Badger Hill Brewing is a craft brewery based in the Twin City metro area, with brewing operations residing in Minnetonka, MN. We have entered into an Alternating Proprietorship arrangement with Lucid Brewing, and we cannot express enough how grateful we are for both their partnership and their friendship. This arrangement is a great story in itself!

As far as the “who is Badger Hill”, from a people standpoint, Badger Hill was created out of the passion of its three managing partners, all family members of each other. Brent Krekelberg and I (Broc) are brothers who were born and raised in Richfield, MN. Brittany, although we try to claim her as a Minnesotan, was born in raised right over the border in Wisconsin, not too far from Taylors Falls, MN. Brittany and I met while attending college at St. Cloud State (where she trained him in as a bartender!), and have been married since 1997. The two brothers, while 9 years apart, have become as close as bothers can be, even attending graduate classes together at the University of Minnesota.

Brittany will be leading the sales efforts for Badger Hill as well as the overall day-to-day business activities. She has tremendous experience in the Food and Beverage industry, including brand management at the national level, and also has very strong and lengthy experience in partnering with distribution companies.

Brent will take the lead on our marketing efforts including all branding, design, social media and festival activities, while I will lead us in the area of overall financial and business strategy. Of course, that all sounds nice and organized, but, it goes without saying that we all role up our sleeves and jump in wherever needed.

A fourth partner has joined us, Jason Kuboushek, and although in a minority role, he brings great and much needed experience to the group from a legal standpoint as well as fantastic ties throughout communities all around Minnesota.

Our mission is to be a cornerstone of the Minnesota Craft Beer Industry and an active, positive contributor to the entire Craft Beer Community here.

There is a lot to be understood in that broad statement. Like all craft brewers, we have a deep passion for unique and high quality beers. We never want to compromise on anything, from the quality of the ingredients to creating a culture of innovation to our fundamental ethics as a business.

But what really drives us is something much greater. Stakeholder Oriented (not to be confused by Stockholders) is a nice “buzzword bingo” entry from the world of business, but it is appropriate descriptor for what drives us. The stakeholders of Badger Hill Brewing are any persons or groups that can affect, or be affected by, Badger Hill. We will maximize our value to our stakeholders.

Those who purchase Badger Hill beers are of course a huge stakeholder, but so are restaurant and bar owners, other breweries, distributors, the craft beer community as a whole and also government entities and the environment. Our decisions and business will always work to maximize our value to all of these stakeholders and more. It will help guide everything from the types of beers we release to how we treat suppliers. We are driven to be a major and sustainable part of this industry and strongly believe that this approach is critical.

Our goal from day one of planning has always been to create a stand alone brewery south of the Minnesota River. In fact, we have already begun working on that process, looking at target locations in and around the Prior Lake, Shakopee and Jordan triangle. Our business plan has been focused on creating a regional craft brewing business which is dedicated to the Minnesota market. We often look to New Glarus as a great model. Their focus on a finite market, and wonderfully serving it, is a great example of doing something focused and doing it exceptionally well.

The plan has always been centered on a production brewery with features that make it very consumer friendly. The hard work by Surly and Minnesota Beer Activists, among others, to pass the Surly Bill gives us more potential options, but the location will always be centered on production.

Both we and Lucid joke all the time that we want to be so successful that we need to part ways. Lucid has a fantastic facility and it is so awesome to think where they can go with their footprint. When we signed our Alternating Proprietorship agreement with them, we both knew that our ultimate goal was to build our own facility, and they are fully behind this goal. In fact, the Alt/Prop agreement allows Badger Hill to design and plan even better and, to invest in facilities and equipment that will give us great scale into the future. We are currently designing the facility around a 50 bbl brewhouse. And don’t be surprised if we try to do for others as the agreement with Lucid has done for us.

As brewery owners, we often get caught up in beers and beer styles in explaining our story, but I also think the Alternating Proprietorship agreement with Lucid is a fantastic story to share, especially in these volatile economic times. Its essence is built upon two breweries, and two groups of owners, helping each other succeed.

The TTB has an excellent circular online at http://ttb.gov/industry_circulars/archives/2005/05-02.html which explains the Alt/Prop in great detail. But here is a summary:

The Alt/Prop arrangement is designed to let two emerging craft brewers share, and therefore reduce, capital expenditure costs and to leverage each other’s infrastructure. In plain English, Lucid and Badger Hill can each invest in better equipment and can then share that equipment with the other to better utilize it. This has allowed Lucid to invest in a fantastic brew house, for both companies to invest in better fermentation equipment, and for Badger Hill to bring in a nice bottling line.

For Badger Hill, this has allowed us to move more rapidly to a great production environment and to invest in other equipment which will allow both breweries to scale. For Lucid, the arrangement has allowed them to invest in better brewery equipment and a great facility that can serve them far into the future, as Badger Hill will be paying them for the use of the equipment, providing Lucid an additional source of revenue.

Beyond this, however, is the great relationship which has developed between the two breweries, which is so far and above what could have been expected. We want to be very clear on this point – we are so lucky to have met Eric and Jon. They have always welcomed us with open arms, they encourage and help our efforts and are always there for us. We owe them more than they can know. That is the wonderful story. In a time where people have had their jobs taken away, where businesses have closed or greatly reduced their employee base, two companies have come together to help create something great. The creation of great beers, but also, the creation of new jobs and growth for our communities.

Our story is not unlike many other stories which talk about the start of a craft brewing operation. I have been brewing since 1991, and Brittany and I have always been a fan of the craft beer scene. I think we even had a date at the Summit Brewery tour in 1993! We lived in Colorado for 10 years and were there during the emergence of that incredible market. In fact, we even knew some of the people as they started out.

Well, my brother Brent is 9 years younger than me, and we really did not know each other growing up. However, as we both grew older, Brent would visit me in Colorado, and we literally bonded over the shared experience of exploring craft beers. His first visit out there as an adult, I took him backcountry camping and brought along a 6 pack of Fat Tire and a 6 pack of Odells Schilling 90. He was hooked.

When Brittany and I moved back, it literally was over sharing exceptional craft beer that we all reconnected, and it was less than a few months back before all of us were homebrewing together. All of us have talked about starting business for years and years, and one thing led to another. And here we are.

At Badger Hill, we are focusing on how we can be a great complement to the local craft beer offering here. Being local is still a differentiator. Look at the rush of national brands into Minnesota. These incredible breweries are filling the gap which exists here between the “wants” of the craft beer consumer and product availability. And many of those consumers would often like to find that craft beer from a local producer. There is so much room for growth here in Minnesota, and so many styles to explore, that the journey will be fantastic.

Our motto is “Staying True to the Brew, Mostly”, and we have and will create beers inspired by the heritage of beer, but with a Minnesota or regional twist. These include ESB’s and Old Ales from England, Roggenbiers and Kolsch’s from Germany, and a strong Belgian influence. Our family originally comes from the Belgian border with Germany, and Krekelberg, the last name of our family, comes from the name of a hill near the town of Luevan, Belgium, “The City of Beers”. Two of our first four releases are recipes from this lineage.

Our extended family also own incredible cherry and apple orchards in Door County, Wisconsin. Brent’s wife, Becky, is from the Door County area and her family has these wonderful fruit orchards. You can be assured that handpicked fruit will, or has, found their way into a few craft beers. There has also been mention of sour ale coming out sometime, but we will see!

We have a lineup of year round beers, focusing on balanced but very flavorful styles, which will be both draught and bottled. We also have designed some limited release and series beers, and these can be expected in corked or wax dipped bottles. These limited releases and series brews will be a constant place for imagination and creativity. Perhaps our first limited release will feature tart cherries handpicked from the orchard in Door County.

We each have a wide variety of experiences and backgrounds and are very fortunate that we have a well rounded group of partners. These include things like marketing and brand strategy, national distribution management, sales management and legal experience. This has really helped us put together a good business plan.

While we do have a very solid business background and decades of brewing beer at home, we also realize that we absolutely must have a qualified brew master to ensure the quality and consistency of our brews at the commercial level. This has always been part of our plan. Consistency and quality is of the greatest importance, and a brew master will help ensure our brewing vision is executed in our commercial setting.

Eric Biermann of Lucid Brewing will be our brew master. It is a no-brainer. Eric has professional training and obviously knows the equipment intimately at Lucid. He is also incredibly passionate about the brewing process and very detail oriented. Perfect!

This will be our approach in the short-term. We have already started the process of identifying and hiring a permanent brew master for Badger Hill and will bring that person on at the right time.

Quite the opposite. We are embracing distribution and have always had this at the core of our plan. We have over 20 years of working with and managing distribution on a local and national level and feel very strongly about the value they bring to our efforts. We know how to work with distributors and are very excited to do so.

Absolutely! We hope to have many collaborative beers over the years, starting soon with our very good friends at Lucid. Don’t be surprised if something comes out in the very near future.

Our first beer will be Badger Hill MSB, or Minnesota Special Bitter. This is a Minnesotan take on a traditional ESB brew. Extremely balanced and full of flavor. We plan to follow this up quickly with our Foundation Stout, which is a very smooth American Dry Stout with hints of roasted coffee and chocolate.

These will be followed up by our version of classic Kolsch style ale, staying dedicated to how this beer must be brewed, and our take on the Roggenbiers of Germany, which is infused with the heritage of Belgian style ale.

These will be the initial brews of our year round offering, and we are also excited to bring out our limited release series later this year. While we are still deciding on what beers we will exactly bring forward as limited release styles, we have great ideas on the first few and are excited for our release which will use handpicked cherry’s from our relatives orchard in Door County. And that is just the start.

We are hoping to launch by the end of March.

Cheers!

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