Minnesota Breweries-In-Planning / Now Open . . .

There some rumors of bringing back some form of the old Fleckenstein brewery/beer. Can't recall the details and I don't think it was too far in progress.
Otherwise I'm not hearing much on the I35 corridor from IA to the TC. Just whatever the locals homebrewers are putting together (and there are quite a few).

 

I know I've had the conversation before, but MN could really take a page out of IA's book in regard to small town brewers...

 

It looks like we have. A lot of the breweries that have opened up in the past couple years are located outside the metro area. As a state we now have small town breweries in: Bemidji, New Ulm (that one has been there for a while), Ely, Knife River, Brainerd, Lucan, Two Harbors, Cold Springs (this one probably doesn't count, but its a small town), Baxter, Walker, Mankato, Rollingstone, Reads Landing, Red Wing, and Winona.

 

I'm talking towns with populations like:

Northwood: 2000
Reinbeck: 1700
Carson: 800
Hampton: 4000
Kalona: 2300
Albia: 3700
Macgregor: 871
Decorah: 7000

There are more, but I'm sick of looking them up. None of those are within an hour of a town with 50,000 people.

 

I belief in nossing, Chaz! Nossing! Includings spelling.

 

Hadn't heard of this one. You got me interested but unfortunatly the website and twitter account have absolutely no information about the brewery. What have you heard?

 

Small towns, while attractive for real estate prices, have at least two pretty large downsides. The first is obviously population. Unless the town's denizens are similar to Otis Campbell, you are going to have to ship your beer around. This brings up the second issue: can the wastewater treatment plant support your growth? In most small towns, it's doubtful. I don't think this can be pointed to as an ideal model until these breweries have been around for a while. Of course, I could be wrong.

 

1 town, 1 spring (I guess), but 2 Cold Spring breweries (so, are they still using the old CS brewhouse for the FMB's?)

'Course, I never understood how they dragged the old Gluek brewery way out there from Minneapolis...(huh, that's not what happened?)

 

So are these nano, brew pubs or full scale breweries?

 

Here is one you probalby haven't heard of yet:

Junkyard Brewing Company in Moorhead, MN.
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/JunkyardBrewery

They submitted their Federal paperwork on November 6th and are waiting to hear back.

 

I agree, there are downsides if you are oriented towards being the next Sam Adams. But, if not, here's how I address your downsides:

These people know their fellow townies, and they have the personal relationships to develop them into better drinkers of craft beer. The guy you played high school baseball with is more likely to convince you to drink something than some hipster in the big city. Are they going to make their living off of double IPAs and Imperial Coffee Peanut Stouts aged with Brett in used Molasses Barrels? No. But they will still make those every once in awhile between the milds and brown ales that are their bread and butter. And they might need to ship around, yes, but so what. They might ship a few towns over, or to a roadhouse, or whatever.

As for the wastewater treatment, this can be nasty, but still doable in most towns at the scale these guys are at. Many of them have other harder users of the wastewater system to be concerned about. A town of 1500 people still likely has it's own school (or at least is the host of a shared school), a few car repair places, probably some sort of industrial facility, etc.

So yeah, those are drawbacks, but when you're talking about buying and remodeling a building that can hold a 7 barrel brew house for less than $30k, it's still a pretty sweet deal.

 

Yes.

There are some of all three levels. Most are breweries with sampling rooms and a few off premise accounts, but some are full on brew pubs with exclusive beers and some are bottling breweries with wide distribution.

 

Really? Do you have documented proof of this? Because I know of at least one brewery that is relocating from a small town because the BOD limits are 200. That's the same as a household. I'd be amazed if half the places opening up in small towns even considered that.

 

I don't, but I've never had that conversation. I know here the city checks that sort of thing before they give a building permit. A lot of these towns have maybe a seed or fertilizer or cement facility in them as well.

But no, I don't have documented proof of that all. What size (roughly) is this one brewery you know of?

 

Its Brau Bro's that he speaks of. They are moving to Marshall(or maybe already have?)

 

I don't think wastewater capacity was the only issue there.

 

The one in Decorah just moved to a new facility and is looking at becoming regional. Easily Iowa's best brewery. - Toppling Goliath.