When we go on trips, my wife and I like to search out brewpubs or microbreweries in the areas we end up. We figured that choices would be pretty limited in Northern Minnesota, but it turned out that there was a small microbrewery in Bemidji called - appropriately enough - Bemidji Brewing Company. The only problem was that it was closed the first couple of days we were there. Finally, when it opened on Wednesday, we stopped in to try some of their beers.
Hibbing, MN native Tom Hill was a student at Bemidji State University in 2003 when he and his roommate discovered there was more than just domestic beers available to drink. The only problem was that the selection in Bemidji at the time was less than desirable. But it turned out that another friend had started to brew his own beer at home. Homebrewing was something that Hill never thought about, but after talking with his friend he found that the process was similar to making wine at home - something his father had been doing for years.
His friend had been making brown ales and stouts and he ended up giving Hill a book on home brewing. After reading through the book, Hill became obsessed with the art of home brewing and tried to learn as much as he could about it.
After graduating from Bemidji State with a degree in design technology, Hill took an internship in Austin, TX. It was there that he was exposed to Austin's burgeoning craft brew community. He enjoyed his time in Texas, but he really wanted to get back to northern Minnesota. After six months working in Austin, Hill went back to Bemidji State to enroll in a grad program and to teach a class on machining.
It was back in Bemidji that Hill met another craft brew enthusiast by the name of Justin "Bud" Kaney. Kaney had taken the machining course Hill taught and the two bonded over some of the beers Hill was making. Hill became so obsessed with becoming a brewer that he quit school and moved down to Minneapolis to work in a microbrewery there. But this was 2008 going into 2009 and times were tough with the Great Recession going on. Finding a brewery that would take him on as an apprentice brewer was pretty much out of the question.
Hill eventually found work as a machinist, but in his spare time he studied more of the art of brewing beer. He helped out at Northern Brewer, a home-brew supply store in St. Paul, he became a certified cicerone learning about all aspects of selecting and serving beers to people, and he enrolled in the World Brewing Academy's Concise Course through the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago.
In the meantime, Bud Kaney had moved out to Rhode Island to work for Hasbro Toys. But he just knew that he didn't want to be sitting in a cubicle designing parts for toys on a daily basis. He ended up calling Hill to discuss the possibility of doing their own microbrewery.
Through all of this, it turned out that Hill's and Kaney's girlfriends - now their wives - were into the home/craft brewing thing, as well. The four got together back in Bemidji to try different beers, and Tom and Bud would discuss about running their own microbrewery with Hill as the head brewer. That dream came true when the two couples formally incorporated their new nano-brewery, Bemidji Brewing Company which was named after a brewery by the same name that was in Bemidji nearly 100 years before which shut down due to Prohibition.
Pictured at left - Justin "Bud" Kaney, Tina Hanke-Kaney, Tom Hill and Megan Betters-Hill. Photo courtesy The Growler magazine.
The group had some obstacles to overcome - primarily financial. But they instituted a Kickstarter program on-line that raised over $17,000 to buy equipment and cover other start-up costs associated with brewing beer. Secondly, they had get the proper state and federal permits to brew beer. And third, they had to convince others to try their beer.
The group set up shop in the community kitchen at the Harmony Food Co-op in Bemidji. They brewed beers in a 25-gallon brewing apparatus and used a barrel-aged mixed-fermentation process since their first day of brewing. Kaney and Hill took their beers around to some of the bars in downtown Bemidji and one - Brigid's Cross Irish Pub - started to sell their beers. Bemidji Brewing Company was finally starting to gain momentum.
Over time as Bemidji Brewing's output gradually grew and more aging barrels had been acquired, Hill and Kaney knew that they couldn't continue to work out of the kitchen at the Harmony Food Co-op. In 2013, the group found a building that was less than a block from the food co-op that was perfect for not only their brewing tanks, but as a tap room, as well. The group worked with the Bemidji city council to pass an ordinance to allow on-site sale of their brewed beers and for growlers to-go. Once the new brewing apparatus and tanks were in place - and setting up a tap room with a small outdoor patio off to the side - Bemidji Brewing Company opened in their present location in July of 2013.
We had seen Bemidji Brewing Company beers at a handful of places we had visited when we first got to Bemidji on our northern Minnesota vacation in August of this year. Some places, that's all they had for craft beers on tap. But I wanted to go to the brewery first before we had one of their beers out in one of the bars or restaurants. We tried to go there on Monday, but it was closed that day and on Tuesdays.
It was just after 1 p.m. when we pulled up to Bemidji Brewing. (see map) It was a nice day, but we decided to head inside to try some of their beers. We found a nice little space with knotty pine accents, heavy duty tables with metal chairs, and a walk-up bar with a corrugated tin facing. It wasn't big, but tables were properly spaced for COVID-19 restrictions.
The brewing operation was behind large glass windows on the backside of the tap room. It was a pretty impressive operation with kegs and canning equipment. There was also a small kitchen off behind the bar area and they had a short menu of items to munch on consisting of things such as a traditional bratwurst on a bun, a couple flatbread pizzas, a pretzel with cheese sauce, meat sticks, stringed cheese, and a smoked lake trout dip that sounded pretty good.
They had a very nice, but small outdoor patio area off to the south side of the building. We spent some time out there one evening on a subsequent visit to Bemidji Brewing. It was a nice place to chill out.
Their available beers were listed on the wall behind the bar. I stood there for a moment looking at what they had when one of the young guys working that day came out with a beer card for me to look over. "You don't need to stand there when you can be sitting down looking at this," he said when he handed me the card.
My wife wanted to try a flight of beers. She got a 5 ounce glass of the summer lager, a glass of the Oktoberfest (it had evidently just come out), a glass of their traditional IPA, and a German blonde ale. I tried samples of two beers - the espresso porter (it was too forward in taste) and one other one that I really liked.
That one was a hazy double IPA which was absolutely delicious. That and the IPA were my beers of choice at Bemidji Brewing. But I especially liked the hazy double IPA. In fact, I bought two sixers of both the double IPA and the regular IPA before we left Bemidji to go home. I wish I would have bought more as they didn't last very long after we got home.
My wife didn't care for the summer lager - I tried it and I have to say that I agreed with her. I saw it on tap at a couple three places around Bemidji and I'm glad I didn't try it before I sampled it at the tap room. She also liked the IPA, but wasn't too enamored with the Oktoberfest (I wasn't either - it was all right), and she didn't care for the German blonde ale, but I thought it was not bad.
After spending some time at Bemidji Brewing Company sampling beers and hanging out, then having more of their beers at other establishments around town, I have to say that there were some things that I really liked and others that I didn't. But everyone is a little different in their tastes and likes, so you shouldn't think that some of their beers are clunkers. They've done a fine job marketing their beers across northern Minnesota and the tap room at Bemidji Brewing seems like a fun place to hang. We really enjoyed going there.
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