Summit Brewing Company

Summit Brewing Company
Location St. Paul, Minnesota
United States
Opened 1986
Annual production volume 129,000 US beer barrels (151,000 hL) in 2015[1]
Active beers
Name Type
Summit Extra Pale Ale English Pale Ale
Summit Pilsener Pilsener
Summit True Brit IPA English IPA
Summit Great Northern Porter American Porter
Summit Horizon Red IPA Red Ale IPA Hybrid
Summit Saga IPA American IPA
Summit Oatmeal Stout Oatmeal stout
Seasonal beers
Name Type
Summit Maibock (Spring) Maibock / helles bock
Summit Summer Ale (Summer) Kölsh Style
Summit Oktoberfest (Fall) Märzen
Summit Winter Ale (Winter) Winter warmer
Other beers
Name Type
Summit Unchained Series (New style released three times a year) varied
Summit Union Series varied

Summit Brewing Company is a regional craft brewery in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States, that brews a wide selection of popular beers. It is sometimes mistakenly believed to be a microbrewery, even though Summit's output is in the top 50 of breweries in the United States, with approximately 129,000 barrels of beer produced in 2015, and a capacity of 240,000 barrels per year.[1][2] Their flagship beer, an English Pale Ale (branded Summit Extra Pale Ale) is especially popular in the Twin Cities area.

The Summit Brewery in St. Paul, Minnesota

The brewery was founded in 1986 by local brewer Mark Stutrud and a group of his friends in an old auto parts warehouse on St. Paul's University Avenue. Their beers quickly became local favorites, and the company began to grow rapidly. In 1987, the Great Northern Porter won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival and was featured on the cover of Michael Jackson's New World Guide to Beer (1988). By 1998 the company's beer production had exceeded the capacity of the original University Avenue brewery, and a new brewery, designed by architect Peter O'Brien, was built on the west end of St. Paul, overlooking the Mississippi River.[3] Having outgrown it, Summit sold its 1938-vintage brewing equipment to Mt. Shasta Brewing Company in Northern California.[4] They then purchased a set of brewing equipment built in 1971 from the Hürnerbräu Brewery in Ansbach Germany.

In 2009 Summit launched the Unchained Series. The brewery asks their brewers to brew any beer of their choice, which they then bottle, keg, and sell. Styles have included Kölsch, Belgian Golden Ale, Black Ale, Gold Sovereign Ale, Honeymoon Saison, Imperial Pumpkin Porter, Dunkel Weizen & India Rye Ale. Unchained Batch 14, a Bière de Garde, was released in October 2013 [5]

As of 2007, Summit beers were available from distributors in 18 U.S. states (CO, FL, IA, IL, IN, KY, MI, MN, MO, MT, ND, NE, NJ, OH, PA, SD, TX, and WI). The brewery currently brews six year-round styles, a variety of seasonal, and a limited release beers.[6] As of 2010, it was the second-largest brewery in Minnesota (31st largest in the United States), after August Schell Brewing Company.[7]

References

  1. 1 2 Neal St. Anthony; Patrick Kennedy (5 July 2016). "Summit Brewing, at 30, finds itself in crowded craft beer market". StarTribune. StarTribune Media, LLC. Archived from the original on 4 July 2016. Retrieved 14 August 2016.
  2. Depass, Dee (2 May 2013). "Summit Brewing's $13 million expansion in St. Paul gets busy". Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Retrieved 3 October 2014.
  3. "Summit Brewing Company History". Retrieved June 7, 2007.
  4. Unkefer, Charlie (October 22, 2008). "Mt. Shasta Brewing comes out on top (again)". Mount Shasta Herald. MtShastaNews.com.
  5. "Summit Releases Unchained Batch 14: Biere de Garde". Retrieved December 12, 2013.
  6. "Summit Brewing Company". Retrieved December 1, 2009.
  7. "List Leaders: Minnesota Breweries". Retrieved May 11, 2012.

Coordinates: 44°54′50″N 93°8′22″W / 44.91389°N 93.13944°W / 44.91389; -93.13944

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