BISMARCK - North Dakota has the right ingredients: barley, beer drinkers and Germans. So, why no beer?
Some local residents with brewing hobbies hope to move their beer-making out of their basements and bring back a business that's been missing here since 1965. Plans for a microbrewery and a brewpub are in the works.
Mike Frohlich, a Bismarck homebrewer and former assistant brewmaster for a brewpub in Dickinson, N.D., is working with a partner to open a bar that would serve beer brewed on-site. They are still looking for a location in Bismarck or Mandan, N.D., and working through license and legal requirements.
"In the best-case scenario, we'd love it to be open at the end of this summer," he said. He plans a brewing operation able to keep five kinds of ale on tap in a tavern that emphasizes beer over food. "I really want to concentrate on beer," said Frohlich, who's brewed beer since 1995. "My IPA (India pale ale) is almost down to where I want it ... My porter's really close to where it's supposed to be."
At the same time, another group of brewers is approaching the business from a different angle. Bismarck architect Dave Nelson and his family would like to open a small "nanobrewery" to produce about 300 barrels a year by 2011. The project is still somewhere between a business and a hobby for Nelson and his adult children, who came up with the idea in a Minnesota lake cabin during a family vacation.
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"It's just something we conjured up this summer," Nelson said. The family divided up tasks, including licensing and legal paperwork, marketing plans and perfecting a few beer styles for production, a job that fell to son Paul Nelson.
A microbrewery produces beer on a small scale, often for a local market, though some companies, such as Samuel Adams, sell large amounts nationally. A nanobrewery is an even smaller operation, though both terms have no formal definitions. Most of the companies embrace craft brewing, which emphasizes ales and other styles that are more complex than most mass-marketed American beers.
The Nelsons are calling their project Edwinton Brewing, after Bismarck's name before it was changed to flatter a German chancellor. Frohlich said he and his partner were still kicking names around.
The Nelsons and Frohlich are still looking for locations for their operations. The Mandan (N.D.) City Commission recently passed an ordinance that would make it easier to sell alcohol made on premises, but Frohlich said he is considering sites in both towns.
Brewing ventures have never taken root in Bismarck, despite a couple of attempts and a healthy thirst here -- North Dakota ranks fourth in per capita beer consumption at 41.7 gallons a year, according to the Beer Institute.
Paul Nelson, a chemist from the Twin Cities, said a local beer would fill in a missing piece of the local bar and restaurant scene, something the area would embrace.
"North Dakota is kind of considered a dead zone for craft brewing," he said. "It's a perfect fit for Bismarck. People have always been supportive of local business."
Bismarck's biggest attempt at brewing was an expensive flop. Dakota Malting and Brewing Co. of Bismarck raised $850,000 through 3,600 stockholders to build a large operation at the corner of Main Avenue and 26th Street in 1961. Dakota beer never caught on, though. Bad-tasting initial batches soured the public on the beer.
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Despite support from the state's bar owners, Dakota was unable to cover its costs and closed in 1965. Miller Brewing of Milwaukee market tested a Dakota beer in 1986 but quickly scrapped the brand.
The Dakota company was a different type of business making a different type of beer than today's craft brewers, who make richer, more flavorful beers in a wider variety of styles than what is offered by the biggest beer companies.
Frohlich believes that people's taste for different kinds of beers has developed in recent years, as shown by the number of imports and microbrews now on tap in the area.
"It's definitely changed," he said. "People are gravitating to the idea that there is a better product out there and I don't have to drink what my dad drank."
