It’s happening….The longtime head brewer at Fitger’s Brewhouse is realizing a dream, a vision he’s had for a while will come to fruition in the form of a new brewery located in Canal Park. Hoops Brewing is aiming for a March/April 2017 opening date for their 9,000 square foot brewery and beer hall. The model? Something similar to what Dangerous Man did in Northeast back in 2013. “I have all this admiration for Dangerous Man. I give a lot of credit to Rob and Sarah over there” he says. Crowlers were chosen as the preferred package that will go out in limited distribution because Dave doesn’t like growlers.
Some breweries choose to have a wide distribution such as Surly, Bauhaus, Indeed and Bent Paddle. Hoops respects that model but points out that he wants to do things his way. “It’s the best model for me. I don’t need to sell my beer in a five state area. I just want to brew beer the way I’ve done it for 20 years” he said. Much of that time was spent running Fitger’s Brewhouse where he churned out award winning beers. Everything from lagers to wheatwines, using a wide variety of hops and malts.
Look at that baby face!
He pegged Melissa Rainville as his head brewer, someone he was very familiar with working at the Duluth brewpub. “She has a very similar philosophy to me, and I’m fortunate to have her” according to Hoops. He explains that she’ll have a lot of say with the types of beers they will create which will include everything from lagers to barrel-aged beers. He hopes to attract everyone, from the local community to tourists, and especially the hockey community—a community he proudly belongs to.
There won’t be a kitchen on-site, but he plans to have menus available from local establishments and he even expects to have a runner system where they will make sure that food ordered to the beer hall is delivered to his customers.
Hoops learned about the space (formerly Timber Lodge Steak House) being available last February and he insists that BevCraft (a consulting firm he’s a part of) was a big reason he secured the space. “They were huge in every aspect of this project” he proclaims. The space itself will seat around 250 people and with areas where one can watch a hockey game on the big screen, or areas with no televisions where people can socialize.
Photo: Tim Nelson
If one thing is certain, he’s proud to be local and he wants the place to be a big part of the community of Duluth. “This is my dream, and I’m going all in.”
That three-hour drive is looking better than ever.
Hoops wondered if he could do something similar with a Stout so he played around tirelessly with different forms of coconut before finally settling on coconut chips. That beer would be called Three Hour Tour (a personal favorite of mine), a Coconut Milk Stout.
Back in 2007, Surly Brewing was just a small brewing operation out of a Minneapolis suburb making bold beers for loyal beer nerds. One of those beers was called “Darkness” which is a Russian Imperial Stout that was dreamed up by Director of Brewery Operations Todd Haug. Now this is one of the most sought after beers in the country—where people line up 24 hours prior, just for the opportunity to purchase some on the day dedicated to the annual release…Darkness Day. “The first year I made 12 barrels” says Haug. “That first month at Café 28 [a restaurant formerly owned and operated by Todd and his wife Linda] no one knew about it” he said.
Darkness will round out the lineup being released into the wild October 17th, a couple of days after Darkness Day. There should be quite a bit of this available this year unlike in years past, which has always been a gripe of those among the Surly Nation. People have often accused the brewery of brewing a limited supply to keep up with demand, but that’s not the case according to Johnson. “The only thing that has kept us from brewing this amount was capacity. That’s it. We’re excited to be able to provide more of it this year” he says. Todd verified that statement and also added that over the years they’ve really been able to “dial in” the recipe. “It is what it is” Haug says. It took us years to get that recipe down, and brewing more of it has allowed us to do some blending.” Surly Darkness Day will take place on Saturday, October 15th at the usual location, the Brooklyn Center Brewery.