Greetings from the North Country.
Today, we're experiencing bitter, subzero temperatures and it hurts to breathe outside! Its always amazing to see snowmobilers whizzing by the brewery, and countless ice houses on Leech Lake. The Eel Pout festival is just around the corner and Inside, were brewing our very first beer at the brewery. While it's only a 5 gallon test batch, the realization and excitement that we've made it this far makes it a big milestone for our team.
The building is starting to take shape as walls go up, and brewhouse floors go down. Natural local wood covers our walls and will make up a big portion of our taproom as this past summer a massive storm ripped through our area, taking down a record number of trees. With that abundance of fallen trees, we decided to include a bigger presence of wood than we originally planned. Not only are these materials cheaper for us to buy, but most of it just needs to be used before it rots. From our taproom walls and floors, to the vertical beams holding our building up, natural wood will make up a majority of the sights you'll see while inside our brewery. Smells great and is starting to feel a bit like home.
In coming weeks, the final pieces of tin and flooring will be installed with our brewing equipment arriving later this month. We hope you'll stay in touch and subscribe to our newsletter, where more updates will be coming.
On ahead,
-Portage Brewing Team