Then
and
Now:
Story
and
Photos
by
Sarah Zenk Blossom
Artist depiction of the old Bierbauer Brewery in Mankato. The front gate still stands at the eastern terminus of Rock Street in Mankato.
Beers over the years
Mankato Brewery revives local beer-making tradition
T
im Tupy shows me two small jars filled with grain. The contents of one are milquetoast plain; the contents of the other are rich and dark. They look like ... chocolate? Coffee? He explains that only a small proportion of the grains used in craft brews are specialty-roasted like these; most are base malt. The base malt is beige and looks like health food. Tupy co-owns the Mankato Brewery, and once these grains are ground, they are fed into the mash tun just on the other side of the wall. From there, the wort is made, fermented into beer, filtered and tested, and packaged. Of course, at the Mankato Brewery, this is done using modern technologies, but Tony Feuchtenberger, co-owner, explains that, “historically, [breweries] were built on hills because everything was run by gravity.” Everything started at the top of the hill, and then “they’d literally roll the barrels out and store them in caves at the base of the hill.” Tupy and Feuchtenberger founded the brewery on Jan. 5, 2012. “Mankato intrigued us,” Tupy explained. “It had not 34 • May 2013 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
had a production brewery since 1967. The brands (in the area) at that time were Kato Beers, Jordan, and Regal. If they’d had a local market, things might have gone differently, but at that time, there were Hamm’s and the big national brands taking over and cannibalizing some of the small regional breweries. That’s also when you see beer being made cheaper, and prices were dropping significantly.” Marge Leiferman, whose father owned the Mankato Brewing Company during its final years, explained that there were internal difficulties, while a Free Press article from 1967 lists a litany of problems, both internal and external — with management, with money, with taxation, with local support. The Mankato Brewing Company had been founded in May 1933 by Gerald R. Martin of Minneapolis in an attempt to revive its predecessor, Bierbauer Brewing, which had closed during Prohibition. Bierbauer had been in business since 1857, and despite heavy competition during the 1870s and 1880s, thrived right up until beer was banned in 1920. When it closed, the Bierbauer brewery could produce 25,000 barrels per year.