As much as we love brewing subtle, balanced beers, now and then we need to shake up the establishment. One weekend a couple of our brewers quietly brewed an over-the-top IPA on our pilot system. A few samples made it out, and before we knew it, everybody wanted some. We didn’t have the tank space to make a full batch, but we soon realized that if we didn’t brew more, we would have a full-scale insurrection on our hands. Then we remembered: We have a Garage Series for that.

Insurrection’s flavor profile is spearheaded by Nelson Sauvin and Mosaic hops added at a rate of nearly 4 pounds per barrel. Both hops are new breeds, and they combine to overwhelm the senses with an onslaught of citrus, white grape, and blueberry notes. An equally aggressive malt bill provides serious backbone and an ABV of just under 9%.

We’ll be tapping the first keg of Insurrection at our taproom this Friday, and we’ll have a limited amount of growlers available this weekend and next. Starting on Monday, May 6th, you’ll find Insurrection on draft around the Twin Cities. As with most of our Garage Series beers, Insurrection won’t be around for too long, so grab a pint when you have the opportunity.

We try to stay out of the political fray when possible, but every now and then an issue comes along that we can’t ignore.

The Minnesota House of Representatives has included an increase in the alcohol excise tax that would be applied to beer, wine, and spirits sold in (not just produced in) Minnesota. For beer, that increase is a staggering 600%. While there is an exemption in place for Minnesota’s smaller brewers, the tax would ripple through our entire industry and we would all feel the effects. Minnesota’s growing breweries would face a massive barrier to future growth, and our established breweries such as Summit and Schell’s would be impacted immediately. Out-of-state craft brewers would be less likely to ship their beer here. Bars and restaurants and liquor stores would lose sales. Distributors would likely have to lay off employees. And beer drinkers would be paying about $3 more per case. We believe that regardless of one’s political leanings or views on taxation, this massive increase in excise tax is unwise policy and destructive to Minnesota’s economy.

If you agree that the proposed increase is unreasonable and you’d like to let our lawmakers know, you can learn more about the issue and find out who to contact at http://stopmndrinktax.org/.

If “It’s the most wonderful time of the year” wasn’t already taken by some other holiday season, we would’ve applied it to American Craft Beer Week. It’s the week when craft brewers across the country bring out their best stuff to celebrate all of the creativity and diversity our vibrant industry has to offer.

We’ll be out in full force every day of the week. Some of the highlights: On Tuesday the 14th, we’ll be at George and the Dragon with 5 Fultons on tap, including The Expat and War & Peace. The next day, Barrio 50th & France will feature The Ringer, War & Peace, and one of the few Insurrection casks we filled. Come hungry, because the kitchen staff will be whipping up War & Peace lamb barbacoa empanadas, bacon-wrapped Sonora dogs with Sweet Child mustard, and Lonely Blonde-battered Mahi Mahi tacos.

For more American Craft Beer Week events and the rest of our May schedule, click over to our events calendar.

Though the chilly weather may have you wondering, spring is officially here. We’re glad it is, because we refuse to wait any longer to unveil The Expat.

The word “expatriate” is defined as someone residing outside their country or culture of origin–and thus is a word befitting Fulton’s first release to utilize a yeast variety other than our house American Ale strain. Moreover, our saison yeast is of French origin, so the name is also an homage to one of Minnesota’s most notable sons, F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose fame flourished as an expatriate in France during the 1920′s.

At 6.3% ABV, about 30 IBU, and on the higher end of the carbonation spectrum, The Expat is in line with classic definitions of the style–by the numbers, anyway. Unlike most saisons, however, The Expat is brewed with a substantial percentage of rye in the mash and is filtered prior to packaging. The result is a crisp, effervescent saison that is true in spirit to the style’s heritage of fusing refreshment with a bold, spicy farmhouse character. It’s a great beer to enjoy on its own in the late afternoon, but may even be better when paired with a meal. As Garret Oliver writes in The Brewmaster’s Table, “With food, the best saisons are beyond versatile–they are virtually invincible.”

To get your first taste, join us tomorrow, April 5th, in the taproom, or just down the street at Smack Shack on Monday the 8th. It will be available for the next two months on draft throughout the Twin Cities, as well as at our taproom on draft and in growlers. Sorry, we weren’t able to brew enough to bottle this year.

It’s true: as much as we love beer, we’ll admit it doesn’t fit every occasion in life–most, but not every. And while a glass of water is usually an adequate thirst quencher, you have to admit water is a pretty boring beverage choice. Since we don’t want your friends to think you’re boring, we thought we’d give you a more interesting (and delicious) option: craft soda, straight from the brewery.

Mikey, our head brewer and Chief #Metal Officer, knows his way around soda and has come up with two refreshing varieties to get things started: Citrus Ginger Ale and Blueberry Juniper. Like all forthcoming Fulton sodas, they’re made with all-natural ingredients and cane sugar — no high fructose corn syrup or weird, hard-to-pronounce additives that require a chemistry PhD to identify.

For now, the sodas are exclusively available on draft at the taproom, at a very cool price of just $2 a glass, tax included. Be sure to check for new options when you come by, as we’ll be rotating in new selections from time to time.

If you’re a fan of sustainable agriculture and fresh food, it’s tough to “beet” (sorry…we have a mandate to make one veggie joke per day around here…) a CSA from Tangletown Gardens. The folks at Tangletown work a 100 acre farm and greenhouse just an hour west of here, and are gracious enough to share the fruits of their labor with the rest of us. We’ve partnered with them for the 2nd year in a row to offer a CSA pickup at the brewery.

Just like last year, the pickup time will be 4-6 every Tuesday. (Tangletown also offers Wednesday & Thursday pickups at their store on 54th & Nicollet, as well as a Friday pickup at Solo Vino). We’ve found that fresh produce pairs very well with fresh beer, so if you sign up for Tuesday pickups at the brewery, you can pick up a growler as well.

One more veggie joke: Why did the tomato blush?

Because he saw the salad dressing.

As you may already know, Minnesota’s breweries are only allowed to sell growlers until the brewery reaches 3,500 barrels in annual production. Fulton and other breweries around the state are set to surpass that number this year or in the very near future. We like growlers, and we know many of you do too, so if you’d like to continue to have the option to buy growlers in the future, we need your help. We are working on a bill to allow breweries over 3,500 barrels to continue selling growlers as we grow, and our state Senators and Representatives need to know that you care too.

So, take a couple moments today to call or email your local representatives. It’s real easy to help: click over to http://savethegrowler.org/take-action/, type in your zipcode to look up your local reps, and contact them today. Not sure what to say? Use some of the quick talking points on the website to tell them why it’s important.

We have good news and bad news, and they’re both the same: we’re remodelling our bathroom at the brewery. The good part is that we’ll have much larger and somewhat nicer bathrooms. No more lines!

The bad part of the news is that the taproom will be a little primitive until we’ve finished the project in a week or two. We rented some indoor biffies that are actually not much more spartan than our former bathrooms, so don’t worry, no need to go outside. Other than that, taproom operations will be as normal.

Those who brave the conditions mentioned above will be rewarded: we have extended War & Peace bottle sales at the taproom through this weekend. Stop by anytime today or tomorrow to pick up a few bottles ($15, tax included). Also, War & Peace will remain on draft at the taproom for the next few weeks.

It’s that tortorous time of year: the weather is getting warmer, daylight savings time is here, but we’re still getting random snowstorms that dump 10″ of snow overnight. It’s as if the weather can’t make up its mind what season it is. In an effort to give winter the final boot, we’ve scheduled a slew of limited release beer tappings all over town in the next couple weeks. Click the image at left to be magically whisked away to our events calendar, where you’ll find a delightful variety of barrel-aged Libertine, War & Peace, and firkins for your imbibing pleasure. The next few weeks will be some of the last opportunities to enjoy these beers this year, so get them while you can. And take comfort in knowing our first ever spring seasonal is fermenting rye-ght now…

We fell in love with homebrewing because every Saturday, we got to create an entirely new beer. Most were good, some were great, and others we simply chose to forget about. Homebrewing in first Jim’s and later Peter’s garages eventually lead to the beers our brewery is most known for today: Sweet Child of Vine, Lonely Blonde, Libertine, and Worthy Adversary.

But what happens to beers that don’t make it onto the everyday brewing schedule?

Enter the Garage Series. It’s a home for beers that don’t quite fit in anywhere else. They are some of our brewers’ favorite recipes, and can be experiments, infusions, aged in barrels, imperials…you name it. Garage Series beers aren’t exactly seasonals; instead of being available for a full 3 months at a time, each release will only be available for a brief window each year.

Garage Series releases won’t be on a schedule you’d set your clock to, but you can expect to see one about every other month. War & Peace is the first release of the series, so read on to find out how to get yours.

War & Peace is back! And for the first time ever, it’s available in 750mL bottles. For those who don’t know, War & Peace is an Imperial Coffee Stout infused with whole bean Guatemalan Organic Dark Roast from Peace Coffee.

Want some? We’re releasing it on draft and in 750mL bottles at our taproom on Saturday, February 23rd. Bottles are $15 apiece (tax included), and we don’t have a bottle limit, so you can take home as many as you want. Sorry, no growlers will be available.

The following Monday, 2/25, War & Peace will be available on draft and in bottles across the metro. As with all Garage Series releases, it won’t be available for long, so seize the day!

The Top Ten Reasons to skip the flowers this Valentine’s Day:

10) We’re open for growler sales on Thursday at 3:00. And we don’t mark up our prices just because it’s Valentine’s Day.

9) Nothing says love like IPA. (Though to be fair, nothing says “not tonight, honey” like an Imperial Stout.)

8) Hoppy beers are often commended for their floral characteristics…

7) …but flowers are generally not known for having beer-al characteristics.

6) You can have a pint in our taproom while picking up your growler. Try that at the florist.

5) You can use an empty growler as a stylish vase, which could then be filled with flowers.

4) Or, just bring the empty growler back to us for a refill. We don’t refill standard flower vases.

3) A growler may even last longer than the flowers you get these days (Depending on how thirsty you are, of course).

2) If you don’t have a Valentine this year, it would be weird to buy flowers for yourself. There’s nothing weird about buying yourself a growler.

1) Beer tastes better than flowers.

As excited as we are for the upcoming release of War & Peace, it’s bittersweet because it means the end of imperial stout season is nigh. Thankfully, we have a handful of Worthy Adversary casks over the next couple weeks to help tide you over until next year.

2/14 at Republic 7 Corners: Worthy Adversary with French oak. Available as a pairing with a lovely V-Day dessert anytime after 5:00.

2/15 at Grumpy’s Downtown: Worthy Adversary with coconut & macadamia nuts. Tapping at noon.

2/20 at Muddy Pig: Worthy Adversary with maple wood & vanilla beans. First pours at 4:00.

We’ve long admired Great Lakes Brewing Company. Since they were established in 1988, they’ve brewed exceptional beers and done it while emphasizing the importance of operating in an environmentally and socially conscious manner. Needless to say, when the opportunity arose to travel to Cleveland to collaborate on an all-new beer, we jumped at the chance. Brian and Mikey got to work with the Great Lakes brewers and their 7 bbl pub system to brew a truly unique Baltic Porter recipe that incorporates molasses and Great Lakes’ proprietary lager yeast.

Want to know what it tastes like? We were only able to produce a couple dozen kegs, and only about half made it here to Minnesota. Our taproom doesn’t even get one, so you’ll have to join us at one of our release events if you want to try it. If you were quick enough to get tickets for tonight’s Happy Gnome Beer Dinner or Saturday’s Beer Dabbler, you’ll get a chance at it this week. Next week, we’ll be at Bryant Lake Bowl to tap a keg on Tuesday, January 29th. We’ll have a few more release events in the upcoming weeks, so be sure to check for updates on Facebook and Twitter.

 

The Great Lakes collaboration didn’t quench our thirst for experimentation; in fact, it only fueled it. Back at our Minneapolis brewery, we turned to filling firkins with some exotic combinations.

First, the aformentioned 1/29 event at Bryant Lake Bowl will also feature a cask of War & Peace – a cult favorite that you’ll be seeing more of soon (more on that in a minute).

Next up, Buster’s on 28th will be tapping a cask of “Mole” Worthy Adversary this Thursday, January 24th at 6:00. That’s Mole as in “inspired by the Mexican sauce,” by the way; we added cinnamon, ancho chiles, and cocoa nibs to the cask, not a small, marmot-esque mammal.

The following week, we’ll be celebrating Firkin Friday on February 1st at Grumpy’s Nordeast with a cask of Worthy Adversary aged with macamia nuts and coconut. We’ve done a Worthy cask with macadamia nuts once before, and it was truly one of the best we’ve ever had. The addition of coconut will only make it that much better.

The questions: “When is the War & Peace coming back?” And: “What’s in those barrels?” Then: “So, when are you going to tap those barrels?” The answers, respectively, are: soon, Libertine, and very soon. If you’d like just a bit more information: War & Peace, our Imperial Coffee Stout infused with whole bean Guatemalan Organic Dark Roast from Peace Coffee, will be available in late February, both on draft and for the first time ever in 750 mL bottles. We’ll be announcing an exact date shortly. As for the barrel question: Our friends over at 2 Gingers Whiskey loaned us the barrels, and we’ve been allowing The Libertine to age in them for several months now. We got to sample it yesterday, and we think it’s ready and quite nice. By the way, we don’t “tap” the barrels; after aging, we transfer the beer to a stainless steel tank for blending, carbonation, and packaging. We’re now blending it and will be announcing a taproom release date very soon.

Zip-up Hoodie

$45 

Lightweight & super soft cotton makes this a go-to zip-up that may never leave your body. Hopstar logo screened on front, “Fulton MPLS MINN Brewing” screened on back, with cool extras like thumbholes in the sleeves and a headphone pass-thru in the pocket.

Pullover Hoodie

$40

You say “pullover”, Harry Dunne says “no, it’s a cardigan, but thanks for noticing.” Grey, medium weight, featuring a skyline screenprint on the front & a hopstar on the side of the hood.

 

Hopstar Beanie

$15

Pick up one of these hopstar beanies to cover your ears, and get a couple more to cover the stocking stuffer needs on your Christmas shopping list. Like all of our gear, you can pick it up on the gear section of our website as well as at the taproom.

 

As lovers of food, drink, football, and naps, we think Thanksgiving is pretty close to the perfect holiday. Of course, it’s about more than just stuffing yourself and heading to the couch, and that’s truly what makes Thanksgiving great. We all have much to be thankful for, and taking a day to reflect can be a needed reminder of how good we have it.

Thanksgiving is also one of the best times to gather with family and friends. We may be biased, but we think these sorts of get-togethers are done best with a beer or two. Whether you’re staying close to home or heading over the hill and through the woods, there’s a way to make Fulton part of your celebration. The taproom is open both Thanksgiving Eve (that’s today, if you hadn’t noticed) and Black Friday from 3-10 for growler and pint sales. If your plans don’t take you past the brewery, our restaurant, bar, and liquor store friends all across the Twin Cities are ready to quench your thirst. Whatever your plans, please make sure to celebrate responsibly.

It’s supposed to get cold later this week, and if history is any guide, it won’t start getting warmer until about March. If that’s a problem, Minnesota may not be the best fit for you. But even the hardiest of us need an occasional boost during the winter months, which is why we’ve been busy brewing Worthy Adversary for the last three weeks. Clocking in at 9.2% ABV and redolent of chocolate, coffee, and delicious, the Worthy Adversary makes the coming of winter seem not so sinister after all.

The first pints and growlers of Worthy Adversary will be available on December 8th at the taproom, and it’ll start appearing all over town on draft during the next week. The week after that, you’ll be able to pick up 750mL bottles in liquor stores. As Smokey said, “Mark it 8, Dude.” December 8th, that is.

Holiday cards, that is. We’ve been lucky enough to have the support of our families through the adventure of opening a brewery. Not just our ever-patient and forgiving wives, but our parents and extended family who’ve jumped in along the way. If you’ve taken our brewery tour, you’ve heard the Fulton story as told by Jim’s dad, Jay. Brian’s wife, Katie, works full-time managing the behind-the-scenes details of getting beer to your local watering hole. And if you’ve visited the taproom, chances are you’ve probably purchased a growler from Peter’s aunt Megan, or had your beer poured by Gummy (Jim’s sister / Peter’s wife / Fulton’s taproom manager), Elizabeth (Jim’s wife) Michelle (Ryan’s wife), or one of Brian’s or Ryan’s siblings or in-laws: Lynn, Andy, Marcus, Ali, Becca, Danny, or Brock. As our company has grown, we’ve hired more people who have become like family too. So, as we approached this holiday season, we thought it fitting to celebrate the growing Fulton Family with an old-fashioned greeting card.

We’d love to send you our card, and we’d love to get one back from you so we can display it on the cooler wall in our taproom. You can either send us your card, or just email your address to info@fultonbeer.com.

According to some, November is the dreariest month of the year. We always try to look on the bright side, though, so we started thinking of all the good things November has to offer. The list was shorter than we hoped for, so we had to make up a few items on the fly. Here they are.

Like oysters? Head over to The Lowry tonight! From 5-9, they’ll be serving two special kinds of oysters they’ve flown in just for this event: Shoregasm, described as “tiny but mighty”, and Belong, enormous 3-4″ diamater oysters. To top it off, we’ve brewed a one-of-a-kind oyster stout to go with them! Now, we know oysters are supposed to be an aphrodisiac, but we also know the idea of an oyster stout doesn’t turn everyone on. Trust us: it’s really good, and the oyster flavor is extremely subtle. Get there early, because we’ve only made one keg–so when it’s gone, it’s gone for good.

Pizzeria Lola is celebrating their 2nd birthday this week. We’re huge fans of Lola, because it’s located just blocks from where we started homebrewing and because Ann Kim’s crew makes pizzas that are to die for. This Thursday, we’ll be there with habanero-infused Lonely Blonde, which will be paired with a Virgin Mary (think “backwards Bloody Mary”). Should pair beautifully with virtually any pizza on the menu.

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us. We hope everyone has a long list of things they’re thankful for this year. In case you don’t though, here’s at least one: we’ll be opening the taproom from 3-10 on Wednesday, 11/21. Thanksgiving Eve is one of the biggest nights of the year for bars and restaurants, so why not spend it at your favorite downtown Minneapolis brewery? We’ll have a cask pouring, and you’ll be able to pick up a nice gift for your Thanksgiving host. Hint: growlers make a much better gift than flowers.

The taproom will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, and normal hours will resume on Black Friday at 3:00.

Your TV has probably already told you this, but in case you haven’t been paying attention, the holiday season is just around the corner. If you’re like us, you haven’t even started to think about shopping for gifts, and probably won’t until at least December 23rd. That’s fine, but we have you plan-ahead types covered too. Our family members tell us that Fulton apparel makes great gifts, so we have a fully stocked rack of t-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, and more at the taproom. Better yet, Worthy Adversary will be available in growlers and on tap starting in early December. Sounds a lot more inviting than fighting the crowds at the mall…