Plucked directly from BA:

New Beer Brand Launches in Area–Brainerd Lakes Brewery

November 5, 2008 – Brainerd, MN – Dan Stanifer and Jesse Grant announced today their partnership in the formation of Brainerd Lakes Brewery. The announcement comes at the same time as invitations to local media were
sent out for a private, invitation-only Media Event/Beer Tasting at Prairie Bay
(15115 Edgewood Drive, Baxter, MN) on November 11 from 5 – 7pm.

Brainerd Lakes Brewery will be located in the Northern Pacific Center in Brainerd. This space will house operations and a tasting room open to the public select hours. Once full production is reached in the spring, beer will be available in the 6-pack at regional liquor stores and on tap at many local and regional restaurants and bars. Distribution arrangements are in the works to allow for rapid regional growth toward the Twin Cities Metro and throughout the Midwest.

Stanifer and Grant have been in the planning stages for Brainerd Lakes Brewery for the last 12 months. As part of their planning for this venture, they attended the Great American Beer Festival in fall of 2007. Beer formulations are
currently being refined and expected release of Brainerd Lakes Brewery beer is spring 2009.

The vision for the business, according to Stanifer, “To not only give somebody a great beer but a great experience with their beer. With some beer companies they put a good beer in the bottle and that is where it ends. With us we want you to enjoy it, not just the taste but the whole experience. The food you eat with it, the people you are with, the situation you are in, take in the world with every sip. We want to educate you about the beer and the experience, teach you how a great beer is made.”

About the Founders.
Dan Stanifer has been home brewing for the last 12 years and has wanted to be a professional brewer for the last 6 years. Originally from just south of Detroit, MI, Stanifer moved to Brainerd in 1998. He is married, has four children and one grandchild.

Jesse Grant is a Brainerd native, currently living in Little Falls, who has been home brewing for four years. He is married and has three children.

Stanifer and Grant met at a local business networking event in 2004 and have been brew partners ever since.

History of Breweries in Brainerd.
The first brewery on record in Brainerd was John Hoffman (1872 – ?) though little is known about it and the company appeared to be short lived, maybe in existence for only one year. Just a few years later, in 1881, Brainerd Brewing Co. started when local saloonkeeper Peter Ort began to supply his own beer. Located on the East side of Boom Lake (listed on city directories as the south end of Fourth Street at Pennsylvania Ave.), the brewery expanded quickly and by 1883 was registered as a brewer of more than 500 barrels.

Articles in the Brainerd Dispatch from 1884 indicate that Ort refurbished the brewery saloon and added a bottling department. The Brainerd Brewing Co. entered the twentieth century under the management of Fred Hoffman and Edward Boppel, expanding capacity between 6,000 and 10,000 barrels per year.

According the 1903 directory, the brewery had at least four employees and two drivers. The company was incorporated in 1906. It was closed by Federal treaty enforcement in 1915.