(page 46) MAY 2015
THE REAL DEAL BY DENISE DEPAOLO
Names: Sam Papendick & Karl Koth // Hometown: Rapid City, S.D. //Ages: 29 // Specialty: Handcrafted small batch ales can we find your beer? Sam: Nowhere! Karl: Not nowhere. We do occasionally go out to festivals, like at Main Street Square. We were at the Black Hills Beer Festival this year. Actually, we have one May 16. Sam: Yep. May 16 is Stockman's Day here at Hay Camp, we’re going to have brewers from all over the state coming. South Dakota beer only – so Crow Peak, Miner, Sick N Twisted, Dakota Shivers which is opening in Lead soon, and a couple others, too. It seems that craft brewers are generally excited about one another, rather than giving off a competitive vibe. Do you guys see that, too?
HAY CAMP BREWING COMPANY Many will tell you that craft beer is a science. But at Hay Camp Brewing Company, the work is being done by bona fide scientists. Tucked into a corner of the historic Fairmont Creamery Building, Hay Camp offers limited runs of high quality, complexlyflavored beers available during abbreviated business hours. This sense of exclusivity is part of the draw for many craft beer enthusiasts, but for owners Sam Papendick and Karl Koth, who each work fulltime jobs, it’s a necessity. The pair sat down with 605 to chat about their passion for brewing. How did Hay Camp start? Sam: Karl and I went to high school together. We went our separate ways for undergraduate degrees. Karl went to Minneapolis and I went to Fort Collins. We got degrees in physics and chem-
ical engineering, and after our undergrads we moved back here and started going to grad school at the [South Dakota] School of Mines [and Technology]. Karl was in the Geological Engineering department as a master’s student and I started my PhD program in chemical engineering, so we saw each other around there. One evening, we started talking beer at the Independent Ale House and realized we were both home brewers. Karl had been home brewing for 10 years at that time and I might have been brewing as a novice for five or six years. We started home brewing together. The beer was good and we had no problem getting rid of it. We decided to start a brewery. Karl: It’s something that had been on my mind for a while in Minneapolis. When I got my physics degree, I took a year off and really took in the beer culture. I worked at a small brewery called Vine Park Brewing Company in St. Paul and really realized it was something I was passionate about and something I could do. Then Sam and I got together. He’s a motivated guy, too, so we started a good working partnership.
Sam: We call it the ‘craft beer bug.’ Once you get it, you’re in it.
Karl: We keep five taps rotating in here, so at any given time you can come in and there will be the Victory Stout. It’s our flagship beer. It’s a dry English stout with a bit of cherry wood smoked malt in it. Very drinkable. Then we keep one of our bitters on at all times, too. The three other taps, we’ll keep rotating those with brown ales, brown porter, and a couple different American pale ales.
Karl: I think brewers have a great bond. They understand the trials that we all go through, and when it really comes down to it, you look at things like domestic beers and there’s plenty of beer drinking to go around. Sam: I agree. We kind of help each other out. We’re only five or six percent of the market in the state, and there’s plenty of room for craft breweries. We’re so small right now compared to the domestic breweries and how much beer is actually being sold in the state. We have to kind of team up together and work at it.
Do some beers go more quickly than others?
What are your goals for Hay Camp?
Sam: We have a pretty loyal following in here, so when something new comes on, people know right away and it normally gets drank up pretty quick. We started brewing larger batches of some of our flagships and more popular beers so they stick around a little bit longer. But beers like our Hopdlebar Maltstache, which is a pale ale – it’s pretty popular when it comes on. It’s like a 9 percent ABV beer and it’s just loaded with malts and hops. It’s quite nice.
Karl: A regional brewery is what we want to be. Not distributing too far, still maintaining a local feel. Like Crow Peak – they have a system where they distribute 2,500 barrels a year or something like that. Hay Camp Brewing Company is open Thursdays 5-9 p.m. and Fridays 3-9 p.m. Check their Facebook page for special events like Bingo, live music, and record spinning nights courtesy of neighbor Black Hills Vinyl.
How many beer selections do you carry at any given time?
Outside of your tavern, where