It’s that time of year again - time to reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re headed. For all of us at Portage, 2019 brought the opportunity to begin again, thanks to the incredible support that poured in since the fire.
Despite the loss that kicked off our year, we spent the last 12 months rebuilding, collabing, and having some pretty fantastic moments with our good friends, family and the beer community.
HERE'S A LOOK BACK AT OUR YEAR:
JAN 6 - THE FIRE
We lost our taproom and brewery to a stupid fire. Luckily no one was hurt, but we all felt the loss of our building deeply. We wasted no time getting back to work and figuring out how to best rebuild a new home for our brewery on the shores of Leech Lake.
FEB 6 - BENT PADDLE
SCANDAHAZIAN COLLAB RELEASE
We love you Bent Paddle. One month after the fire, our friends in Duluth re-released a prior collab - Scandahazian, with donations being raised for our effort at their official release party. We danced, drank some wonderful DIPA, and appreciate everything they've done for us.
FEB 16 - MODIST BREWING COLLAB
Double Sun Protection Factor, a collaboration with Modist Brewing, was released. Not only did our friends at Modist offer to rebrew our Sun Protection Factor collaboration, this time they also donated all sales to our rebuild effort. Wow. You guys are truly the best and we are forever grateful.
APR 29 - FINALIZED PORTAGE 2.0 PLANS
One of the best days since the fire, our architects onsite visit for final review of Portage 2.0. Linden Group Architects were integral in getting our ideas and vision for the space down on paper.
We can't thank them enough for this beautiful space we get to spend every day in.
APR 25 - BACK CHANNEL COLLAB
Amidst our inability to brew commercially during the rebuild, we were gifted with time and friends to help us pursue interesting and innovative experiments. And what better way to test one of those out, than with an old friend who inspired me to take homebrewing seriously, and the head brewer at Back Channel, Marc Makarem. Together we sat down to brew up the very sessionable Sangsue NEPA.
MAY 1 - BROKE GROUND ON REBUILD
Waiting for winter to vacate was among the most challenging times for our team - as the ground was frozen solid, and prevented any of our construction teams from beginning work.
This day marked the beginning of it all, as footings started to form.
MAY 31 - BLACKSTACK COLLAB
Midnight Marauders was let lose into the world.
In this recipe, we pushed everything to the max - showcasing a rich and malty stout base, beneath layers of chilis, cacao nibs, vanilla, cinnamon, and cocoa powder.
Thanks for having us BlackStack.
JUN 24 - HIT INDIEGOGO GOAL
We did it. We successfully funded our #rebuildportage Indiegogo Campaign, with only a few hours to spare. Big thanks to all of YOU, the 370 Indiegogo backers and the 101 supporters from GoFundMe who helped us raise $36,433 - which freed us up with space to design our taproom and product experiences for a better Portage 2.0.
JUL 21 - RARE BEER PICNIC / JUNKYARD COLLAB
Thanks to our friends at Junkyard Brewing, we were able to attend and pour at our favorite Rare Beer Picnic again. This year, brought to you by Junkyard and Portage, a barrel fermented table beer, with a mixed pitch of brettanomyces yeast and bacteria, which was then refermented on fresh apricots and peaches.
AUG 4 - INCAHOOTS / FAIRSTATE COLLAB
We’ve been attending Incahoots as purveyors since 2015, but this year we teamed up with Fair State Brewing, against a parking lot of other fantastic breweries, to bring you a peach tea infused table beer that was keg conditioned for all the wonderful tiny bubbles.
AUG 13 - FUNK FACTORY COLLAB
We can’t thank the crew at Funk Factory Geuzeria and Working Draft Beer enough for hosting us. We reached out to these guys a few months back with an idea to brew a spontaneous beer the only way we know how, with heaps of wild flowers for inoculation. We spent the morning harvesting black eyed susans, goldenrod, sunflowers, and a bunch of other pollinating flowers - Wisconsin is beautiful.
SEP 7 - NEW TANKS DELIVERED
Best day yet. Tanks started arriving back to the brewery. Doubling our brewhouse and cellar capacity meant a fast lesson about engineering and moving, but it’s home and safe. So much fun and the energy around Walker and the brewery continues to gain positive momentum as we plan for our reopening.
OCT 18 - FIRST BREW DAY
Our brewhouse and wood cellar are complete and we were able to brew our first beer in the new space.
We can’t express what this means to our team and we look forward to serving you all again.
NOV 30 - SOFT OPENING
328 days since the fire that destroyed our brewery we completed our rebuild and opened our doors for a very soft opening.
Many locals and a few out of town friends made it in to see our space for the first time.
DEC 7 - WE ARE OFFICIALLY REOPEN!
To end our year, we finally reopened our doors and were completely humbled by the crew that showed up.
Thank you to all our friends, family, staff, volunteers, and other supporters who came from near and far to celebrate this day with us.
We love you and are forever grateful.
As we look forward to 2020, we’re excited to return to what we do best, advancing our craft with engaging beers. We’ve always led with this, and will continue to focus on pushing the limits of lager, farmhouse, and experimental brewing. 2019 gave us the space to learn, tinker, and refocus Portage 2.0’s approach, and we can’t wait to share it all with you. Happy New Year, friends. On ahead.