Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

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Hello again friends.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for joining the conversation and thanks for your ongoing support of Lakeland Public TV.

As we wrap up this season here at Lakeland Currents, let's visit about one of my favorite topics, craft beer.

Minnesota is home to nearly 200 craft breweries or microbreweries and we are very fortunate here in our viewing region to have several outstanding and innovative breweries.

The research for today's conversation was arduous as I had to sample the amazing product of my two guests today.

Megan Hill is the principal at Bemidji Brewing and Jeff Vondenkamp is the co-owner and head brewer at Portage Brewing in Walker, Minnesota.

Jeff and Megan, it's nice to meet you two, and thank you so much for making time for our conversation today.

Megan: Thanks for having us.

[thanks] Jason: So, first of all , the hospitality sector has been hit really hard by Covid and so I just like to check in with the two of you.

How are your businesses doing?

How have you weathered the storm over the past year?

Megan: It has definitely been a year to stretch new muscles and work on being really nimble.

I can't tell you how many times I've said we've pivoted in this last year countless so you know it was crazy for a while but I think we're back on our feet and we're you know we're really looking forward to moving forward into 2021 and and getting back to what our new normal is going to be and and what we can expect for consistency so we're really we're really looking forward to having 2020 behind us.

Jason: Nice.

How would you Jeff?

Jeff: Yeah, same boat.

I mean you know unlike Bemidji when we were going into the pandemic, we weren't doing any distribution at all so we were just relying on you know cans out of the tap room and draft and we literally had to like flip our business completely the other direction which isn't easy to do because beer is you know it's very inefficient to move and so you know delivery vans,drivers, canning lines, boxes.

I mean, just all of the necessary requirements to get you out the door while losing a lot of your margin as your costs skyrocket.

It was a big challenge for us but kind of like what Megan said and I think you know every challenge there's like a new opportunity, so you know we're now able to expand because you know come Memorial Day, all of this beer we've been distributing has to stay in house so if we want to, you know, walk away from a substantial amount of our retail partners, we basically have to expand or we have to stop, so it's giving us a chance to grow a little bit more.

Yeah, it was definitely like Megan said - stretching new muscles.

It's like well, we learned a lot and we're excited about ... Also very excited about the year.

I think northern Minnesota is going to be , it's going to be insane this year.

Like biggest population growth like traffic we're going to probably ever see so it'll be, it'll be fun to get back to that.

Jason: Well Jeff, I want to stick with you , what's your origin story in terms of Portage Brewing - how did you ... how and when did you start it and why?

Jeff: we've been coming up to this area for about 25 years , just you know, as you know, Leech Lake , it's a big tourist town.

There's also a brewery in Walker before we had decided to launch ,but no, I was actually ...

I've been [inaudible] for probably eight years before we started the brewery, and I was actually on that trip you were talking about out in, out in I was actually in Nepal and my dad called me over wi-fi and was like I met this guy in town ... we both want to start a business here like would you ever consider starting a brewery?

I had to chew on it for a while because I was just coming off of San Francisco Tech like travel, didn't really know if I'd fit really well living up here, but yeah, I decided to give it a shot and you know, we've had a lot of hurdles but it's the work's really engaging, it's not there's there's always something to do and something fun to kind of work on so yeah, we just decided to kick off in 2017 and yeah, it's kind of been a roller coaster ever since we opened so... Jason: I bet it has.

Megan, what's the origin story of Bemidji Brewing and how did you get into the brewing industry?

Megan: Yeah so there's, along with myself and my husband who owned the brewery, our business partners, Bud and Tina Kaney, own it along with us so Bud and Tom met in college, went their separate ways for a while after graduating and Bud has this true entrepreneurial spirit which is a really incredible and he called Tom up who began became a pretty avid home brewer in college and said, hey, I think we should, should start something.

That was around the time when the laws in Minnesota were changing so the Surly bill was in the process of being passed, making the barrier to entry a lot a lot lower so just kind of things aligned and, and we started a kick starter that raised a good chunk of money for, for startup in oh my goodness, 2012 I think years.

We're going to be 10 next year which is crazy [awesome, congratulations] so yeah, yeah thank you, thank you but, but it gets a little fuzzy but so, so we did that and proved there was a market.

Moved our equipment in and out of a community kitchen space at Harmony Co-op in town and then got a secured a lease when the bank we proved to the bank that, that there was a market for craft beer in Bemidji and we're able we've been able to grow since then so that first place opened in 2013 and then we expanded to our current location in 2016 so... Jason: I didn't realize that Bemidji Brewing started at Harmony Co-op.

Is that what I heard?

Really?

Megan: Yeah, yeah, yeah it's incredible.

Like there's just synergy that was happening around the time we were planning so Harmony had just expanded into their large location and had built this community kitchen space off the back and so it was it was just great.

They worked really closely with us because the TTB hadn't really seen a brewery that was looking to operate within a, within a like a shared space before so there's a lot of learning there but they're awesome partners to help us get off the ground so it's really cool.

Jason: So let's talk about a beer bubble so right now there are nearly 200 breweries in Minnesota.

Prior to prohibition though it's my understanding that there were almost 300.

Are we in a beer bubble or can Minnesota sustain this many breweries and more?

Jeff: For my whole philosophy since we started was to stay really small.

I think, I don't think there's a bubble if the breweries are are staying kind of within their means and not you know getting these big you know, statewide or regional distribution networks.

I never wanted to do that.

I wanted to run this brewery like a home brewery and keep it small batch experimental so I think for us you know, whatever we decide to do I think we're kind of we're going to be capped out at this location but I think inevitably you know that, that's the mission for us is just to stay small and I think there's room for a lot more breweries if you know they're community oriented, you know, they're not exceeding you know, a thousand barrels.

They're just staying nice and small but yeah I think shelf space, again the production side for a wholesale side for us is it's arduous.

It's a headache at every turn.

There's, there's you know, shelf space is very limited.

We're still in the 750 milliliter crawler size too.

When we don't actually have 16 or 12 ounce cans so that's even harder to battle so there's a lot of state, there's a lot of state rules that are keeping us from distributing and I think also just from a saturation perspective like you know we are exceeding that kind of brewery per capita mark that I'm comfortable with but that's, that's our experience anyway.

Jason: What do you think Megan, is the market saturated?

Megan: Yeah it's a good question.

I really echo a lot of what Jeff said.

When we got into the industry it was pretty early on and they were only like, we were planning there are like 20 breweries in the state so it was really small and everyone's goal at that time was to open and become a regional brewery you know so you're distributing across the entire state and probably some of your neighboring states too and that was our original goal but we quickly figured out you know, that what our limits were and, and what we thought was going to be sustainable and, and that's been our goal ever since is to find where's that happy medium?

You know, we're not gonna be a giant state distributing company but how much can we push out of an area where we're the most potent and, and so with that I think that there are lots of places in small towns where breweries could still open and they can be that really that community gathering spot right?

If we're like really cool.

We're like cafes right but with beer but, but I don't know that there's the, the what felt like at different times unlimited like potential for breweries to open and get really big and for there to be a lot of them.

I think that, that, that, that ship has sailed and it'll be the exception rather than the rule of what it kind of was in the early, early 2010's.

Jeff: Yeah we're fine until a lot of niche you know, there's a lot of niche markets still that are actually international or national that we're...

I mean a lot of our mixed fermentation our sours program.

It doesn't sell well at all in Minnesota but you know we're talking to people all over the U.S. and even internationally who want to buy that beer so it's, it's more just like if you can find, instead of saying like we're just going to be a brewery and we're going to make everything like finding an interest that's like that lines up with your core values and you just follow that.

Like anybody can open a brewery if that's if, that's the mission.

Jason: Well I definitely want to ask you about your sours because both of you brew sour ales so I'm eager to talk about that but before we go there it's great to have local breweries of course throughout our state, our region and across the nation but how local are your ingredients?

Do you source your hops and grain locally?

Megan: We do work with you know, ingredient brokers and, and Jeff is gonna have the right language around this so forgive me but like there are larger companies that you know that, that purchase and sell ingredients and we work with them primarily and, and which is cool because a lot of them are kind of centrally located in Minnesota but we do work locally with maltster out of the Crookston area called Vertical Malt so they grow or they their families, they've been farming for a long time and as they look to diversify this is one way that they're doing it as they they see the craft beer, craft breweries are growing you know, and so they have been able to kind of alter their business to, to meet that demand for local products so we have beers that uh primarily feature them and that's I think the biggest way that we've been able to do, to, to feature local products but I know I think Jeff really is has worked diligently on, on featuring local things in his products.

Jeff: Yeah, we I mean we try.

We obviously, we're looking for the best quality so there's things, there's things in Minnesota like like too, our, our base barley I, I would imagine most of what Bemidji is using too.

That's, that's grown at the largest maltster in the world currently.

That's the best, that's the best malt you're gonna find in the world and it's it's grown right here in Minnesota and it's also you know, kilned and shipped from there but hops you know there are ingredients that we rely heavily on, like hops and unfortunately that's not that's very region specific.

You know, certain latitudes, certain climate.

We've even now started to like select you know, hops are just a they're, they're kind of a mess in our industry.

There's a lot of, well there's a lot of variability between each variety so you know everyone knows Citra.

If you, if you buy Citra 20 times in a year you're going to be probably getting 20 different lots and the quality of the hop from those different lots is going to vary.

We, I don't want to afford to have to do that like we did like we used to do so instead we basically we select one lot for our entire brewery for the year we contract those so it's consistent every time and you're not relying on what if, what if this is good and what if it's not but then back to Minnesota.

I mean we've started you know, tons of organic fruits.

I've been talking to someone out of Duluth who has this tea company, who's using like foraged pine needles and I mean there's a tremendous amount of materials we can use in beer outside of you know malt and hops and I think that's what we're trying to showcase in some of our smaller you know mixed fermentation beers.

Is just what can we get our hands on?

Where are these farmers?

How far do we have to drive to get a couple hundred pounds of fruit ?

That's, that's been our focus at least for Minnesota focused ingredients.

Jason: So jeff you mentioned policy and I definitely wanted to visit about that, actually both of you have mentioned policy.

First of all, Megan I was wondering if you can just tell us briefly what the Surly bill is and how it catalyzed the craft brewing industry in Minnesota and then Jeff I'd be interested in hearing from you?

What do you think the industry needs?

You mentioned that there's policy that's basically limiting your growth.

So Megan please.

Megan: Yeah so the Surly bill was passed and it like I said before it lowered the barrier to entry so what it really did was mean that we can sell we could..

It used to be illegal to sell our own product over our own counter to customers so before you had to invest in really large equipment that's really expensive and then sell it to a distributor at a lower margin and, and make it work that way, but by being able to sell pints across the bar to your own customers you're able to recruit more of that cost and it just makes it feasible you can start a little brewery like we started as, like Jeff has started as and then grow from there and so it just, it just made it easier so that we could go from you know, 10, 20 breweries to 200 where we're at now.

Jason: So what does the industry need in order to grow from a policy perspective?

I understand that there's a cap on growler's sales based on total volume?

What do we need Jeff?

Jeff: Well again the growler cap legislation really only affects a few breweries in the state, 20 000 barrels is...

They keep increasing the cap but I think it's more there's a lot of structural things that have been in place since prohibition you know, our three-tier system which is you know producer, distributor, retailer.

There's still a lot of laws that basically prevent us from really emerging as, as a producer and a retailer.

You really have to work through the distribution channel to, to succeed in the state and I think that's, that's a tough, a tough thing.

Specifically we're unable to sell any container size outside of our tap rooms beyond a 750 milliliter container or 64 ounce container.

You go over Wisconsin you can basically, you can buy kegs out of a tap room.

I mean any container size from 12 ounces up to a 5 gallon keg, a brewery can sell you directly so it helps you again.

If you if creatively if you want to try to maintain a really small operation that would enable us to to do the things we really want to do.

Instead you know we're limited to this 750 milliliter crawler can which they're hard to fill, there's not canning lines for them.

We've been lucky to figure out how to can them in a safe, high quality way and there's can shortages.

There's, there's as far as I know I think we're the only state who actually requires the only container size that's basically that small, is a 750 milliliter can so there's shortages because you know the canning company, the canning manufacturers are saying there's such low demand for this, this.

The only state is Minnesota.

You know, we're afraid in the very near future they're going to just stop producing that can size and we're not going to have anything we can sell outside of our tap rooms besides growlers.

That's the big one.

The other one is we're not able to have multiple tasting rooms or locations.

You can have one production brewery or excuse me, you can have multiple production breweries but you can only have one tap room, and again our motto is to stay small and stay you know small as we possibly can and try to open these you know other locations in small communities.

We're not able to do that in Minnesota.

We basically have to be a production brewery to continue to grow and that obviously is not the route we want to go so... Jason: I'd like to learn a little bit more about that, so what are the prospects for these changes taking place?

Would it be something that would happen during this legislative session and are all y'all collaborating on, on these policy needs?

Jeff: There's not a lot of representatives that are willing to hear it out and it's I think it hits the floor of once in a while but there's...

I think that the general consensus in our industry is none of this stuff is going to change because of you know, there's just, there's a lot of, there's a lot of old-school ways of doing things in the state and we're, we're, we're not able to kind of turn the tide in the direction that the entire country is going.

We're still stuck so far in the past and so yeah I don't think there's a lot of hope.

I mean the, the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild, the Free, Free the Beer, that group, you know, we're trying to get legislation through but it just keeps getting, keeps getting stopped and a lot of the effort is still on that growler increasing the growler container size which is just like you know, we do, you know a thousand to two thousand barrels a year like that doesn't even come near affecting us at home you know, so.

Jason: Right, well I want to talk a little bit more about collaboration.

I'm curious if you would describe the craft brewing industry in Minnesota as collaborative?

Jeff i know that you're doing a collaboration with Modist Brewing and I'm just curious is that something that a lot of craft breweries do?

Do you, you reach out to one another and make a product together?

Is that something that two of you would consider doing for example?

Megan: That's what is, is really cool about the craft brewing industry.

I think we've I'm not the first one to call it kind of like "coopertition" if you will, where you know, where we often call upon each other, like oh, do you have these hops that we can't get in until so and so, such a time and that's why we're, we're so excited when Jeff opened in Walker because for a long time we're, we're like out on an island out here in northern Minnesota by ourselves.

Where when you're in the Cities you can throw it, throw a rock and you hit up ten breweries or so.

It's cool at different times you know, we can lean on each other for that sort of stuff and we personally or we internally haven't done any collaborations with other breweries but it's always something that our production team really wants to do and it just hasn't, hasn't worked out yet but hopefully in the future that's something that we can do and definitely Portage is at the top of our list.

Jeff: Speaking of I mean, I needed a couple barrel racks for our brewery.

I just picked them up yesterday and dropped off some growlers, grab some cans, put some cash in a little corner of a mailbox, so yeah, it's very collaborative.

I mean I've had issues with hops or grains or and I know, Tom has too and so yeah it really is that and again I think it goes back to our industry right?

You can't ship it everywhere.

It's like, it's inefficient, it's heavy, it has to stay kind of close to home so it's not like a, it's not like a coffee company where coffee companies are.. they hold things close to the chest.

Like their processes are usually proprietary.

There's not a lot of that collaboration in other industries and I think just the nature of our products is...

It just drops all those barriers but I, you know, I personally have learned more commercially in my experience collaborating than I have any self-taught information I've ever found.

I mean, I was just out in Bailey's Harbor this last weekend brewing with a brewery out there and just that, just these small things you learn in their, in their process that are like oh, like let's take that back to the brewery and, and implement it, so it's a good, it's a good, it's good fun.

It's creative.

It's, it helps from like a marketing perspective you know.

We don't spend any money on advertising so if we can find a like-minded brewery to just like tag team on a product you know, it gets our brands out in a, in a very product focused way so that's any day of the week that's going to be our focus.

It's just to keep working with great breweries and helping each other kind of grow.

Jason: Well let's talk a little bit about what's actually on tap this summer.

You both mentioned sour, sour ales and for those folks who aren't familiar with sour ales I was wondering if you can just kind of give us a metal level summary of what a sour ale is first of all and then I'm eager to hear from both of you about what sour ales you're brewing?

So Megan what exactly is a sour ale for those who aren't familiar?

Megan: Oh my goodness Jason.

You know, I'm gonna kick this to Jeff so he can, [ok] he's gonna give us a much better, more comprehensive idea than I can.

Jeff: Well I sometimes think too far in the weeds.

No, yeah it's, it's I mean sour, oh man, I could talk, I could talk about a whole hour about sour beer.

It's, it's like a very complex issue.

[We only have five minutes] So the the way we brew specifically is through spontaneous and mixed fermentation Saison brewing so we don't actually call our beer sour beer.

It is sour but we follow a more traditional Brussels lambic style process so we're you know we're basically cultivating wild yeast around our local area, bringing it into the brewery and then using that to ferment our beers so yeah we we're trying to work as close to the land as we can on that you know, local Minnesota organic, all organic barley hops, any ingredients we use so that's the way we brew it.

I know, you know in Bemidji does too.

They're, they brew experimentation beers.

Predominantly a lot of sours you're going to see in the state are mixed are kettle sours and we've never brewed one.

I don't have any interest in brewing one.

I like to look for like a really nuanced sour beer and I think with using, using the microbes that we can get our hands on.

You get a lot more complexity.

It sits in barrels for you know a year or more so it just makes a really complex you know, lambic style beer so that's kind of our focus and again we're, we're every year we're trying to cultivate relationships with fruit growers, tea, you know, tea farmers.

I mean the ingredients list is like far and wide for the stuff we want to keep doing so yeah, I love Bemidji's Creek.

That's one of my favorite sour beers.

It's and it's always on too so it doesn't move, it doesn't move super fast which is nice because people who are really into a good mixed fermentation sour beer it's it's, it's becoming easier to find really good sour beer.

Jason: Yeah I'm really excited that we have it in northern Minnesota and you two are definitely pioneering that.

So Megan can you tell us a little bit briefly about the Creek that you have on tap as well as anything else that's on tap this summer?

Megan: Yeah, so our, yeah, so our Star Program is a little bit different than Jeff's in terms of we, we're inoculating our barrels from the other beer in it so we're not spontaneously fermenting that we're, we're capturing a yeast strain that has characteristics that our, our production team really favors and trying to accentuate those as we make that beer, so yeah so it is only available in our tap room so it's like a fun little tap room Easter egg that when people make the trip to come see us they get to enjoy and, and like Jeff said it just is a nice a much more complex profile than, than what our our team kind of thinks you can get out of a kettle sour so our Creek is on and as Jeff mentioned you know we're looking for those kinds of ingredients.

We've been able to utilize local fruit farmers so we've gotten a lot of fruit from Bagley that's gone into our sour program including the the cherries.

The Creek is, is means cherry and so those have come just down the road in Bagley so that is on.

Our that program is kind of reduced a little bit but that beer will be on and and I, our classic Flanders, so unflavored or unfruited will also be available but then otherwise we have a seasonal IPA so our summer IPA just recently came out.

Our team is working to kind of have a log, one logger available throughout the year so right now the logger that we have is our New Zealand Pilsner which if you talk to any brewer I don't know about your team Jeff but our team they all they want to drink your pilsners because it's a good standard to see what what a brewery can do so they're excited to to do that and to work with some New Zealand hops there and then we have a fan favorite blood orange IPA that'll come out around Memorial Day and then, well very exciting, we'll be putting our German Blonde is our most popular beer - it makes up the largest portion of our portfolio and we'll be putting that in 12-packs coming out in June so we're excited to bring that to market.

Jeff: we're, we're releasing a ton of little like five gallon experimentation fruit projects, we're kind of just gonna - when they're ready we're gonna drop them and there's going to be a few gallons available sort of thing so again, those those eggs we want people to come up and come and see us but yeah, I we're really really excited about some of our sour beers and again, we also have a pretty traditional pilsner program that we're that we're still continuing to improve on so lots of you know crushable and complex is what I like to strive for in the summer; lower abv - not a lot of not a lot of high alcohol stuff, high flavor stuff drinkable beer.

Jason: yep, I noticed your mild ale on your menu earlier so I'm curious - how do your two breweries give back to your communities?

Megan ?

Megan: yeah so we've had to change it up a little bit with the pandemic so we used to do a pint night, a community pint night is what it used to be called, and a dollar from every beverage sold - so no matter the size, no matter if it's beer or any bev - goes to a local partner non-profit.

We adjusted that to start this year - we evolved it to the Community Growler Give Back and so instead of pints because we didn't have people in enjoying beer on site here, we adjusted that to be growlers that went out the door so we were able to work with the groups that we partnered - were supposed to partner with last year to execute that the beginning of this year and then as we go forward into the year we'll determine if we'll keep it that or updated and go on but the community gives so much to us and it's... we just enjoy being able to partner and give back to the to the community we're in.

Jason: Last question for each one of you - where can we find your brewery and when you're not drinking your own product, what's a brewery that inspires you?

Jeff: We have a beer locator on our website - portersbeer.com/our beer - that's the best place statewide, obviously, our taproom here in walker.

and yeah, we're at about I don't know we maybe have like 50 or 60 retail partners across the state - Duluth, Moorhead, Twin City metro, Saint Cloud area - yeah favorite breweries wow it really depends on the style and the type of year, honestly, I drink a lot of Bemidji IPA locally especially, because they distribute here, but Fair State's also probably my top number one favorite brewery in the state just from a culinary quality perspective they're just they're pushing the they're pushing the dial at all times and I always look up to those guys.

Megan: So you can find us in the Bemidji area, of course, so in the the headwaters region up here - so Bemidji, Walker, Park Rapids, and then down to the Brainerd Lakes area you can find us across there, and then also west down highway 2 to Grand Forks and down through Detroit Lakes and into the Fargo-Moorhead area and then of course our tap room is right downtown in Bemidji, I would say , you know Portage is an awesome compliment to us at Bemidji Brewing, they are just so creative and make really incredible esoteric careers that we always enjoy and get inspired by and then not to to reiterate this, but our production team also really admires Fair State too and what they do out of their place so.

Jason: Well, I want to thank you both for spending time with us this afternoon and thank you for bringing your craft here to northern Minnesota.

Jeff: Thanks.

Jason: I want to thank all of you for joining me once again.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Be kind and be well , we'll see you next week.