The brewery’s wood anniversary is complete with barrel-aged Expat Rye Saison
On October 28, 2009, The Happy Gnome in St. Paul tapped the first keg of Fulton Sweet Child Of Vine and started Ryan Petz, Pete Grande, Jim Diley, and Brian Hoffman—the four friends that started homebrewing in a garage in 2006—on a journey that none of them could have anticipated.
“Our founding vision was to start out as a contract brewer, and build a Minneapolis brewery as soon as we could afford it—sometime in the next five or ten years, we thought—and to quit our day jobs along the way,” the Fulton team wrote in a newsletter. “At the time, there were no taprooms in Minnesota, and no packaging breweries in Minneapolis. We had no idea we would be among the first for both.”
After getting their beers into local bars and restaurants, the team signed a lease to their downtown Minneapolis brewery in September 2010, and opened the first brewery and taproom in the Minneapolis in 2012. Since 2012 Fulton’s success made it one of the fastest growing breweries in Minnesota. This year Fulton opened a second brewery in Northeast Minneapolis allowing them to take over 100% of their beer production.
The brewery’s success not only allowed the four original founders to quit their day jobs and work at the brewery full-time, but allowed them to hire three dozen other staff.
To commemorate how far the brewery has the Fulton Brewing team is returning to where it all started—The Happy Gnome—where they will tap a ceremonial keg of Sweet Child Of Vine, as well as 2013 Libertine, 2013 Worthy Adversary, Langola Fresh Hop, and Expat aged in Parley Lake red wine barrels.
For more information about Fulton visit their website www.fultonbeer.com.
About Brian Kaufenberg
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