Weekly Online Newsletter Vol.22
A few weeks ago we had the pleasure to hook up with the guys from Fulton Brewery to recap last year and plan this year. Fulton Brewery has been a favorite among many locals in our territory. Minneapolis is no different; Fulton Brewery is seeing explosive growth in their hometown. Below is the story of Fulton Brewery told by the guys who started it all; Ryan, Jim, Brian & Peter.
THE STORY BEHIND THE SUDS
When we founded Fulton in 2009, we were homebrewing out of a South Minneapolis garage and contract brewing at a small Wisconsin brewery. Our dream was to build a real Minneapolis brewery of our own in the next 5-10 years, and quit our day jobs along the way. We never guessed we’d build two Minneapolis breweries in three years. Looks like being wrong can sometimes be awesome
LIKE MOST GREAT THINGS, IT STARTED IN A GARAGE
We started homebrewing 10 gallons at time in a one car garage in South Minneapolis in 2006. We had no intentions of starting a business at that time, but later found out we had accidentally put together a team that might be capable of managing a startup. Jim had the big ideas, Peter built the equipment, Ryan dreamed up recipes and Brian drank the beer. Before long we had to move from Jim’s one car garage to Peter’s two car garage in the Fulton neighborhood. Little did we know, this wouldn’t be our last expansion.
By 2009, we were getting pretty good at homebrewing, and our family & friends seemed to love our beer (we were giving them free beer, so maybe they weren’t the most unbiased focus group.) We had a few recipes that we all loved. One was an IPA we called Sweet Child of Vine. Another was a subtle but complex blonde ale called The Lonely Blonde. And everybody seemed to love the two imperials we were working on: an imperial red ale called The Libertine and a big stout called Worthy Adversary.
We had the beers, but we were in far from the ideal position to start a company. Ryan was in the middle of graduate school, Brian was getting ready to get married, Jim was studying for the bar exam, and Peter was expecting his first child. None of us had any money to put towards a brewery, nor had any of us run a business before. We had no industry ties or experience. But we did have passion, so we decided to forge ahead anyway.
We couldn’t afford to build our own brewery, so we started calling other local breweries to see if they could spare any brewing capacity. There weren’t very many Minnesota breweries at the time, and none of them had excess capacity, but then we came across Sand Creek Brewing Co. A couple hours east into Wisconsin on I-94, Sand Creek had capacity for contracting and—crucially—allowed us to do the brewing. We were able to apprentice with an experienced brewmaster, learn the basics of operating a production plant, build distribution, and generate some revenue. We sold our first pint of Sweet Child of Vine on October 28, 2009.
THE HOUSE THAT BEER BUILT
Things happened fast. Less than a year later, we were in over 100 bars in the Twin Cities, and we had signed a lease for a brewery of our own in downtown Minneapolis. As we were drawing our layout and waiting for equipment to arrive, Minnesota passed a key piece of legislation enabling packaging breweries to operate taprooms. We quickly redrew our plans and ordered bar equipment. We started brewing and selling growlers in the fall of 2011, and by the following March, we opened Minneapolis’ first taproom.
Photo Courtesy of (Pioneer Press: Ben Garvin)
Before we knew it, we were three years in. We were having a blast, growing like crazy, and…still waiting for our first paychecks. It was starting to feel like a very expensive and time-consuming hobby. But the opening of the taproom helped us grow to the point where we could quit our day jobs. At about the same time, we hired our first employee, Mike Salo, who became our head brewer, and eventually, a part-owner.
The downtown brewery was full before we knew it. The taproom took up half the building, we were brewing around the clock on our 20 barrel brewhouse, and we were adding tank after tank to keep enough beer flowing just to satisfy the Twin Cities market. Meanwhile, since the taproom took up so much space, we didn’t have room for a packaging line, so we were still contract brewing in Wisconsin for our bottled beer. By January of 2013, the four of us had decided we needed to build another brewery.
Press Play to watch “Fulton Brewery 2015 Year in Review”
THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING BIGGER
On September 1st, 2013 – three years to the day after we entered our first lease for the downtown brewery—we got the keys to a 51,000 square foot building in NE Minneapolis. It was kind of like the brewery version of a “forever house” – the place we were going to move into for good. The NE brewery has 8 times the square footage of our downtown location, and we get to brew on an 80 barrel brewhouse. The NE brewery does not have a taproom, but our offices, warehousing, and QC/QA laboratory are all located here. Today, the vast majority of Fulton beer – in kegs, bottles, and cans – comes from the NE brewery. In addition to housing the taproom, the downtown brewery has evolved into our laboratory for smaller batch and experimental brewing, including collaborations, taproom exclusives, and barrel aging
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CHEERS!
