from successful breweries that don't have that instant grab you look. The stories, well, whatever. Lagunitas makes you turn the fucking bottle around to read their sometimes amusing nonsense, and Stone puts a fucking novel on every bottle. Sometimes quirks like this serve to give the consumer more brand involvement.

 

Insight definitely needed to do something , I really felt they lacked any real identity in terms of their taproom and brand .

Now the two biggest questions I have and I am seriously not trying to be a punk here but -

1 - Have they stopped playing that god awful 80's early 90's rock music ?

2- Have the bar staff going any friendlier ? . The last two times I went on the weekend I got the impression the server girl working there did not want to be there or serve us .

 

I've only been there once. What kind of 80's 90's music?...are we talking Motley Crue, Guns N Roses, Megadeth, Metallica, Pearl Jam, STP? If so I will go out of my way to stop there again.

I've been keeping an eye on them as I know someone living relatively close now and will likely be there more often. I'd like to see a bit more of one-off seasonal offerings. maybe they do and I haven't seen them on-line but it seems like it is pretty much always the basic lineup and that is it.

 

From my one stop there, it seems like they do basic lineup + one "seasonal" type beer. I think it was a session IPA at the time. Nice large, open space, though. Decent beer. I'd say that I'd like to see more variety at the taproom, but I'll probably not make it very often so I'm probably not the person to cater to.

 

F-Town is having a "pre-opening" event July 7th. https://www.facebook.com/ftownbeer

$100 dollars for a glass, tastings, meeting the brewers and a poster? That seems really, really steep. I don't get the "meet the brewers!" stuff, since I think the person has only been a 5 gallon-a-time homebrewer until this. For $100 I can take a date to a nice meal, pick up a great bottle of something on the way home and still have change left over.