Tap Talk: Enki Brewing

Over the last five years, the craft brewery movement has grown exponentially in Minnesota. The Associated Press says licensing records show two-thirds of Minnesota breweries have opened just since 2010. So, we decided to help you – and your livers – keep up with the taproom trend by stopping by some of these Twin Cities brewhouses. Next up, Victoria's own Enki Brewing.

There's a common idea that things get better with age.

It's true with red wine. It's true with bourbons.  And, it's true with breweries.

In 1980, John Hayes and Dan Norton both worked for Nike.

The two became close, bonding over their desire to find unique beers beyond the Budweiser and Miller Lights.  During their quests to English and Irish pubs, they threw around the idea of one day opening a brewery.

A few years later, Hayes left Nike and went into the pharmaceutical business. Norton stayed designing shoes for the next 30 odd years.

Then, in 2012, the pair came back together, still holding on to the idea of working for themselves at their own brewery.

Hayes had moved up to Victoria, Minn. in 1991, and even with a burgeoning craft beer market the Twin Cities were still small enough to allow room for growth among newcomers. So, they became the newest comer to the craft beer boom.

"Everyone was opening breweries in Northeast Minneapolis," Norton said. "So, we thought, "Let's come out into the suburbs, find a cool place." And that's what we did."

Despite their appreciation for craft beer, Hayes and Norton felt they would be more successful if they brought in someone with expertise in brewing. So, in 2013 head brewer Jason Davis joined the team.

The three began the process of beginning their businesses by securing a building. When the first location fell through, a building that housed a creamery in 1917 and sat alongside Steiger Lake became the home of Enki Brewing.

"We didn't wait until we had six beers," Norton said. "We made one beer and it was ready to serve so we opened the doors."

Finally, in 2013, 33 years after its founders met, Enki Brewing was officially open for business.

Enki Brewing

Follow them: on Twitter @enkibrewing, Facebook at Enki Brewing or visit their website Enki Brewing online.

Owners: John Hayes and Dan Norton

Head Brewer: Jason Davis

Location: 7929 Victoria Dr., Victoria

Hours: Wednesday and Thursday: 4 – 10 p.m., Friday: 2 – 10 p.m., Saturday: 12 – 10 p.m., Sunday: 12 – 6 p.m.

Contact: 952-300-8408

You mentioned that Victoria was your second location. Where were you looking at first?

Norton: We were originally going to Waconia. We were going to go into kind of a big tin building; a cement floor and a tin building.

That seems very different from the look of this building. How did you land on it as the location of Enki?

Norton: When the first one fell through we found out about this place and it was cool. It looked like a brewery. It was built in 1917. It was a creamery. So, we rented it and cleaned it out. We didn't change the building so much as we just cleaned it up; painted it up, patched holes, put some new windows in, we had to put in real bathrooms, the code stuff. But, we've kind of kept the scars and kept it the way it was. It's got a really unique atmosphere and character.

So, did the building influence the naming of the brewery? Why did you decide on "Enki?"

Norton: Enki is the Sumerian god of water and mischief. The Sumerians were the first ones to really start agriculture, they started written language and they were the first to brew beer. The Sumerians were a pretty advanced civilization at the time. There's a second meaning, [as well.] It's also the same four letters of Nike. We don't promote that much, but that's kind of an inside thing that is kind of meaningful to John and I.

That's a nice, hidden homage to your past! So, you and John both had a love of unique beers, did you homebrew before opening the brewery?

Norton: John and I kind of took a different tact than a lot of your typical breweries. A lot of your brewers and breweries are started by homebrewers. I've homebrewed, John's homebrewed. Probably the only guy who hasn't homebrewed much is our brewer. (laughs) We didn't feel that homebrewing qualified us to be a brewer. So we took more of a business perspective rather than just being a homebrewer trying to amplify our hobby. Jason knew a lot about beer, John and I didn't. The reason we had Jason really come on board [was so] we could use his expertise to kind of get us going.

I can see how that would help with the learning curve of using larger equipment and being more consistent with each brew. Did you ever want to try brewing your homebrew recipes?

Norton: Our original intention was to be a commercial brewery with very little after thought to a taproom. The taprooms were pretty new at the time. And immediately the taproom, it was very profitable for us to say the least.

So it seems like a few parts of Enki had to go through two drafts before becoming what it is now. Tell me about your slogan, "Making the world a better place two beers at a time."

Norton: That came about [because] we'd rather have you come in and have a beer with someone else and make friends, or bring a friend. It's a lot of easier to make friends if you're drinking with somebody.

Davis: We have a new slogan too, "Better Together." But, it's such a friendly and cool place that even if you do come in and have a beer [alone] the bartenders, and I've done this many times, [will say] "Oh, Joe well this is Brad!" And then you make some new friends. So just to kind of make that environment and also to live it.

How does the idea of friendliness influence the taproom?

Norton: If you want to put an atmosphere to it, I describe it as a coffee shop that sells beer. [We're] really family friendly. We purposefully try not to be a bar. The atmosphere here is a little bit different than a lot of the taprooms.

So, how has having a bit of a different taproom atmosphere and being a bit away from the craft-centric Northeast Minneapolis affected your taproom, if at all?

Norton: It hasn't seem to hurt our business at all. Vitoria itself has 7,300 people.

Davis: We get people from St. Paul. You know, doing different events, having beer on tap, selling around. I think that once we do all that, it becomes a destination. We get people from Minneapolis and all over the place. We had people here from St. Bonifacius.

Norton: It's a drive-to destination.

You opened a year after Excelsior, and now Waconia has been open for about seven to eight months. With the addition of the third brewery, have you felt like that has hurt business?

Davis: No, I don't think so. It's actually helping it. And the reason why I say that is, between us and Excelsior, we've always had this bike trail that is seven miles. People go here, they start here or vice versa and you'll see people on in Excelsior clothes on their bike or in our clothes on their bike. And with Waconia, we're doing a lot more tours. So, we support it. If they're coming here and haven't been there, we always suggest got to Shram, go to Waconia, go here, go there, and then get more familiar with the area. We're very friendly with all of them. If anything, we don't bicker or badger between us but our customers do. All day long. (laughs)

Norton: Now we're kind of creating our own little circle of influence you could say. It's unique and it gives people a chance to get out of the city.

Definitely! Also a great excuse to get out of the city for a little day trip. You've recently worked with the other breweries on created a beer for the Taste of Minnesota. How did that come about?

Norton: The Taste of Minnesota moved to Waconia last year simply because of the flooding they had in St. Paul. Last year they had no craft beers, no local beers. This year they had a specific craft building on the fair grounds. So, John [Davis] somehow got in the same room with John Klick from Excelsior. And Klick, his expertise is marketing. They said something about a collaboration, [Kilck] said "Let's get some craft beer at the Taste of Minnesota. Let's get some Minnesota beer in there." You know how a scribble on a napkin can grow into something more? That's what happened.

Tell me about the experience of bringing three different brewers together to create one beer.

Norton: Collaborations are not as simple as you'd imagine them to be. It's also the legal side, what you're allowed to do legally. We brewed it here. You have to brew it in one place and we're the only one that can sell it. We can't sell it to Excelsior or Waconia. They can make another one, but they'd have to make it at their brewery in order to sell it.

Davis: It was a lot of fun working with those guys. And we're all [friendly]; all brewers are friendly. It really worked out well. All of us got together and started talking about the beer and thinking about the customer first – what are people going to buy at the Taste of Minnesota? And Niles (Excelsior's head brewer) had his expertise, I had mine and Tom (Waconia's head brewer) had his, so we just kind of went, "You're in charge of malt, you're in charge of hops I'm in charge of brewing it." It really worked out well. It was a lot of fun.

What was the beer that you sold called? How did it perform at the Taste?

Norton: Triad. We did well. The Triad did well. It was a local beer by three local breweries and it was by far the best seller. It's an IPA but it's a little bit more of a sessionable IPA. It was the best seller.

That's great! It's great to see such an interest in local beer. So, let's talk about your beer specifically. What do you have on tap?

Davis: Right now we have eight different beers. Normally we have six to seven, but we added the Triad. We added whatever was left over [from the Taste of Minnesota.] It'll be gone soon, really soon. Then a couple weeks ago we made a beer for our anniversary. We made a nice Belgian strong ale for that. So we have that in addition too. Our seasonal beer is a Hefe Weiss – Hootenanny Hefe Weis. Pretty awesome. And then we have our five main beers. Our main beers are Victoria's Gold, which is really popular here in the taproom. Just a golden, blond ale. I do a Journey Pale Ale, which is a traditional English style pale ale. Medium hops, probably about medium in color. We just changed our red to call it our Reunion Red, going along with that drinking together and getting together [theme.] That is a red American ale. Malty, ruby kind of color. And then we do the CACAO porter, which is really a great beer for us. At first it was a seasonal. We use organic chocolate in it and it's a porter, so it's black. We sell a lot of it in the winter. But it sold all summer too. So, we decided to put it in bottles. And the other year round beer and Tail Feather, obviously the IPA.

Which is the most popular beer in terms of sales?

Norton: Tail Feather.

Davis: Taproom only – the gold.

Norton: Tail Feather is number two [in the taproom.] In kegs, Tail Feather is number one and in bottles Tail Feather is number one.

Are you working on anything special for the fall? Do you know what your next seasonal might be?

Norton: We're working on a beer for a festival here, a town festival called Volksfest, [which will be August 14, 15 and 16.] We're going to be making a grapefruit gold. We're taking our gold recipe and grapefruit, something that is really light, summery, easy to drink.

That sounds delicious! So, what is both of your favorite beers?

Davis: My favorite goes back to the Journey Pale Ale. A really good English style pale ale to me is probably my go-to beer. When I'm going out of town, in other cities, other breweries that's always my go-to. It's just a style that I really enjoy.

Norton: Mine right now is the reunion red. And that's partly because it's the closest thing we have to a German Dunkel. I lived in Germany for four years so my taste in beer is more of that German beer.

For people that may not live out in the western suburbs, or travel there much, how can they taste your beer?

Norton: [We're at] 85 [locations.] Plus, [we're adding] another 15 liquor stores. So, we're probably at over 100 locations. We do bottle now. They're called bombers, 22 oz. bombers. We bottle two beers, two of our favorites; our Tail Feather IPA and our CACAO porter. We also periodically bottle a creamer reserve, which is barrel-aged beer that we do 200 bottles at a time. The first one we did, we opened at 4 p.m. [and] had a line out of the door. Three hours later, it was gone.

Davis: And you know a lot of brewers out there are doing that [thing where] you can only buy two. Dangerous Man is one of the guys that did that. So we did the same thing, you could only buy two. And still, three hours – gone.

As your two year anniversary approaches, tell me what have you found most challenging about opening and brewery?

Norton: The legal issues are challenging. The restrictions. There are so many things you can't do. You know, I turned in all the paperwork to the TTB, 99 pages just to apply to get a license. And the number of licenses you have to have is just staggering. We have to have a license for one of us to run the boiler. You need a license to off sale, you need a license to serve, you need the commercial license to wholesale. The licensing and the legal side is challenging.

Davis: John [Hayes], I've heard him give the advice to quite a few people that "Just be diligent." Fill out the paper. They want you to fill out another paper, fill it out. It's time consuming but just keep with it.

Has there been anything about the process of opening that has really surprised you?

Norton: Just the people we've met and the friends that we've made. The atmosphere has been great as a result of our be friendly attitude. And it's not just our customers, it's the businesses around us. We don't have food trucks; we work with local restaurants. We get our garbage picked up by a local guy. We had our first grand opening and every business brought food, flowers and everything else you could imagine.

Davis: We had a ribbon cutting and it was pretty touching.

Norton: It's been a real community thing which has been really surprising about it.

That's great! It sounds like the town really embraces your be friendly philosophy as well So, to finish up, how would you describe Enki in one word?

Norton: Can I use two words? Coffee shop.

Davis: Friendly. Because our beers are always friendly. They're easy to drink and they're approachable. The beers and the things we do for our customers and other businesses, all friendly.

Norton: That's our marketing strategy in two words, be friendly.