January 20, 2025 • 52 mins
Discover the passion and perseverance behind Thunder Brothers Brewery with our special guest, Warren Thunstrom, co-owner of the brewery alongside his brother Brett. Warren takes us on a journey from their humble beginnings in a garage to the creation of their renowned Hatchet Man IPA, inspired by a beloved but discontinued beer. Along the way, we uncover the gritty determination that fueled their adventure, the challenges of finding a community-rooted location, and the unexpected coincidences that make their story so personal.
Join us as Warren shares the intricacies of balancing innovation with tradition in the craft beer world. From the art of brewing "lawnmower beers" to the logistics of ingredient sourcing, Warren provides a candid look at the vibrant craft beer culture. We dive into memorable mishaps, like the infamous burnt batch experiment, and discuss the role of community feedback in shaping Thunder Brothers' flavorful brews. Warren's insights offer a behind-the-scenes look at the joys and hurdles of running a brewery.
The conversation also veers into industry trends, exploring the evolving dynamics between alcohol and marijuana and their implications for the brewing community. Warren highlights the importance of creative collaborations and staying true to their community-centered approach as they plan for future growth. This episode is packed with enlightening stories and practical advice for anyone curious about the craft beer scene or considering their own brewing journey. Cheers to an episode that promises both entertainment and education!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
and welcome in here to the two guys in beer podcast
studio andy beckstrom, seanfield and uh joined now by the?
Uh one of the owners of thunderbrothers in a sandy uh, warren
sunstrom.
I do get that right.
Yeah, okay, perfect, want tomake sure that's the first and
foremost.
You know, make sure you get thenames right.
That's the key.
Second time we've had ain-studio guest and the first
time we've had a brewery ownerin with us.
(00:33):
So we're uh pretty excited tobe able to go through the
process of the background andthe history and everything that
we can uh kind of draw out ofhim.
Uh, here for a thunder brother.
So, uh, thanks for joining usand happy to have you here.
I'm glad to be here.
We're going to talk a little bitabout some of the kind of the
history, some of the backgroundof making beer and some of the
things like that.
So, first and foremost, westart pretty much every episode
(00:55):
If you haven't watched, weselect one of our beers and then
we get that going.
So, sean, you want to grab one?
Yeah, I'll grab one here.
Grab you want to grab one?
Yeah, I'll grab one here.
Grab one here.
Do you have a preference ofwhich one?
Here I have the brown aleavailable or the windswept
pilsner.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Well then, if I'm going to drink it, I'll take the
hatchet man.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
There we go.
I think that's do.
I have this one here.
There we go.
There.
We got the hatchet man rightthere for you.
I'll probably go.
I'm going to go with the brownale Typically.
I am more of an IPA guygenerally myself, but this was
highly recommended by your beertender, dave, when Amanda went
(01:37):
in to be able to go get somestuff, and Warren brought some
stuff for us as well.
So this isn't just a we wentand got it, he definitely
brought some stuff, so we thankyou for bringing some stuff as
well.
So this isn't just a.
We went and got it, like hedefinitely brought some stuff,
so we thank you for bringingsome stuff as well.
But yeah, that was he highlyrecommended.
So it was a local favorite andyou know that that.
That's what mostly people likethere, so I wanted to make sure
I had that as part of theepisode as well.
Okay, so first, and foremost.
(02:01):
It's like the best part, you getthe sound of it, the initial
smells.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, I like the aroma of it and that's the first
thing I like to do when I openthe beer is just smell the aroma
.
It gets the taste buds going,the saliva flowing.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So I think we all got different.
I got the Brown Eye Girl BrownAle and you have the Hatchet man
IPA.
Sean, what do you have?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I've got the Blue Sky Lager.
It is very tasty, I'm enjoyingthis already.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There you go, perfect .
I'm enjoying the Brown Ale.
I could definitely tell it'skind of that typical or not
typical, but that natural brown,fall type, winter type of feel
to it.
So very, very tasty.
And you got the IPA.
Can you describe, I guess, evenkind of what your thoughts or
what your intentions were for itwhen you started kind of with
that idea For the?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
IPA.
Well, one of our favorites todrink that we did not make was
Todd the Axeman.
Okay, my brother's name isBrett, so when they quit making
Todd the Axeman, we thought thatwas a shame, so we came up with
Brett the Hatchet man.
There we go, but the idea is tomake a straightforward, not
(03:13):
East Coast, not West Coast IPAwhere the first thing you hit is
hops.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Sure, I like it.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, I was just going to say you did mention
Brett.
I want to let all the viewersand listeners know too he is an
owner with you.
You guys are brothers, correct?
All right, just want everybodyto know that, due to our
limitations of our studio space,we were only able to have one
of the two on, so we're thankfulWarren was able to come up, but
Brett is also part owner andpart of the process too.
Just wanted to put that outthere for everybody so they're
(03:43):
aware.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And just kind of a little.
Another little bit ofbackground we learned earlier
today as well.
You met Amanda when you gothere.
She actually used to work withyour wife.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Really.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Ruth, is your wife, correct?
Yeah, so she.
I don't know if she still is,but she was Amanda worked for
Extension in Iseante County fora bunch of years.
It's been like 10 years now,but years ago is when she worked
with her.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
So we have a little bit of a connection.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, I've never met any of her coworkers, so a
little bit of a connection andSean's familiar.
Are you still involved with therendezvous?
Yeah, I still own the coffeeshop.
Okay, gotcha, I don't know thatI've been.
I think I've driven by itnumerous times, that Timorous
times, but that's almost as good.
There we go, there we go.
Usually it's at night when I'mthere, so, but Sean has been
there, I think, multiple times.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, I've been to Rendezvous a lot.
It's been there as long as Ican remember.
I grew up in the area too, so Iremember probably 20 years ago
I've been going there.
It's been there that long,hasn't it?
Where'd you grow up?
Pretty, pretty much in I-San-ymy whole life.
Oh, okay, so yeah, so I've beenthere quite a bit.
So, all right, warren, let'sstart off at the very beginning.
Then.
Where'd you grow up?
(04:50):
Where are you from?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I grew up in Cambridge and moved away for
about 15 years until I gotmarried and we decided to settle
down somewhere and my wife saidwhere do you want to live?
I said I do not care, except Idon't want to go home and we
went home.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So now we live in Ice Landing, nice.
What did you do as a kid?
Did you play sports?
Anything like that?
No, I was the most unathleticperson.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I'm the one that they said hey, good try, good try.
There you go, me and my friendsactually got kicked off a
church softball team.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh, wow, oh how do you pull that?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
off it just for being that.
In it they said you should findsomething that you'll have more
fun if you do something you'rebetter at sure?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
so what have you before you own the brewery and
got into that whole business?
What did you do for a livingprior to that?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, I was at the coffee shop before that, and
before that I worked for avariety of manufacturing
companies, kind of as I gothired when they had problems.
It was my job to fix theproblems.
Nice, that's what you did.
Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot.
We're in the fixer.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So now we know a little bit about your background
, where you grew up and whathave you done Now.
Where did you and your brotherget the inspiration for brewing
beer, the starter brewery?
Why did you start brewing beer?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, we liked going to all the breweries when they
started up and for a while, whenit was just started, you could
say, hey, this week we're goingto go to this one.
It just opened.
But then when it started beingthree and four and five a week,
well that kind of, but there wasnothing going on up this way
and I personally saw threedifferent plans that were going
(06:45):
to open a brewery in Cambridgeand they fell apart for one
reason or another, and so wethought, well, the Egyptians
were making beer 5,000 years ago.
It can't be that hard, so wedecided to give it a shot.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Oh nice.
So where did you start then?
Just in your garage, in yourbasement, like where was the
first time you and your brotherbrewed beer?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, the first time was in your garage, in your
basement.
Like where was the first timeyou and your brother brewed beer
?
Yeah, the first time was in mygarage.
We were pretty inept and whenwe got the first batch done and
we tried to, my brother saidwell, congratulations, we've
reinvented Coors.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Lake nice.
So it obviously was kind of alearning process then, right out
of the gate, trying to be ableto experiment with different
things.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
We decided we wanted a brewery before we knew how to
brew beer.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
OK, that was.
That was going to be kind of mynext question Like it's usually
or not usually, but a lot oftimes, you know, if you have
kind of a couple of failuresyou're like, well, that was fun
to try for a little bit.
So what kind of kept you goingwith it?
Just the idea you wanted to dothe brewery.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Oh yeah, and my wife would hate, would love to hear
this.
But my brother and I are bothquite stubborn, so it was like,
well, it didn't work, well, whatdid you do?
And so we had to keep goinguntil we could find a passable
beer.
And then, when we found itwasn't that hard to make a good
beer, we thought, well, why arewe buying beer that isn't so
good?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Sure, Do you have a couple of.
You'd mentioned going to a lotof breweries before.
Do you have a couple that standout to you that are not
necessarily a favorite?
It's kind of hard to pick afavorite of thousands of
breweries, but are there morespecific beers that kind of
stand out for you?
More thousands of breweries,but are there more specific
beers that kind of stand out foryou?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
More of the beers, like Castle of Danger gets a
tremendous amount of publicityfor their cream ale, but I think
Urban Growler makes a betterone.
I love Surly's Fiery Hell,which they will not can, so I
make a trip down there every nowand then.
And then Ferris State's gotsome very interesting sours that
(08:46):
we like to try.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I do like Ferris State.
Yeah, I like all three of thosebreweries.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, they are all pretty good.
As far as Surly goes, I reallystill like the Furious a lot.
That's still my favorite, Eventhough they do can that one, of
course, but over the ones thatare in the brewery I still like
the Furious quite a bit myself.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, yeah, those are .
Yeah, they got a lot ofdifferent, really nice options
at.
Surly, that's for sure they do.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
So, when it comes to learning how to brew you guys,
was it all just kind of trialand error for you guys in your
garage, or did you try to do anyformal training or did you
reach out to anybody?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, it is a basic process.
I mean, the Egyptians just puta jar of cooked grain out with
water and let it ferment in thesun, and that was the earliest
beer.
But we went beyond that.
I mean we read everything.
We did the YouTube.
We did a lot of reading.
I've got a small library aboutbrewing.
(09:42):
But we didn't want to get theformal training because, like
everything else, you can go toofar.
Dakota County has a tremendouscourse network of classes you
can take, but to make a goodbeer is not that difficult.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Once you get the process, kind of refined.
Once you understand what'sgoing on.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, so when did you guys first decide to start
selling it?
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
was that like the mission the whole time, but for
the first time you brewed it inthe garage no, no, it started
out just being uh fun for us andour friends and uh well, the
brewery is selling the beers.
How do you recover your money?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Hopefully, what goes into the decision-making process
.
We talked a little bit beforethis too about so, once you
decide okay, you're going to doa brewery, picking the location,
or is it just kind of what'savailable, or did you have a
specific spot in mind?
I mean, probably close to home,but, like, did you have a
specific spot in mind or was itjust kind of what happened to be
(10:48):
available with a?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
realtor.
Yeah, no, at the time westarted, commercial property was
very slim, so we took the firstbig enough space we could find.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I had been to your previous location over by the
kind of by down by the tanningplace, a chiropractor in that
part.
What went into the decisionmaking then to move to the other
?
Was it just more space, moreavailability, or was it just
better visibility on the highway?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Well, it was definitely better visibility and
our neighbors did not want tohave a brewery next to them.
They thought it, despite thefact that the landlord extended
the lease.
They didn't think that it shonewell on them, so we were who
wants to stay where you're nowwelcome.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sure, that's fair.
It is kind of interesting withsome of that Like there was.
You talked about breweries thathad plans that were going to go
forward.
There was one in Malacca at onepoint in time that was going to
go there and they were going to, they had to rezone.
It was on a block because theyzoned by block but that one
little building was still zonedcommercial.
But they couldn't do it becausethe whole block was zoned for
(12:00):
residential, for residential.
And when they were trying tozone it differently, like
residents, you know like, oh,there's going to be drunk
drivers all over the place andpeople ripping up and down the
highway and it's just going tobe chaos.
We don't need another bar intown.
And it was just kind ofimpressive to like listen to not
in a positive way, butimpressive to listen to what
some of the pushback is sometimewith that.
(12:20):
You know, like you're saying,like that would reflect bad upon
them, that you know there'sthis, I think still somehow
there's still some people outthere that think, oh, it's a bar
or it's going to have thesetype of negative issues.
But I've never reallyexperienced that with all the
breweries.
It's always been positive, Iguess, to me, yeah, I'd say you
can make two lists of bars andbreweries.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
And old time bars are dark.
Old time bars have very fewwindows or smoked windows.
Breweries generally want a lotof light in.
They encourage families to comein.
They generally they closeearlier so they aren't getting
the 2 am closing crowd.
So drunkenness is rarely aproblem.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, I was going to mention that too, about, like,
the brewery culture too.
What I've noticed over theyears and going to
microbreweries, it's a familyatmosphere.
I've never seen a fight in abrewery.
You go to a bar and people arealways trying to fight, like you
said, later on in the night andit just gets kind of ridiculous
.
And the most people that I goto the brewery they have have
(13:27):
two, maybe three beers and theycut out of there, you know, and
they still drive responsibly.
Not that people don't maybedrink a little too much at a
brewery from time to time, butit doesn't seem as prevalent or
as common yeah as a bar.
You know it's just more of a funrelaxed atmosphere.
You're drinking good beer,you're having good conversation,
specifically at your brewery.
I know I didn't get a chance togo.
I tried to go there.
When you're doing thehelicopter races, you know just
(13:48):
fun things like that like I wantto go and do one of those.
So if you guys do that again,you might find me there trying
to find one of those things.
Like that's fun stuff.
You know you go there, have agood time and drink beer, not be
stupid.
When you first opened yourbrewery, then when you moved,
when you moved the originallocation to the new one, did you
guys encounter any issues withlicensing fees and trying to get
(14:09):
approved by the city?
How does that process work?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
it's never ending.
It's what happens.
You find out you have to haveall these licenses to open a
brewery and then they say, oh,and you want a license to sell
it.
Oh, and you want a license tocan it, oh.
You know, and so it goes on andon and on, and every time you
make a new label you have to payto get that registered.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Really, oh yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, Because I think if you make a new beer you have
to submit all the specs andeverything to the state for
approval.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, and they're not picking on you, but that's just
the system you got, and youdon't really know that until you
get involved in it.
Sure, yeah, I never would havethought that, and there don't
really know that until you getinvolved in it.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Sure yeah, I never would have thought that and
there isn't really at least notthat I've been able to find, not
that I research it all thatoften, but I don't think that
there's just a standardchecklist out there that has all
of the stuff.
It's probably a lot of okay.
Well, I guess we're not doingit this week.
We're going to submit for thatand wait a little while.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
And then every city and county are different.
Our county does not choose toget involved, but the city very
much cares and the state cares,whether you're on city water or
well water, oh sure.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Are you on well water or is it city water?
No, we're city water.
Okay, we've talked a little biton previous episodes too.
That water is such a huge thing.
Do you have a process, or isthe water that you have kind of
up to what you want it to be, ordo you have like filters or
reverse osmosis?
Whatever it may be?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
yeah, no, we uh.
The water is very good quality,but then we also do charcoal
filter it and then we test theph before we get involved in it
cool.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So there's still a process there to make sure that
water is where you want it tobrew your beer.
What kind of equipment did youfirst start out with?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You mean when we're down to being a pot or when we
started a brewery.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, you can start.
That Were you, the first thingyou started with as a pot and
the first brewery.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, we did.
We started with a pot and yougot all these magazines from
like Brewer, us or any brewingfor dummies and stuff, and some
of it works and some of itdoesn't work so well.
Now, when we got into brewing,we knew into starting a brewery,
you have to be very carefulabout deciding what your power
source is going to be.
(16:35):
Are you going to use steam?
Well, if you have steam, what'sgoing to generate that steam?
Do you have to have licensesfor like boilers?
Or are you going to go electric?
Or are you going to go gas andare you vented for these things?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Oh sure.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
So we found an outfit that sold us there now defunct
called Colorado Brewing, whichwas brewery-size brew-in-a-bag
with steel containers, so youwould brew 200 gallons and you
could lift them up and theydrain and everything and it's
all power-assisted and that'sworked out pretty well for us.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Now is a lot of the equipment the same at the new
location or did you upgradeequipment with a different space
?
No, we moved.
We moved what we had.
Okay, so we have the differentbreweries or not breweries, the
different beers that we havehere the Brown Ale, the Pilsner
IPA, what is kind of the thoughtprocess when you decide?
Do you just try to experimentwith different things on a
(17:33):
smaller scale, or do you justhave an idea and let's toss
something into a big batch andsee how it turns out, like
what's and what's the processdeveloping, I guess a new taste
or a new flavor well, the amountof time to make five gallons or
200 gallons is the same, soit's not a time factor, it's how
(17:54):
much money do you want to riskon your ingredients?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And if you're just trying to tweak something, oh,
we might want to pilsner with alittle more zest or something,
oh, we'll just go ahead and doit.
But now, like, we're going todo a cranberry beer, okay, and
this will be quite a bitdifferent for us.
So are we going to go whole hogor are we going to go half hog?
(18:22):
We haven't quite decided.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Okay With that.
You mentioned kind of tweakingit.
Do you do like a fair amount oftweaking or do you have a
handful of them that are nope?
This is the way that it's goingto be.
This is how it's worked andit's pretty much the same every
time is the way that it's goingto be.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
This is how it's worked and it's pretty much the
same every time.
Well, once you make a beer likeany of the ones we're drinking
here, you can't sell it underthat label if you change it.
So if you're going to changethe hops or change something,
you have to put a new label onit, and because your ABV will be
different and it'll tastedifferent and the state wants to
know what you're making, right,so we will change.
(19:02):
We're not at all hesitant aboutthat and we have some fun doing
that.
We have a series of beers we doin the summer.
We call lawnmower beers,because when you're done mowing
the lawn, that's what you wantto slam down.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
We talk about the.
We have a lawnmower scale.
It's mostly kind of in jest to.
There was an article years agofrom that had, I believe, pete
Coors in it that he, when he youknow, for a long time but you
know until obviously things havechanged in the industry, but
for a long time he didn'tunderstand craft beer.
He didn't understand.
None of it made sense to him.
(19:35):
It wasn't a matter of gettingdrunk, it was more a matter of
well, if I'm going to mow thelawn, I want to have one before
I start.
I want to have maybe two whileI'm mowing lawn and maybe a
couple, three, four afterwards,you know, like just to stay
refreshed.
So, coors, Light was, that'shis mindset and that's all he
would ever, you know, kind ofget behind.
So now kind.
So I'll rate the Blue Sky Lageron our lawnmower scale A five
is the best.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I'd give this a five.
I'm definitely enjoying thislager Blue Sky Lager from
Thunder Brothers and I woulddefinitely want to drink as many
as I could after I mowed theyard it's crisp.
It's clean.
I really do like it.
This is a really good beer.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Good, I'm trying to remember what the other scale
was that we had.
I think it was maybe sitting bythe campfire scale.
We try to make up differentthings.
Oh yeah, just to have fun.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah for the darker cozier beers.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Exactly.
This would definitely besomething that I would have
either out at the campfire orotherwise.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
We have a little fire pit in there.
I definitely have a couple ofthese out there for that for
sure.
So, talking about theseingredients and stuff and how
you can't change them muchbecause you'd have to file the
licenses for the state to changethe labels and all that, where
do you source your ingredients?
Do you try to do it locallyhere?
Is there a national supplier?
Well, we try to do as muchlocally as we can.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Well, we try to do as much locally as we can.
There is Malt Works up byDetroit Lakes and they do some
good grain.
Bsg is the nation's supplyhouse.
There are some hop growersaround locally and we have
bought hops from them.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Are you aware of the hop farm out in Foley?
I was just going to say Ithought there was one over
towards Foley, I wasn't surewhere it is, but I feel like
I've driven by it before.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah, they did a real nice job and but they got hit
with a windstorm and then theyfound that.
Well, if you had a had damagein Washington state, where hops
is a big product, you can insureit, but it's a niche crop in
Minnesota and they wouldn'tcover the damage and, to put
them out of business, Couldn'tget crop insurance Cause we've
(21:48):
on a very smaller scale orwhatever like.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
We have some farmland here and me and my
brother-in-law we both like beerand brewing beer and drinking
beer and being involved in thatWe've tossed around the idea of
like, well, let's get a coupleof posts and toss them up there.
I have some hops growing on theside of the silo out here,
enough to make about afive-gallon batch, so not
exactly a large scale, but wehad talked about that too, so
that's interesting to know thatit's not something that you'll
(22:10):
be able to find much for cropinsurance on that.
I suppose because of the scaleof it, there's just not much of
it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Well, you've got a couple hundred acres out here,
you might as well.
Start yeah, 100% Only if we canget the insurance Right right,
so on an average year, thenWarren, how many pounds of hops
do you buy?
How much grain?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Well, you know, at first we were trying to
inventory and balance how muchof this and that and the other
thing.
What we found is that, insteadfor a better use of our money,
everything is so readilyavailable, we really only need
to buy about two or three brewsahead of time.
Oh, okay, because we can geteverything delivered in 48 hours
.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Okay, nice, you didn't run into any like supply
chain issues much at all, like ahandful of years ago.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Well, I mean, I mean I suppose everything probably
was, but yeah, during COVIDthings were a little ugly, but
other than that, no, how didthat process?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I guess, now that I mentioned it, how did that
process kind of go?
Like what were some of thechanges that you guys went
through?
Cause that was.
I mean, it was I think you hadalready been in the new location
a little while, but it's stilla different location.
Now you're trying to do to gobeers or how, like what was that
process kind of going?
Like all right, you lost me justjust through like 2020 or just
(23:28):
through the COVID years, likewith all the regulations and
everything, like somerestaurants could sell some
stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
But yeah, 2020, the tap room had to close, but what
we would do is we'd still makebeer and we would put on our
Facebook page okay, saturday,we're selling and filling
growlers from this hour to thishour, and that's all we could do
.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Were you able to do anything outside, or is that
still against like regulationsof being too much crowds or
anything like that?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Oh no, we had a couple of smoker fests with
barbecue trucks this summer andwe've had bean bag or corn hole
and things like that.
So no, it's not been a problem.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
You mentioned a smoker fest.
Is that like a competitionthing, or just bring some
smokers out there?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
No, it's a competition thing.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Interesting.
Yeah, last week we had ourbuddy Clint, who is a
competition smoker, oh, on there.
So, clint, if you're watchingand listening, we'll have to get
you set up with that one.
So right after we have the twoguys competition out here.
Right, it might be just him,but that's fine.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
We're always looking for something to interest people
, and so at one point we thought, well, what about drone racing?
Oh yeah, no that.
We went online and looked andthe people it's so fast, it's
like trying to follow mosquitoes.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It's super fast.
I watched it on TV.
At one point I'm like I don'tknow how you track it.
I don't know how you like itwas weird.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And then we thought, well, there's these guys that do
actual medieval combat.
Uh, heck, yeah, and they, theywere.
They have to make their ownuniforms and it's like 100
pounds, but because of that theylook like these guys on the old
uh, electric football gamesthat vibrate, they can run, they
can barely move.
So we thought, no, that's tooslow.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So who comes up with those ideas to do those events
and the fun, excitement thingsthat you guys put on there?
You guys just all brainstorm ittogether.
Oh, that might sound like fun.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Actually, I think our staff comes up with most of it,
If probably my speaking of justmy brother and I.
We are probably the worstmarketeers in the world.
Oh, okay, Perfect.
So we rely on the imaginationof the staff.
Oh, okay, Well that's fun.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
That includes them too and keeps them more engaged.
And I suppose they really enjoywhat they're doing anyways at a
brewery, because it's adifferent type of work.
You know more people are morepassionate about and interested
in it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I have seen you guys have done like trivia and uh, I
think there isn't there like ayoung professionals networking
yeah thing.
That was set up by, uh, therealist agents.
I think they're involved inthat.
I play baseball with Brody so Ilike to heckle him every time
that I can.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Trivia is very popular.
We have teams.
Anybody can do it.
You can have a team, you can doit individual.
But it's gotten to the pointwhere we have identifiable
people that come every week, andso now it's a grudge match, yep
.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
So that's a lot of fun.
I don't know what that's likeat all.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
No, no, andy never plays trivia anywhere.
So, thinking of the early days,of when you guys first opened,
do you have any like memorablemoments that stand out, when you
first got going, that reallylike, yeah, this is really cool.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Most of our memorable moments were about things we
did wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Oh, that's true.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Like what Name?
One thing you did wrong.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Well, we made a batch of beer and we burned it and so
, gosh, we don't want to sendthat down the drain.
What can we do to salvage it?
So we're trying to doctor it upand we found that we could make
a pretty good beer out of it ifwe added barbecue sauce, but it
wouldn't stay in solution.
So we said, well, we got to getrid of that burnt taste.
(27:18):
What are we going to do?
And we said charcoal filteringthere we go.
So we bought one of thosepitchers that has a charcoal
filter for a test run.
We poured the beer in and wepoured it into the glass.
It was amazing.
It took out the alcohol, ittook out the taste.
We had just brown water, oh,perfect.
(27:39):
So we did end up sending thatbatch down the drain.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
That's going to be a tough day.
To just flip the switch or, youknow, throw the lever and watch
it just flow.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
To me that would be like watching money go down the
drain Like oh no yeah literallywatching money go down the drain
like, oh no, yeah, literallyyeah.
So what, uh?
When you guys first startedbrewing, open the brewery, how
did you decide on what stylesand flavors you wanted to start
with first?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
strictly by what we liked.
Oh okay, we didn't think wewere too far out of the norm.
So I mean, there are some beerslike surly's heart of darkness
series very popular, not for me.
We ain't going to make a cloneof that one.
So we just, we started by justdoing what we like, sure.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Okay, sean had mentioned before, you know, like
some different moments,memorable moments.
Was there a specific momentduring the process, like once I
opened a bar at one point intime and it was kind of like
okay, now you've gotten to thatrealization, I got it open and
we're doing the thing?
Was there a moment for youwhere it was okay, this is going
to work, this is this is goingwell, this is people like it.
(28:52):
Like, was there a moment or wasit just kind of over time?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
You're like, oh, we've been open for five years,
like yeah, no, that's, that's it, Because it's more of a process
, because it was a grind and yougot to get the bills paid and
you know how many people aregoing to come in tomorrow and da
, da, da da.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
of course you have your high, high moments when
someone says, oh, I really likethat beer, things like that, but
uh, no, it's just steady stateis there any type of feedback
you're seeing from customers orfamily that have kind of gone
into your brewing process onkind of how you shape your
recipes and change them?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Oh yeah, we had customers that said they wanted
lighter beer than what wenormally make.
So we tried it and they said,hmm, that seems to cut down on
the taste.
And we said, well, do you buyCoors Light for the taste?
Right?
And then we said so we're goingto give that up.
Yeah, we're going gonna stickwith the taste instead, for yeah
(29:47):
, that's my favorite part aboutbeers is the flavor and taste.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I don't drink many light beers myself because of
that.
You know when you drink a beeryou want a taste and a flavor.
I don't know if you want to tryand knock off of this one, but
it's one of andy's and ourfavorites.
Have you ever had widow maker?
Yes, from q and a's one of myfavorites.
You should try to make somesort of smoky flavored beer in
the future.
You'll see me there every daythen.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
So what was that brewery that used to be in
Lionel Lakes that specialized insmoky beers?
Viking Hall theme.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
I had been there at one point in time.
It was well.
A brother-in-law just loved it.
I think me and Amanda had beenthere one time.
I can see it.
It was right on the highwaythere.
They're still around, only theymoved to Ely.
Okay, oh, I didn't All the wayto Ely.
Oh, that's a big move, Not justacross the street.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
No, but they spoke like all these heavy smoke yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, it was very, very smoky.
I can't remember what it was,but yeah, it was kind of a Norse
theme kind of deal.
I don't remember what it was.
Now I had been there, though Ithink somewhere I have a growler
wall that has like 120 growlers.
I collect growlers, so I thinkI have a growler, probably from
them over there somewhere.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Hammerheart.
There it is, hammerheart,that's what it was Perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, it was.
It was pretty.
It was good for what they did.
It wasn't necessarily like my.
I like some stuff kind of smoke, but it was.
Everything was very heavysmoked and you know not, not my
favorite, but you know it wasstill good.
I mean for what it was.
If that's what you like andthat's what you're into, it
probably was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah.
So think about after you'vebeen open for a while a year or
two years how has the growthbeen in the brewery from your
initial year?
How many barrels would you sayyou brewed the first year to how
many barrels do you brew now onaverage?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Oh, we're probably about quadruple what we started
with, but we do not want to growmuch.
If we could get by with just100% of our business being in
the taproom and being a localtaproom, that would be just fine
.
We do canning and distribution.
We self-distribute just to tryto attract people to the taproom
(32:03):
.
All of our four packs one ofthe cans will have a tag on that
says free beer.
Bring this beer to the breweryLike we have on.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, that was when Amanda went and got that.
She specifically pointed thatout, that one of those has that.
Is that part of a recyclingprogram?
Is it just to kind of getpeople in there?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
It's just to get people in there.
That's what we really want iswe're kind of going for the idea
of, like a coffee shop withalcohol.
We just want people to come in,socialize, visit, have a couple
of beers, go home and enoughpeople do it, often enough that
we pay the bills.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I like it.
Yeah.
Yeah, we definitely noticedthat on one of the cans we
actually she thought it was likemaybe we get four free beers.
And we were looking at it andwe're like we just want stickers
.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Maybe it's just one.
So, with that being said, ifyou get enough business to
operate your business throughjust the taproom, would you pull
the beer out of the localliquor stores that it's in now
or would you keep it?
Still try to keep it in there.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We would keep it in for those brewery, for those
liquor stores that wanted it.
I mean, if they felt like, hey,we could use that space better
for somebody else, well thenwe'd be glad to go away.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Sure, now I've seen you in the Sandy Liquor Store
and the Cambridge Liquor Store.
Is there any others around here?
We've been in Bram.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I was going to say, I think that there's some in Bram
, yeah, and they are pouring atthree of the local wineries.
Oh, okay, yeah, but yeah, we'dlike to get on tap with one or
two places again, just to spreadthe idea of come on down and
meet us.
But we don't need an empire.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
It's just for the love of brewing and just the
camaraderie and the fun.
Yep, I wonder what would ittake to get on tap at a bar, you
know, like the Cambridge Barand Grill.
I've seen they had like 320,was there once a few years ago
with one of their beers.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
What would that take to do?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
that.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Well, it's not a regulatory thing or anything,
it's just what they think theircustomers want.
And because we run a tap roomgosh, some places might think we
would be a competitor becausewe're too close, oh sure.
So I would think that probablynobody within five miles would
(34:24):
want us on tap.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Oh okay, but if dairy queen wants us on tap, that's
fine so do you have the capacityin your facility there to put
beer in kegs?
Then, yeah, can somebody comein like myself and buy a keg if
I was?
Oh, you do oh, okay, yeah wesell kegs.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Oh nice, I didn't know, cool I mean I have to keep
that in mind for the two guysand beer podcast smoking
competition with clint.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
So I do have another question, kind of talking about
beer, and I don't know if I sawthis on your facebook page or
not, but it's kind of becoming athing.
You know, marijuana is becomingmore legal everywhere and I've
seen beers with THC in it.
Did you have one with THC in it?
Because that shop is right nextto you.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Oh boy, you've really opened a big can.
Oh, it is quite tall yeah.
Well, right now it's just CBD.
Oh, okay, you know THC hempderived, which is like the poor
cousin Sure, and you are notallowed to mix THC and alcohol.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Okay, I was wondering like how that would even drive,
you know.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Yeah, in fact I'm interested in how that's going
to shake out after the first ofthe year, because we do make a
THC seltzer.
But we talked to the state like, okay, what can we do after the
first of the year when allmarijuana is legal?
And they said you can't doalcohol and marijuana unless you
(35:56):
have two separate addresseswith two separate buildings.
So he said, well, I guess we'renot going to do that.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Sure, Fair enough.
I mean, does THC really need tobe in beer anyways?
You know, I don't know that itreally needs to.
Like what would be the benefitof having that in beer?
I?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
don't use it.
I don't discourage anyone whowants to use it, but I don't
have any experience.
And I guess, though you look atColorado, they seem to put it
in everything.
Sure, it's in wine, it's inbeer.
Oh, I never knew they put it inwine.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, colorado does a little bit of everything.
They kind of run their ownoperation.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, they kind of do , don't they?
Now, I understand the CBD, youknow, because there's a lot of
health benefits from that.
You know, cause there's a lotof health benefits from that.
You know that I've read peoplewith arthritis or anxiety or
sleep stuff.
You know, I don't know if youwould really, if that would
really work for sleeping, haveCBD and beer or whatever, but I
(36:57):
can see the health benefits tothat.
That portion or that makessense to me to have that and
beer with THC.
I always just kind of wonderedyou know the people that they
use THC and drink beer?
Like how does that, wondered?
You know the people that?
use THC and drink beer like howdoes?
Speaker 1 (37:06):
that mix, you know.
But yeah, yeah, be interesting.
So kind of a little bit of aleft turn.
You guys mentioned theinvolvement and I like the can
the label.
If you kind of go around thelabel here, it's both you guys
on the label here, yeah, and thetables, which I really like.
Those tables that you havethere, oh good, it's like an
electric thing.
Were you involved in that ordid you just buy them like that?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
No, we paid a guy to come in and do it.
Okay yeah, because we happenedto see little pieces done at an
art show.
So he said, could you do bigpieces?
He said sure, hmm.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
That must have been kind of a fun day.
Yeah, yes, and they use, uh,scavenged microwave ovens really
.
Yeah, I suppose you large powersupply.
Yeah, interesting.
So involvement obviously on thelabel.
But uh, so how involved are youguys still in like?
I mean obviously like thebackground, the day-to-day, the
normal running of a business.
But as far as like beer tendingor being there, you guys are
still pretty routinely or is itmore got other people kind of
(38:09):
running the front side of things.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Well, we are the only two people that make the beer
and keg it and clean theequipment and et cetera, et
cetera.
Our staff runs the bar.
We will tend bar occasionallymy brother more than I, but
that's because he'll do thatwhile I do the books and then we
(38:32):
both show up for all the events.
So we're not absentee landlords.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Okay, it's kind of interesting.
We've read about or discusseddifferent breweries that when
they get so big they're justbasically the name or the face,
but they're not involved inanything anymore.
So it's kind of nice to be ableto still have that attachment
to it.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, when it comes to brewing beer, warren, we kind
of talked about some of theingredients you use and kind of
the ideas of how you've come upwith it.
What we've kind of noticed inthe brewing community is how
many different breweries kind ofcollaborate together.
Have you guys collaborated withanother brewery on brewing any
type of beer of any kind?
Speaker 3 (39:09):
No, we haven't.
Partially, I suppose, becausewe haven't been approached and
partially because my brother andI have enough trouble agreeing
between the two of us.
Sure, there is a funny story Afew years ago, the brewing
community had a contest and youhad to make a beer out of
Minnesota ingredients, and Iwon't name names, but the winner
(39:32):
used milfoil and zebra mussels.
Okay, interesting, yeah, andthey won, and it was quite
clever.
And then it had to be pulledfrom the market because you
can't legally have animalproteins in beer.
Oh, but it was an honestmistake.
(39:53):
Sure, but that's why you aren'tdrinking it now.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Sure, interesting, huh, interesting.
Yeah, well, that's cool.
Yeah, I mean it's a lot of goodinformation.
If there were to be somebodythat's just starting out, you
know, like, let's say, me andSean are going to open a brewery
in 2026.
We're not because I don't knowthat that's going to happen.
Let's say, you know, like I,let's say that I won the Mega
(40:18):
Millions on Friday and like,buying the equipment and things
like that aren't an issue.
What are some tips that youwould give to somebody that is
maybe just starting out, I guesseven as a home brewer?
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Decide, the very first thing is to say what you
want to get out of it.
If you're looking to become ahuge business, well, your
approach is going to bedifferent than if you just want
to say you make the best beerthat you and your buddies like
and you have to satisfy yourselfbefore you can satisfy anyone
else.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I like it.
Sean, you got more on your listhere.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, I was kind of curious what's the most popular
beer you guys have right now?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Right now would be the Blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I can taste.
Why has that been your mostpopular beer the whole time?
You guys have been open fromthe first location to the second
, or has it kind of changed?
Speaker 3 (41:09):
It changes with time.
We make one in the summerthat's very, very heavy in
citrus hops and that's a realsummer seller.
Blue Sky is probably the bestyear round.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Okay, yeah, nice.
How does innovation go for youguys while keeping true to your
same kind of brand of yourbrewery?
Like, how does that?
I can't get the right questionthere.
As far as innovation, you know,we kind of talked about you
don't really change things toomuch because the label and the
can.
But when you do come out with anew beer and stuff, how does
(41:42):
any new beer you come out with,how do you keep that in mind to
keep with your same brandedimage of the beers you already
have?
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Well see, you're much more sophisticated than we are.
We don't have an image.
See, you're much moresophisticated than we are.
We don't have an image.
I mean, we're two schmucks thatare enjoying what we do in
making beer.
What we will do is and wegenerally do this every winter
is we will make some test beersin five-gallon batches, oh okay,
and put them on the bar andjust give it away.
(42:12):
But you say but you don't getthis unless we get a review,
sure, written paper Right now.
We want to know what you think.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Oh, okay, and that kind of shapes.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
That kind of shapes, and then it's people are
interested.
You know, like you know, thisavocado one is not for me.
You know Sure, what date doesthat happen at?
Yeah, what date does that?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
happen at.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yeah Well, like we did last winter, we did Kvass,
which is Russian brewed tea, andit's alcoholic.
But a few people liked it, butnot enough that we're going to
go crazy with it.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
So it's kind of a little bit of crowdsourcing to a
certain extent, absolutely.
So, that's what I was kind ofstaying with, was something you
like, but at the same timegetting feedback.
So we see the mini growler.
Do you guys still do the fullgrowlers, or is that just if
somebody brings one in?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
No, we do the full growlers too.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Okay, gotcha, I just want to make sure I judge my
wife for getting the small one.
How am I supposed to watch theVikings game with?
Speaker 2 (43:13):
just two beers.
So in previous episodes Warrenwe've kind of talked about.
You know Andy, he's kind of abig IPA drinker.
I don't really have a specificI like IPAs, but I'll kind of
drink a little bit of everything.
We did one episode that was outof a North Dakota brewery.
That was dill pickle flavoredbeer and we kind of went on a
(43:34):
little tangent about.
It seems like some ipas aregetting kind of gimmicky with
their flavors, like a dillpickle beer.
It was okay.
But are you really gonna buy afour pack of dill pickle
flavored beer?
You know what I mean.
So do you guys have any ofthose type of gimmicky type
beers?
Have you ever tried that?
Just some crazy flavor, justfor the heck of it, throwing it
out there for an IPA we have not, I can tell you.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Last week at the coffee shop we had pickled
herring coffee.
Oh okay, yeah, but no, thebrewery we haven't.
Some of the ones, like you say,have turned out to be pretty
interesting, but some of theones like Captain Crunch beer
they had one time, sure, not abig fan yeah, I've seen what
(44:18):
else I've seen the yorkpeppermint patty beer, I forget.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
The company made the salted nut roll beer.
That wasn't too bad yeah, whomade that.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
That was okay um, now invictus just made a nut goody,
oh okay and there was one.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
There was a state fear beer for a little while.
It was the the salted nut roll,the person salted nut roll.
Yep, yeah, I don't remember whothat was, though I've seen it
though.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
A can.
We've got cans of themsomewhere.
Yeah, it was years ago, butanyways, yeah.
Yeah, we were just kind oftalking about that.
It seems like you know we likeIPAs Andy really likes IPAs but
sometimes some of those flavorsseem to get a little over the
top and like away from like atrue beer, I guess.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yeah, well, in trivia the other week they just had
asked what was the strongestbeer ever made, and it is Snake
venom Right.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, I was trying to find it.
I haven't found it yet.
It's made in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I don't think you'll be able to find it here.
161 proof.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
That's crazy.
It'd be like one little sip.
Oh, that's all we need of that.
You just pop the top and yousmell it.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
So what makes I agree with you?
What makes that a beer?
It's more alcohol than it wouldbe pure alcohol, right.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, I don't know I up with that stuff, but I
suppose there's a market for it.
If it's still out there, Somepeople's buying it somewhere.
So what's the biggest challengebreweries currently face, or
your brewery?
What do you think is thebiggest challenge?
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Well, the brewing industry seems to be contracting
in Minnesota.
So I'd say some people gotoverenthusiastic.
Some people gotoverenthusiastic.
I'd say the biggest challengewe face is just trying to
perfect our brewing.
We make some good beer, but wethink we could do better.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Sure, if you were to enlist, even if it's a handful
of things, but if you were tothink about what is one of, or a
couple of things that you'reprobably most proud of through
this entire process, like fromthe idea you know, like in the
just with the pot in the garage,all the way up to now, like
anywhere in there, like justsome of the things, or even
maybe the top thing that you'reprobably most proud of.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Well, we've got a handful of inventions and I use
that word very loosely that hasmade life easier, and they've
always been head slappers likewhy didn't we think of that long
ago, you know?
But it's kind of cool and wesee other people struggling.
We go, wow, we got that onenailed down.
We know how to do that.
We enjoy the fact that you'retalking about some that grow
(46:51):
real big.
Well, we've grown some, butwe're approachable and so we
like knowing who walks throughthe door and we like being on
good terms with everyone in thecity.
We have no problem talking toanyone around the city council,
the police department, we're ingood graces and, yeah, I guess
(47:13):
that's what we're happiest about.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
So building those relationships with the community
and that's super important,yeah, I guess that's what we're
happiest about.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
So building those relationships with the community
, and that's super important.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
yeah, Do you guys have any new upcoming releases,
beers that you can tell us aboutnow that haven't come out yet,
or any new events or anythingcoming up?
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Well, we're going to have that cranberry beer.
That's going to take about amonth, and next Saturday we have
a Tai Chi instructor coming ohreally.
So it's just he's coming intothe brewery and it's just during
our normal hours show peoplehow to move, and he's very
enthusiastic and he wants to.
(47:50):
He says he can make everybody'slife a little bit better.
Sure, so we'll see.
I think that's all we got onthe plate for the next.
Oh well, then we're going tocelebrate dry January.
Everybody has got their NewYear's resolutions, so we are
going to do a dry seltzer forthose people that want it and
(48:10):
we're going to do an energydrink for those people that want
it.
Oh, so we don't want we sellbeer, but we don't want anyone
to drink that doesn't want todrink.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
So well, we still want their company, Sure.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
Any helicopter races in the future?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
again.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Probably next summer.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
How'd that go?
Did it go pretty well, becauseI didn't get to get there.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
I really tried, but Well, it was real fun because
they're radio controlled andthey're only about as big as
your beer can and we'd have themgo through hula hoops and under
tables and stuff and then, yeah, we just had a great time.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Sure, did that create a lot of excitement, did a lot
of people try it out?
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Most people were hesitant.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
They'll go.
You do it first, anybody prettysuccessful, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Usually our staff, because they'd play with them
before anyone else got there.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Oh sure, makes sense.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Got to practice and try it out, that's right, well,
cool yeah, you got anything moreon your.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
No, I have nothing else.
We appreciate your time, warren.
We want to give another plug toThunder Brothers Brewery in
Isani, minnesota.
Where can people find you?
On Facebook, any other socialmedia, instagram, instagram.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Highway 65 between North Cambridge and Isani.
You can find us there.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Perfect, yeah, anything else you'd like to add,
just as a recap or anythingelse that we haven't asked about
?
Speaker 3 (49:38):
No, it's just that we've been enjoying the whole
process and we'd like people tocome in and enjoy with us
Wonderful yeah, and we hopeeverybody does.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
It's a fun atmosphere .
You know it's kind of nice andlaid back and cool place.
We actually had two years ago Ithink we had I play baseball
with the Eastern Mini.
We had our end of the yearrecap or a little meeting for
playoffs at the end of the year.
Actually at the brewery we satoutside on some of the picnic
benches for a little bit.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
So isn't that the team that our landlord's
daughter manages?
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Might be.
I think so.
Well, they'd be the Redbirds inAsante.
Oh no, they wasn't.
Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I meanit's always a great time going
out there, but yeah, it's a lotof fun to be there and you know
cool atmosphere and a lot ofgood beer.
So definitely go and check thatout.
If you're looking to find us onanything, check it out on all
the podcast places.
(50:34):
Looking to find us on anything,check it out on all the podcast
places like share, subscribethe general.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
You know everything like that, sean.
Anything else you want to tossin, no, and you get a Thunder
Brothers brewery.
I had the big Sky Lager.
Make sure you get yourself someof those.
Or blue Sky Lager, I'm sorry,get yourself one of those, try
it out.
Super good beer If you likelager beer.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
I had the Brown Eye Girl Brown Ale, which was
fantastic, and I'm lookingforward to trying the IPA here
in a little bit as well.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
And I drank it all.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
It's even better.
I guess.
I do have one more question.
You mentioned before aboutgoing to different breweries
when they were new open.
Do you still get a chance toget out to many breweries now
and kind of not necessarily evencompare, but just be able to go
and kind of relax and check outa new place?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Oh, yeah, yeah absolutely Good, good.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
It's always good to be able to still maintain the
ability to do that.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
So do you have a favorite?
Speaker 3 (51:24):
No, that would be impolite.
I can tell you that the nextone I want to go to is beer cave
in Hopkins.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
I haven't think I've been to that one, never been to
that one either.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
So I'll put that on my list Exactly.
Well, Warren, we appreciate youjoining us up here and making
the trek north, and I definitelyappreciate you bringing us the
beer as well.
Okay, I hope you enjoyedlistening along with us or
watching along, I guess,depending on where you're
consuming either the beer or thepodcast itself.
But definitely go check outThunder Brothers in a Sani or a
(51:57):
couple of different liquorstores that are kind of around
the area.
Be able to find yourself someand definitely enjoy it.
But until next time, cheers.
and welcome in here to the two guys in beer podcast
studio andy beckstrom, seanfield and uh joined now by the?
Uh one of the owners of thunderbrothers in a sandy uh, warren
sunstrom.
I do get that right.
Yeah, okay, perfect, want tomake sure that's the first and
foremost.
You know, make sure you get thenames right.
That's the key.
Second time we've had ain-studio guest and the first
time we've had a brewery ownerin with us.
(00:33):
So we're uh pretty excited tobe able to go through the
process of the background andthe history and everything that
we can uh kind of draw out ofhim.
Uh, here for a thunder brother.
So, uh, thanks for joining usand happy to have you here.
I'm glad to be here.
We're going to talk a little bitabout some of the kind of the
history, some of the backgroundof making beer and some of the
things like that.
So, first and foremost, westart pretty much every episode
(00:55):
If you haven't watched, weselect one of our beers and then
we get that going.
So, sean, you want to grab one?
Yeah, I'll grab one here.
Grab you want to grab one?
Yeah, I'll grab one here.
Grab one here.
Do you have a preference ofwhich one?
Here I have the brown aleavailable or the windswept
pilsner.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Well then, if I'm going to drink it, I'll take the
hatchet man.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
There we go.
I think that's do.
I have this one here.
There we go.
There.
We got the hatchet man rightthere for you.
I'll probably go.
I'm going to go with the brownale Typically.
I am more of an IPA guygenerally myself, but this was
highly recommended by your beertender, dave, when Amanda went
(01:37):
in to be able to go get somestuff, and Warren brought some
stuff for us as well.
So this isn't just a we wentand got it, he definitely
brought some stuff, so we thankyou for bringing some stuff as
well.
So this isn't just a.
We went and got it, like hedefinitely brought some stuff,
so we thank you for bringingsome stuff as well.
But yeah, that was he highlyrecommended.
So it was a local favorite andyou know that that.
That's what mostly people likethere, so I wanted to make sure
I had that as part of theepisode as well.
Okay, so first, and foremost.
(02:01):
It's like the best part, you getthe sound of it, the initial
smells.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Yeah, I like the aroma of it and that's the first
thing I like to do when I openthe beer is just smell the aroma
.
It gets the taste buds going,the saliva flowing.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So I think we all got different.
I got the Brown Eye Girl BrownAle and you have the Hatchet man
IPA.
Sean, what do you have?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
I've got the Blue Sky Lager.
It is very tasty, I'm enjoyingthis already.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
There you go, perfect .
I'm enjoying the Brown Ale.
I could definitely tell it'skind of that typical or not
typical, but that natural brown,fall type, winter type of feel
to it.
So very, very tasty.
And you got the IPA.
Can you describe, I guess, evenkind of what your thoughts or
what your intentions were for itwhen you started kind of with
that idea For the?
Speaker 3 (02:51):
IPA.
Well, one of our favorites todrink that we did not make was
Todd the Axeman.
Okay, my brother's name isBrett, so when they quit making
Todd the Axeman, we thought thatwas a shame, so we came up with
Brett the Hatchet man.
There we go, but the idea is tomake a straightforward, not
(03:13):
East Coast, not West Coast IPAwhere the first thing you hit is
hops.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Sure, I like it.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, I was just going to say you did mention
Brett.
I want to let all the viewersand listeners know too he is an
owner with you.
You guys are brothers, correct?
All right, just want everybodyto know that, due to our
limitations of our studio space,we were only able to have one
of the two on, so we're thankfulWarren was able to come up, but
Brett is also part owner andpart of the process too.
Just wanted to put that outthere for everybody so they're
(03:43):
aware.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And just kind of a little.
Another little bit ofbackground we learned earlier
today as well.
You met Amanda when you gothere.
She actually used to work withyour wife.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Really.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Ruth, is your wife, correct?
Yeah, so she.
I don't know if she still is,but she was Amanda worked for
Extension in Iseante County fora bunch of years.
It's been like 10 years now,but years ago is when she worked
with her.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
So we have a little bit of a connection.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, I've never met any of her coworkers, so a
little bit of a connection andSean's familiar.
Are you still involved with therendezvous?
Yeah, I still own the coffeeshop.
Okay, gotcha, I don't know thatI've been.
I think I've driven by itnumerous times, that Timorous
times, but that's almost as good.
There we go, there we go.
Usually it's at night when I'mthere, so, but Sean has been
there, I think, multiple times.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
Yeah, I've been to Rendezvous a lot.
It's been there as long as Ican remember.
I grew up in the area too, so Iremember probably 20 years ago
I've been going there.
It's been there that long,hasn't it?
Where'd you grow up?
Pretty, pretty much in I-San-ymy whole life.
Oh, okay, so yeah, so I've beenthere quite a bit.
So, all right, warren, let'sstart off at the very beginning.
Then.
Where'd you grow up?
(04:50):
Where are you from?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I grew up in Cambridge and moved away for
about 15 years until I gotmarried and we decided to settle
down somewhere and my wife saidwhere do you want to live?
I said I do not care, except Idon't want to go home and we
went home.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
So now we live in Ice Landing, nice.
What did you do as a kid?
Did you play sports?
Anything like that?
No, I was the most unathleticperson.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
I'm the one that they said hey, good try, good try.
There you go, me and my friendsactually got kicked off a
church softball team.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Oh, wow, oh how do you pull that?
Speaker 3 (05:34):
off it just for being that.
In it they said you should findsomething that you'll have more
fun if you do something you'rebetter at sure?
Speaker 2 (05:42):
so what have you before you own the brewery and
got into that whole business?
What did you do for a livingprior to that?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Well, I was at the coffee shop before that, and
before that I worked for avariety of manufacturing
companies, kind of as I gothired when they had problems.
It was my job to fix theproblems.
Nice, that's what you did.
Yeah, I enjoyed it a lot.
We're in the fixer.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So now we know a little bit about your background
, where you grew up and whathave you done Now.
Where did you and your brotherget the inspiration for brewing
beer, the starter brewery?
Why did you start brewing beer?
Speaker 3 (06:20):
Well, we liked going to all the breweries when they
started up and for a while, whenit was just started, you could
say, hey, this week we're goingto go to this one.
It just opened.
But then when it started beingthree and four and five a week,
well that kind of, but there wasnothing going on up this way
and I personally saw threedifferent plans that were going
(06:45):
to open a brewery in Cambridgeand they fell apart for one
reason or another, and so wethought, well, the Egyptians
were making beer 5,000 years ago.
It can't be that hard, so wedecided to give it a shot.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Oh nice.
So where did you start then?
Just in your garage, in yourbasement, like where was the
first time you and your brotherbrewed beer?
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yeah, the first time was in your garage, in your
basement.
Like where was the first timeyou and your brother brewed beer
?
Yeah, the first time was in mygarage.
We were pretty inept and whenwe got the first batch done and
we tried to, my brother saidwell, congratulations, we've
reinvented Coors.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Lake nice.
So it obviously was kind of alearning process then, right out
of the gate, trying to be ableto experiment with different
things.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
We decided we wanted a brewery before we knew how to
brew beer.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
OK, that was.
That was going to be kind of mynext question Like it's usually
or not usually, but a lot oftimes, you know, if you have
kind of a couple of failuresyou're like, well, that was fun
to try for a little bit.
So what kind of kept you goingwith it?
Just the idea you wanted to dothe brewery.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
Oh yeah, and my wife would hate, would love to hear
this.
But my brother and I are bothquite stubborn, so it was like,
well, it didn't work, well, whatdid you do?
And so we had to keep goinguntil we could find a passable
beer.
And then, when we found itwasn't that hard to make a good
beer, we thought, well, why arewe buying beer that isn't so
good?
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Sure, Do you have a couple of.
You'd mentioned going to a lotof breweries before.
Do you have a couple that standout to you that are not
necessarily a favorite?
It's kind of hard to pick afavorite of thousands of
breweries, but are there morespecific beers that kind of
stand out for you?
More thousands of breweries,but are there more specific
beers that kind of stand out foryou?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
More of the beers, like Castle of Danger gets a
tremendous amount of publicityfor their cream ale, but I think
Urban Growler makes a betterone.
I love Surly's Fiery Hell,which they will not can, so I
make a trip down there every nowand then.
And then Ferris State's gotsome very interesting sours that
(08:46):
we like to try.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I do like Ferris State.
Yeah, I like all three of thosebreweries.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Yeah, they are all pretty good.
As far as Surly goes, I reallystill like the Furious a lot.
That's still my favorite, Eventhough they do can that one, of
course, but over the ones thatare in the brewery I still like
the Furious quite a bit myself.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, yeah, those are .
Yeah, they got a lot ofdifferent, really nice options
at.
Surly, that's for sure they do.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
So, when it comes to learning how to brew you guys,
was it all just kind of trialand error for you guys in your
garage, or did you try to do anyformal training or did you
reach out to anybody?
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, it is a basic process.
I mean, the Egyptians just puta jar of cooked grain out with
water and let it ferment in thesun, and that was the earliest
beer.
But we went beyond that.
I mean we read everything.
We did the YouTube.
We did a lot of reading.
I've got a small library aboutbrewing.
(09:42):
But we didn't want to get theformal training because, like
everything else, you can go toofar.
Dakota County has a tremendouscourse network of classes you
can take, but to make a goodbeer is not that difficult.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Once you get the process, kind of refined.
Once you understand what'sgoing on.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Yeah, so when did you guys first decide to start
selling it?
How did that come about?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
was that like the mission the whole time, but for
the first time you brewed it inthe garage no, no, it started
out just being uh fun for us andour friends and uh well, the
brewery is selling the beers.
How do you recover your money?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Hopefully, what goes into the decision-making process
.
We talked a little bit beforethis too about so, once you
decide okay, you're going to doa brewery, picking the location,
or is it just kind of what'savailable, or did you have a
specific spot in mind?
I mean, probably close to home,but, like, did you have a
specific spot in mind or was itjust kind of what happened to be
(10:48):
available with a?
Speaker 3 (10:49):
realtor.
Yeah, no, at the time westarted, commercial property was
very slim, so we took the firstbig enough space we could find.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
I had been to your previous location over by the
kind of by down by the tanningplace, a chiropractor in that
part.
What went into the decisionmaking then to move to the other
?
Was it just more space, moreavailability, or was it just
better visibility on the highway?
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Well, it was definitely better visibility and
our neighbors did not want tohave a brewery next to them.
They thought it, despite thefact that the landlord extended
the lease.
They didn't think that it shonewell on them, so we were who
wants to stay where you're nowwelcome.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Sure, that's fair.
It is kind of interesting withsome of that Like there was.
You talked about breweries thathad plans that were going to go
forward.
There was one in Malacca at onepoint in time that was going to
go there and they were going to, they had to rezone.
It was on a block because theyzoned by block but that one
little building was still zonedcommercial.
But they couldn't do it becausethe whole block was zoned for
(12:00):
residential, for residential.
And when they were trying tozone it differently, like
residents, you know like, oh,there's going to be drunk
drivers all over the place andpeople ripping up and down the
highway and it's just going tobe chaos.
We don't need another bar intown.
And it was just kind ofimpressive to like listen to not
in a positive way, butimpressive to listen to what
some of the pushback is sometimewith that.
(12:20):
You know, like you're saying,like that would reflect bad upon
them, that you know there'sthis, I think still somehow
there's still some people outthere that think, oh, it's a bar
or it's going to have thesetype of negative issues.
But I've never reallyexperienced that with all the
breweries.
It's always been positive, Iguess, to me, yeah, I'd say you
can make two lists of bars andbreweries.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
And old time bars are dark.
Old time bars have very fewwindows or smoked windows.
Breweries generally want a lotof light in.
They encourage families to comein.
They generally they closeearlier so they aren't getting
the 2 am closing crowd.
So drunkenness is rarely aproblem.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Yeah, I was going to mention that too, about, like,
the brewery culture too.
What I've noticed over theyears and going to
microbreweries, it's a familyatmosphere.
I've never seen a fight in abrewery.
You go to a bar and people arealways trying to fight, like you
said, later on in the night andit just gets kind of ridiculous
.
And the most people that I goto the brewery they have have
(13:27):
two, maybe three beers and theycut out of there, you know, and
they still drive responsibly.
Not that people don't maybedrink a little too much at a
brewery from time to time, butit doesn't seem as prevalent or
as common yeah as a bar.
You know it's just more of a funrelaxed atmosphere.
You're drinking good beer,you're having good conversation,
specifically at your brewery.
I know I didn't get a chance togo.
I tried to go there.
When you're doing thehelicopter races, you know just
(13:48):
fun things like that like I wantto go and do one of those.
So if you guys do that again,you might find me there trying
to find one of those things.
Like that's fun stuff.
You know you go there, have agood time and drink beer, not be
stupid.
When you first opened yourbrewery, then when you moved,
when you moved the originallocation to the new one, did you
guys encounter any issues withlicensing fees and trying to get
(14:09):
approved by the city?
How does that process work?
Speaker 3 (14:14):
it's never ending.
It's what happens.
You find out you have to haveall these licenses to open a
brewery and then they say, oh,and you want a license to sell
it.
Oh, and you want a license tocan it, oh.
You know, and so it goes on andon and on, and every time you
make a new label you have to payto get that registered.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Really, oh yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, Because I think if you make a new beer you have
to submit all the specs andeverything to the state for
approval.
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Yeah, and they're not picking on you, but that's just
the system you got, and youdon't really know that until you
get involved in it.
Sure, yeah, I never would havethought that, and there don't
really know that until you getinvolved in it.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Sure yeah, I never would have thought that and
there isn't really at least notthat I've been able to find, not
that I research it all thatoften, but I don't think that
there's just a standardchecklist out there that has all
of the stuff.
It's probably a lot of okay.
Well, I guess we're not doingit this week.
We're going to submit for thatand wait a little while.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
And then every city and county are different.
Our county does not choose toget involved, but the city very
much cares and the state cares,whether you're on city water or
well water, oh sure.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Are you on well water or is it city water?
No, we're city water.
Okay, we've talked a little biton previous episodes too.
That water is such a huge thing.
Do you have a process, or isthe water that you have kind of
up to what you want it to be, ordo you have like filters or
reverse osmosis?
Whatever it may be?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
yeah, no, we uh.
The water is very good quality,but then we also do charcoal
filter it and then we test theph before we get involved in it
cool.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
So there's still a process there to make sure that
water is where you want it tobrew your beer.
What kind of equipment did youfirst start out with?
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You mean when we're down to being a pot or when we
started a brewery.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Well, you can start.
That Were you, the first thingyou started with as a pot and
the first brewery.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
Well, we did.
We started with a pot and yougot all these magazines from
like Brewer, us or any brewingfor dummies and stuff, and some
of it works and some of itdoesn't work so well.
Now, when we got into brewing,we knew into starting a brewery,
you have to be very carefulabout deciding what your power
source is going to be.
(16:35):
Are you going to use steam?
Well, if you have steam, what'sgoing to generate that steam?
Do you have to have licensesfor like boilers?
Or are you going to go electric?
Or are you going to go gas andare you vented for these things?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Oh sure.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
So we found an outfit that sold us there now defunct
called Colorado Brewing, whichwas brewery-size brew-in-a-bag
with steel containers, so youwould brew 200 gallons and you
could lift them up and theydrain and everything and it's
all power-assisted and that'sworked out pretty well for us.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Now is a lot of the equipment the same at the new
location or did you upgradeequipment with a different space
?
No, we moved.
We moved what we had.
Okay, so we have the differentbreweries or not breweries, the
different beers that we havehere the Brown Ale, the Pilsner
IPA, what is kind of the thoughtprocess when you decide?
Do you just try to experimentwith different things on a
(17:33):
smaller scale, or do you justhave an idea and let's toss
something into a big batch andsee how it turns out, like
what's and what's the processdeveloping, I guess a new taste
or a new flavor well, the amountof time to make five gallons or
200 gallons is the same, soit's not a time factor, it's how
(17:54):
much money do you want to riskon your ingredients?
Speaker 3 (17:57):
And if you're just trying to tweak something, oh,
we might want to pilsner with alittle more zest or something,
oh, we'll just go ahead and doit.
But now, like, we're going todo a cranberry beer, okay, and
this will be quite a bitdifferent for us.
So are we going to go whole hogor are we going to go half hog?
(18:22):
We haven't quite decided.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Okay With that.
You mentioned kind of tweakingit.
Do you do like a fair amount oftweaking or do you have a
handful of them that are nope?
This is the way that it's goingto be.
This is how it's worked andit's pretty much the same every
time is the way that it's goingto be.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
This is how it's worked and it's pretty much the
same every time.
Well, once you make a beer likeany of the ones we're drinking
here, you can't sell it underthat label if you change it.
So if you're going to changethe hops or change something,
you have to put a new label onit, and because your ABV will be
different and it'll tastedifferent and the state wants to
know what you're making, right,so we will change.
(19:02):
We're not at all hesitant aboutthat and we have some fun doing
that.
We have a series of beers we doin the summer.
We call lawnmower beers,because when you're done mowing
the lawn, that's what you wantto slam down.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
We talk about the.
We have a lawnmower scale.
It's mostly kind of in jest to.
There was an article years agofrom that had, I believe, pete
Coors in it that he, when he youknow, for a long time but you
know until obviously things havechanged in the industry, but
for a long time he didn'tunderstand craft beer.
He didn't understand.
None of it made sense to him.
(19:35):
It wasn't a matter of gettingdrunk, it was more a matter of
well, if I'm going to mow thelawn, I want to have one before
I start.
I want to have maybe two whileI'm mowing lawn and maybe a
couple, three, four afterwards,you know, like just to stay
refreshed.
So, coors, Light was, that'shis mindset and that's all he
would ever, you know, kind ofget behind.
So now kind.
So I'll rate the Blue Sky Lageron our lawnmower scale A five
is the best.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I'd give this a five.
I'm definitely enjoying thislager Blue Sky Lager from
Thunder Brothers and I woulddefinitely want to drink as many
as I could after I mowed theyard it's crisp.
It's clean.
I really do like it.
This is a really good beer.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Good, I'm trying to remember what the other scale
was that we had.
I think it was maybe sitting bythe campfire scale.
We try to make up differentthings.
Oh yeah, just to have fun.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah for the darker cozier beers.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
Exactly.
This would definitely besomething that I would have
either out at the campfire orotherwise.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
We have a little fire pit in there.
I definitely have a couple ofthese out there for that for
sure.
So, talking about theseingredients and stuff and how
you can't change them muchbecause you'd have to file the
licenses for the state to changethe labels and all that, where
do you source your ingredients?
Do you try to do it locallyhere?
Is there a national supplier?
Well, we try to do as muchlocally as we can.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Well, we try to do as much locally as we can.
There is Malt Works up byDetroit Lakes and they do some
good grain.
Bsg is the nation's supplyhouse.
There are some hop growersaround locally and we have
bought hops from them.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Are you aware of the hop farm out in Foley?
I was just going to say Ithought there was one over
towards Foley, I wasn't surewhere it is, but I feel like
I've driven by it before.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Yeah, they did a real nice job and but they got hit
with a windstorm and then theyfound that.
Well, if you had a had damagein Washington state, where hops
is a big product, you can insureit, but it's a niche crop in
Minnesota and they wouldn'tcover the damage and, to put
them out of business, Couldn'tget crop insurance Cause we've
(21:48):
on a very smaller scale orwhatever like.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
We have some farmland here and me and my
brother-in-law we both like beerand brewing beer and drinking
beer and being involved in thatWe've tossed around the idea of
like, well, let's get a coupleof posts and toss them up there.
I have some hops growing on theside of the silo out here,
enough to make about afive-gallon batch, so not
exactly a large scale, but wehad talked about that too, so
that's interesting to know thatit's not something that you'll
(22:10):
be able to find much for cropinsurance on that.
I suppose because of the scaleof it, there's just not much of
it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Well, you've got a couple hundred acres out here,
you might as well.
Start yeah, 100% Only if we canget the insurance Right right,
so on an average year, thenWarren, how many pounds of hops
do you buy?
How much grain?
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Well, you know, at first we were trying to
inventory and balance how muchof this and that and the other
thing.
What we found is that, insteadfor a better use of our money,
everything is so readilyavailable, we really only need
to buy about two or three brewsahead of time.
Oh, okay, because we can geteverything delivered in 48 hours
.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Okay, nice, you didn't run into any like supply
chain issues much at all, like ahandful of years ago.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Well, I mean, I mean I suppose everything probably
was, but yeah, during COVIDthings were a little ugly, but
other than that, no, how didthat process?
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I guess, now that I mentioned it, how did that
process kind of go?
Like what were some of thechanges that you guys went
through?
Cause that was.
I mean, it was I think you hadalready been in the new location
a little while, but it's stilla different location.
Now you're trying to do to gobeers or how, like what was that
process kind of going?
Like all right, you lost me justjust through like 2020 or just
(23:28):
through the COVID years, likewith all the regulations and
everything, like somerestaurants could sell some
stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
But yeah, 2020, the tap room had to close, but what
we would do is we'd still makebeer and we would put on our
Facebook page okay, saturday,we're selling and filling
growlers from this hour to thishour, and that's all we could do
.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Were you able to do anything outside, or is that
still against like regulationsof being too much crowds or
anything like that?
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Oh no, we had a couple of smoker fests with
barbecue trucks this summer andwe've had bean bag or corn hole
and things like that.
So no, it's not been a problem.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
You mentioned a smoker fest.
Is that like a competitionthing, or just bring some
smokers out there?
Speaker 3 (24:18):
No, it's a competition thing.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Interesting.
Yeah, last week we had ourbuddy Clint, who is a
competition smoker, oh, on there.
So, clint, if you're watchingand listening, we'll have to get
you set up with that one.
So right after we have the twoguys competition out here.
Right, it might be just him,but that's fine.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
We're always looking for something to interest people
, and so at one point we thought, well, what about drone racing?
Oh yeah, no that.
We went online and looked andthe people it's so fast, it's
like trying to follow mosquitoes.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
It's super fast.
I watched it on TV.
At one point I'm like I don'tknow how you track it.
I don't know how you like itwas weird.
Speaker 3 (25:06):
And then we thought, well, there's these guys that do
actual medieval combat.
Uh, heck, yeah, and they, theywere.
They have to make their ownuniforms and it's like 100
pounds, but because of that theylook like these guys on the old
uh, electric football gamesthat vibrate, they can run, they
can barely move.
So we thought, no, that's tooslow.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So who comes up with those ideas to do those events
and the fun, excitement thingsthat you guys put on there?
You guys just all brainstorm ittogether.
Oh, that might sound like fun.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Actually, I think our staff comes up with most of it,
If probably my speaking of justmy brother and I.
We are probably the worstmarketeers in the world.
Oh, okay, Perfect.
So we rely on the imaginationof the staff.
Oh, okay, Well that's fun.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
That includes them too and keeps them more engaged.
And I suppose they really enjoywhat they're doing anyways at a
brewery, because it's adifferent type of work.
You know more people are morepassionate about and interested
in it.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
I have seen you guys have done like trivia and uh, I
think there isn't there like ayoung professionals networking
yeah thing.
That was set up by, uh, therealist agents.
I think they're involved inthat.
I play baseball with Brody so Ilike to heckle him every time
that I can.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Trivia is very popular.
We have teams.
Anybody can do it.
You can have a team, you can doit individual.
But it's gotten to the pointwhere we have identifiable
people that come every week, andso now it's a grudge match, yep
.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
So that's a lot of fun.
I don't know what that's likeat all.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
No, no, andy never plays trivia anywhere.
So, thinking of the early days,of when you guys first opened,
do you have any like memorablemoments that stand out, when you
first got going, that reallylike, yeah, this is really cool.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
Most of our memorable moments were about things we
did wrong.
Speaker 1 (26:53):
Oh, that's true.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Like what Name?
One thing you did wrong.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Well, we made a batch of beer and we burned it and so
, gosh, we don't want to sendthat down the drain.
What can we do to salvage it?
So we're trying to doctor it upand we found that we could make
a pretty good beer out of it ifwe added barbecue sauce, but it
wouldn't stay in solution.
So we said, well, we got to getrid of that burnt taste.
(27:18):
What are we going to do?
And we said charcoal filteringthere we go.
So we bought one of thosepitchers that has a charcoal
filter for a test run.
We poured the beer in and wepoured it into the glass.
It was amazing.
It took out the alcohol, ittook out the taste.
We had just brown water, oh,perfect.
(27:39):
So we did end up sending thatbatch down the drain.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Oh no.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
That's going to be a tough day.
To just flip the switch or, youknow, throw the lever and watch
it just flow.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
To me that would be like watching money go down the
drain Like oh no yeah literallywatching money go down the drain
like, oh no, yeah, literallyyeah.
So what, uh?
When you guys first startedbrewing, open the brewery, how
did you decide on what stylesand flavors you wanted to start
with first?
Speaker 3 (28:06):
strictly by what we liked.
Oh okay, we didn't think wewere too far out of the norm.
So I mean, there are some beerslike surly's heart of darkness
series very popular, not for me.
We ain't going to make a cloneof that one.
So we just, we started by justdoing what we like, sure.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Okay, sean had mentioned before, you know, like
some different moments,memorable moments.
Was there a specific momentduring the process, like once I
opened a bar at one point intime and it was kind of like
okay, now you've gotten to thatrealization, I got it open and
we're doing the thing?
Was there a moment for youwhere it was okay, this is going
to work, this is this is goingwell, this is people like it.
(28:52):
Like, was there a moment or wasit just kind of over time?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
You're like, oh, we've been open for five years,
like yeah, no, that's, that's it, Because it's more of a process
, because it was a grind and yougot to get the bills paid and
you know how many people aregoing to come in tomorrow and da
, da, da da.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
of course you have your high, high moments when
someone says, oh, I really likethat beer, things like that, but
uh, no, it's just steady stateis there any type of feedback
you're seeing from customers orfamily that have kind of gone
into your brewing process onkind of how you shape your
recipes and change them?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Oh yeah, we had customers that said they wanted
lighter beer than what wenormally make.
So we tried it and they said,hmm, that seems to cut down on
the taste.
And we said, well, do you buyCoors Light for the taste?
Right?
And then we said so we're goingto give that up.
Yeah, we're going gonna stickwith the taste instead, for yeah
(29:47):
, that's my favorite part aboutbeers is the flavor and taste.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
I don't drink many light beers myself because of
that.
You know when you drink a beeryou want a taste and a flavor.
I don't know if you want to tryand knock off of this one, but
it's one of andy's and ourfavorites.
Have you ever had widow maker?
Yes, from q and a's one of myfavorites.
You should try to make somesort of smoky flavored beer in
the future.
You'll see me there every daythen.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
So what was that brewery that used to be in
Lionel Lakes that specialized insmoky beers?
Viking Hall theme.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
I had been there at one point in time.
It was well.
A brother-in-law just loved it.
I think me and Amanda had beenthere one time.
I can see it.
It was right on the highwaythere.
They're still around, only theymoved to Ely.
Okay, oh, I didn't All the wayto Ely.
Oh, that's a big move, Not justacross the street.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
No, but they spoke like all these heavy smoke yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yeah, it was very, very smoky.
I can't remember what it was,but yeah, it was kind of a Norse
theme kind of deal.
I don't remember what it was.
Now I had been there, though Ithink somewhere I have a growler
wall that has like 120 growlers.
I collect growlers, so I thinkI have a growler, probably from
them over there somewhere.
Speaker 3 (31:02):
Hammerheart.
There it is, hammerheart,that's what it was Perfect.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, it was.
It was pretty.
It was good for what they did.
It wasn't necessarily like my.
I like some stuff kind of smoke, but it was.
Everything was very heavysmoked and you know not, not my
favorite, but you know it wasstill good.
I mean for what it was.
If that's what you like andthat's what you're into, it
probably was absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah.
So think about after you'vebeen open for a while a year or
two years how has the growthbeen in the brewery from your
initial year?
How many barrels would you sayyou brewed the first year to how
many barrels do you brew now onaverage?
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Oh, we're probably about quadruple what we started
with, but we do not want to growmuch.
If we could get by with just100% of our business being in
the taproom and being a localtaproom, that would be just fine
.
We do canning and distribution.
We self-distribute just to tryto attract people to the taproom
(32:03):
.
All of our four packs one ofthe cans will have a tag on that
says free beer.
Bring this beer to the breweryLike we have on.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, that was when Amanda went and got that.
She specifically pointed thatout, that one of those has that.
Is that part of a recyclingprogram?
Is it just to kind of getpeople in there?
Speaker 3 (32:22):
It's just to get people in there.
That's what we really want iswe're kind of going for the idea
of, like a coffee shop withalcohol.
We just want people to come in,socialize, visit, have a couple
of beers, go home and enoughpeople do it, often enough that
we pay the bills.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
I like it.
Yeah.
Yeah, we definitely noticedthat on one of the cans we
actually she thought it was likemaybe we get four free beers.
And we were looking at it andwe're like we just want stickers
.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Maybe it's just one.
So, with that being said, ifyou get enough business to
operate your business throughjust the taproom, would you pull
the beer out of the localliquor stores that it's in now
or would you keep it?
Still try to keep it in there.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We would keep it in for those brewery, for those
liquor stores that wanted it.
I mean, if they felt like, hey,we could use that space better
for somebody else, well thenwe'd be glad to go away.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
Sure, now I've seen you in the Sandy Liquor Store
and the Cambridge Liquor Store.
Is there any others around here?
We've been in Bram.
Speaker 3 (33:24):
I was going to say, I think that there's some in Bram
, yeah, and they are pouring atthree of the local wineries.
Oh, okay, yeah, but yeah, we'dlike to get on tap with one or
two places again, just to spreadthe idea of come on down and
meet us.
But we don't need an empire.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
It's just for the love of brewing and just the
camaraderie and the fun.
Yep, I wonder what would ittake to get on tap at a bar, you
know, like the Cambridge Barand Grill.
I've seen they had like 320,was there once a few years ago
with one of their beers.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
What would that take to do?
Speaker 2 (34:02):
that.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Well, it's not a regulatory thing or anything,
it's just what they think theircustomers want.
And because we run a tap roomgosh, some places might think we
would be a competitor becausewe're too close, oh sure.
So I would think that probablynobody within five miles would
(34:24):
want us on tap.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Oh okay, but if dairy queen wants us on tap, that's
fine so do you have the capacityin your facility there to put
beer in kegs?
Then, yeah, can somebody comein like myself and buy a keg if
I was?
Oh, you do oh, okay, yeah wesell kegs.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Oh nice, I didn't know, cool I mean I have to keep
that in mind for the two guysand beer podcast smoking
competition with clint.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
So I do have another question, kind of talking about
beer, and I don't know if I sawthis on your facebook page or
not, but it's kind of becoming athing.
You know, marijuana is becomingmore legal everywhere and I've
seen beers with THC in it.
Did you have one with THC in it?
Because that shop is right nextto you.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Oh boy, you've really opened a big can.
Oh, it is quite tall yeah.
Well, right now it's just CBD.
Oh, okay, you know THC hempderived, which is like the poor
cousin Sure, and you are notallowed to mix THC and alcohol.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
Okay, I was wondering like how that would even drive,
you know.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Yeah, in fact I'm interested in how that's going
to shake out after the first ofthe year, because we do make a
THC seltzer.
But we talked to the state like, okay, what can we do after the
first of the year when allmarijuana is legal?
And they said you can't doalcohol and marijuana unless you
(35:56):
have two separate addresseswith two separate buildings.
So he said, well, I guess we'renot going to do that.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Sure, Fair enough.
I mean, does THC really need tobe in beer anyways?
You know, I don't know that itreally needs to.
Like what would be the benefitof having that in beer?
I?
Speaker 3 (36:16):
don't use it.
I don't discourage anyone whowants to use it, but I don't
have any experience.
And I guess, though you look atColorado, they seem to put it
in everything.
Sure, it's in wine, it's inbeer.
Oh, I never knew they put it inwine.
Speaker 1 (36:31):
Yeah, colorado does a little bit of everything.
They kind of run their ownoperation.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yeah, they kind of do , don't they?
Now, I understand the CBD, youknow, because there's a lot of
health benefits from that.
You know, cause there's a lotof health benefits from that.
You know that I've read peoplewith arthritis or anxiety or
sleep stuff.
You know, I don't know if youwould really, if that would
really work for sleeping, haveCBD and beer or whatever, but I
(36:57):
can see the health benefits tothat.
That portion or that makessense to me to have that and
beer with THC.
I always just kind of wonderedyou know the people that they
use THC and drink beer?
Like how does that, wondered?
You know the people that?
use THC and drink beer like howdoes?
Speaker 1 (37:06):
that mix, you know.
But yeah, yeah, be interesting.
So kind of a little bit of aleft turn.
You guys mentioned theinvolvement and I like the can
the label.
If you kind of go around thelabel here, it's both you guys
on the label here, yeah, and thetables, which I really like.
Those tables that you havethere, oh good, it's like an
electric thing.
Were you involved in that ordid you just buy them like that?
Speaker 3 (37:29):
No, we paid a guy to come in and do it.
Okay yeah, because we happenedto see little pieces done at an
art show.
So he said, could you do bigpieces?
He said sure, hmm.
Speaker 1 (37:47):
That must have been kind of a fun day.
Yeah, yes, and they use, uh,scavenged microwave ovens really
.
Yeah, I suppose you large powersupply.
Yeah, interesting.
So involvement obviously on thelabel.
But uh, so how involved are youguys still in like?
I mean obviously like thebackground, the day-to-day, the
normal running of a business.
But as far as like beer tendingor being there, you guys are
still pretty routinely or is itmore got other people kind of
(38:09):
running the front side of things.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Well, we are the only two people that make the beer
and keg it and clean theequipment and et cetera, et
cetera.
Our staff runs the bar.
We will tend bar occasionallymy brother more than I, but
that's because he'll do thatwhile I do the books and then we
(38:32):
both show up for all the events.
So we're not absentee landlords.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Okay, it's kind of interesting.
We've read about or discusseddifferent breweries that when
they get so big they're justbasically the name or the face,
but they're not involved inanything anymore.
So it's kind of nice to be ableto still have that attachment
to it.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, when it comes to brewing beer, warren, we kind
of talked about some of theingredients you use and kind of
the ideas of how you've come upwith it.
What we've kind of noticed inthe brewing community is how
many different breweries kind ofcollaborate together.
Have you guys collaborated withanother brewery on brewing any
type of beer of any kind?
Speaker 3 (39:09):
No, we haven't.
Partially, I suppose, becausewe haven't been approached and
partially because my brother andI have enough trouble agreeing
between the two of us.
Sure, there is a funny story Afew years ago, the brewing
community had a contest and youhad to make a beer out of
Minnesota ingredients, and Iwon't name names, but the winner
(39:32):
used milfoil and zebra mussels.
Okay, interesting, yeah, andthey won, and it was quite
clever.
And then it had to be pulledfrom the market because you
can't legally have animalproteins in beer.
Oh, but it was an honestmistake.
(39:53):
Sure, but that's why you aren'tdrinking it now.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Sure, interesting, huh, interesting.
Yeah, well, that's cool.
Yeah, I mean it's a lot of goodinformation.
If there were to be somebodythat's just starting out, you
know, like, let's say, me andSean are going to open a brewery
in 2026.
We're not because I don't knowthat that's going to happen.
Let's say, you know, like I,let's say that I won the Mega
(40:18):
Millions on Friday and like,buying the equipment and things
like that aren't an issue.
What are some tips that youwould give to somebody that is
maybe just starting out, I guesseven as a home brewer?
Speaker 3 (40:29):
Decide, the very first thing is to say what you
want to get out of it.
If you're looking to become ahuge business, well, your
approach is going to bedifferent than if you just want
to say you make the best beerthat you and your buddies like
and you have to satisfy yourselfbefore you can satisfy anyone
else.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
I like it.
Sean, you got more on your listhere.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Yeah, I was kind of curious what's the most popular
beer you guys have right now?
Speaker 3 (40:57):
Right now would be the Blue Sky.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
I can taste.
Why has that been your mostpopular beer the whole time?
You guys have been open fromthe first location to the second
, or has it kind of changed?
Speaker 3 (41:09):
It changes with time.
We make one in the summerthat's very, very heavy in
citrus hops and that's a realsummer seller.
Blue Sky is probably the bestyear round.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Okay, yeah, nice.
How does innovation go for youguys while keeping true to your
same kind of brand of yourbrewery?
Like, how does that?
I can't get the right questionthere.
As far as innovation, you know,we kind of talked about you
don't really change things toomuch because the label and the
can.
But when you do come out with anew beer and stuff, how does
(41:42):
any new beer you come out with,how do you keep that in mind to
keep with your same brandedimage of the beers you already
have?
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Well see, you're much more sophisticated than we are.
We don't have an image.
See, you're much moresophisticated than we are.
We don't have an image.
I mean, we're two schmucks thatare enjoying what we do in
making beer.
What we will do is and wegenerally do this every winter
is we will make some test beersin five-gallon batches, oh okay,
and put them on the bar andjust give it away.
(42:12):
But you say but you don't getthis unless we get a review,
sure, written paper Right now.
We want to know what you think.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Oh, okay, and that kind of shapes.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
That kind of shapes, and then it's people are
interested.
You know, like you know, thisavocado one is not for me.
You know Sure, what date doesthat happen at?
Yeah, what date does that?
Speaker 1 (42:32):
happen at.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
Yeah Well, like we did last winter, we did Kvass,
which is Russian brewed tea, andit's alcoholic.
But a few people liked it, butnot enough that we're going to
go crazy with it.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
So it's kind of a little bit of crowdsourcing to a
certain extent, absolutely.
So, that's what I was kind ofstaying with, was something you
like, but at the same timegetting feedback.
So we see the mini growler.
Do you guys still do the fullgrowlers, or is that just if
somebody brings one in?
Speaker 3 (43:04):
No, we do the full growlers too.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Okay, gotcha, I just want to make sure I judge my
wife for getting the small one.
How am I supposed to watch theVikings game with?
Speaker 2 (43:13):
just two beers.
So in previous episodes Warrenwe've kind of talked about.
You know Andy, he's kind of abig IPA drinker.
I don't really have a specificI like IPAs, but I'll kind of
drink a little bit of everything.
We did one episode that was outof a North Dakota brewery.
That was dill pickle flavoredbeer and we kind of went on a
(43:34):
little tangent about.
It seems like some ipas aregetting kind of gimmicky with
their flavors, like a dillpickle beer.
It was okay.
But are you really gonna buy afour pack of dill pickle
flavored beer?
You know what I mean.
So do you guys have any ofthose type of gimmicky type
beers?
Have you ever tried that?
Just some crazy flavor, justfor the heck of it, throwing it
out there for an IPA we have not, I can tell you.
Speaker 3 (43:57):
Last week at the coffee shop we had pickled
herring coffee.
Oh okay, yeah, but no, thebrewery we haven't.
Some of the ones, like you say,have turned out to be pretty
interesting, but some of theones like Captain Crunch beer
they had one time, sure, not abig fan yeah, I've seen what
(44:18):
else I've seen the yorkpeppermint patty beer, I forget.
Speaker 2 (44:21):
The company made the salted nut roll beer.
That wasn't too bad yeah, whomade that.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
That was okay um, now invictus just made a nut goody,
oh okay and there was one.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
There was a state fear beer for a little while.
It was the the salted nut roll,the person salted nut roll.
Yep, yeah, I don't remember whothat was, though I've seen it
though.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
A can.
We've got cans of themsomewhere.
Yeah, it was years ago, butanyways, yeah.
Yeah, we were just kind oftalking about that.
It seems like you know we likeIPAs Andy really likes IPAs but
sometimes some of those flavorsseem to get a little over the
top and like away from like atrue beer, I guess.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yeah, well, in trivia the other week they just had
asked what was the strongestbeer ever made, and it is Snake
venom Right.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
Yeah, I was trying to find it.
I haven't found it yet.
It's made in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
I don't think you'll be able to find it here.
161 proof.
Speaker 2 (45:16):
That's crazy.
It'd be like one little sip.
Oh, that's all we need of that.
You just pop the top and yousmell it.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
So what makes I agree with you?
What makes that a beer?
It's more alcohol than it wouldbe pure alcohol, right.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Yeah, I don't know I up with that stuff, but I
suppose there's a market for it.
If it's still out there, Somepeople's buying it somewhere.
So what's the biggest challengebreweries currently face, or
your brewery?
What do you think is thebiggest challenge?
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Well, the brewing industry seems to be contracting
in Minnesota.
So I'd say some people gotoverenthusiastic.
Some people gotoverenthusiastic.
I'd say the biggest challengewe face is just trying to
perfect our brewing.
We make some good beer, but wethink we could do better.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
Sure, if you were to enlist, even if it's a handful
of things, but if you were tothink about what is one of, or a
couple of things that you'reprobably most proud of through
this entire process, like fromthe idea you know, like in the
just with the pot in the garage,all the way up to now, like
anywhere in there, like justsome of the things, or even
maybe the top thing that you'reprobably most proud of.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
Well, we've got a handful of inventions and I use
that word very loosely that hasmade life easier, and they've
always been head slappers likewhy didn't we think of that long
ago, you know?
But it's kind of cool and wesee other people struggling.
We go, wow, we got that onenailed down.
We know how to do that.
We enjoy the fact that you'retalking about some that grow
(46:51):
real big.
Well, we've grown some, butwe're approachable and so we
like knowing who walks throughthe door and we like being on
good terms with everyone in thecity.
We have no problem talking toanyone around the city council,
the police department, we're ingood graces and, yeah, I guess
(47:13):
that's what we're happiest about.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
So building those relationships with the community
and that's super important,yeah, I guess that's what we're
happiest about.
Speaker 3 (47:17):
So building those relationships with the community
, and that's super important.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
yeah, Do you guys have any new upcoming releases,
beers that you can tell us aboutnow that haven't come out yet,
or any new events or anythingcoming up?
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Well, we're going to have that cranberry beer.
That's going to take about amonth, and next Saturday we have
a Tai Chi instructor coming ohreally.
So it's just he's coming intothe brewery and it's just during
our normal hours show peoplehow to move, and he's very
enthusiastic and he wants to.
(47:50):
He says he can make everybody'slife a little bit better.
Sure, so we'll see.
I think that's all we got onthe plate for the next.
Oh well, then we're going tocelebrate dry January.
Everybody has got their NewYear's resolutions, so we are
going to do a dry seltzer forthose people that want it and
(48:10):
we're going to do an energydrink for those people that want
it.
Oh, so we don't want we sellbeer, but we don't want anyone
to drink that doesn't want todrink.
Sure.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
So well, we still want their company, Sure.
Speaker 3 (48:26):
Any helicopter races in the future?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
again.
Speaker 3 (48:29):
Probably next summer.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
How'd that go?
Did it go pretty well, becauseI didn't get to get there.
Speaker 3 (48:34):
I really tried, but Well, it was real fun because
they're radio controlled andthey're only about as big as
your beer can and we'd have themgo through hula hoops and under
tables and stuff and then, yeah, we just had a great time.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Sure, did that create a lot of excitement, did a lot
of people try it out?
Speaker 3 (48:52):
Most people were hesitant.
Speaker 2 (48:57):
They'll go.
You do it first, anybody prettysuccessful, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:01):
Usually our staff, because they'd play with them
before anyone else got there.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
Oh sure, makes sense.
Speaker 1 (49:06):
Got to practice and try it out, that's right, well,
cool yeah, you got anything moreon your.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
No, I have nothing else.
We appreciate your time, warren.
We want to give another plug toThunder Brothers Brewery in
Isani, minnesota.
Where can people find you?
On Facebook, any other socialmedia, instagram, instagram.
Speaker 3 (49:26):
Highway 65 between North Cambridge and Isani.
You can find us there.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
Perfect, yeah, anything else you'd like to add,
just as a recap or anythingelse that we haven't asked about
?
Speaker 3 (49:38):
No, it's just that we've been enjoying the whole
process and we'd like people tocome in and enjoy with us
Wonderful yeah, and we hopeeverybody does.
Speaker 1 (49:46):
It's a fun atmosphere .
You know it's kind of nice andlaid back and cool place.
We actually had two years ago Ithink we had I play baseball
with the Eastern Mini.
We had our end of the yearrecap or a little meeting for
playoffs at the end of the year.
Actually at the brewery we satoutside on some of the picnic
benches for a little bit.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
So isn't that the team that our landlord's
daughter manages?
Speaker 1 (50:14):
Might be.
I think so.
Well, they'd be the Redbirds inAsante.
Oh no, they wasn't.
Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I meanit's always a great time going
out there, but yeah, it's a lotof fun to be there and you know
cool atmosphere and a lot ofgood beer.
So definitely go and check thatout.
If you're looking to find us onanything, check it out on all
the podcast places.
(50:34):
Looking to find us on anything,check it out on all the podcast
places like share, subscribethe general.
Speaker 2 (50:40):
You know everything like that, sean.
Anything else you want to tossin, no, and you get a Thunder
Brothers brewery.
I had the big Sky Lager.
Make sure you get yourself someof those.
Or blue Sky Lager, I'm sorry,get yourself one of those, try
it out.
Super good beer If you likelager beer.
Speaker 1 (50:51):
I had the Brown Eye Girl Brown Ale, which was
fantastic, and I'm lookingforward to trying the IPA here
in a little bit as well.
Speaker 3 (50:58):
And I drank it all.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
It's even better.
I guess.
I do have one more question.
You mentioned before aboutgoing to different breweries
when they were new open.
Do you still get a chance toget out to many breweries now
and kind of not necessarily evencompare, but just be able to go
and kind of relax and check outa new place?
Speaker 3 (51:15):
Oh, yeah, yeah absolutely Good, good.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
It's always good to be able to still maintain the
ability to do that.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
So do you have a favorite?
Speaker 3 (51:24):
No, that would be impolite.
I can tell you that the nextone I want to go to is beer cave
in Hopkins.
Oh, okay.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (51:32):
I haven't think I've been to that one, never been to
that one either.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
So I'll put that on my list Exactly.
Well, Warren, we appreciate youjoining us up here and making
the trek north, and I definitelyappreciate you bringing us the
beer as well.
Okay, I hope you enjoyedlistening along with us or
watching along, I guess,depending on where you're
consuming either the beer or thepodcast itself.
But definitely go check outThunder Brothers in a Sani or a
(51:57):
couple of different liquorstores that are kind of around
the area.
Be able to find yourself someand definitely enjoy it.
But until next time, cheers.
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