Tap Talk: North Loop's Inbound Brewco

Over the last five-plus 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. For the next brewery, Tap Talk is taking a trip to the North Loop in Minneapolis and visiting Inbound Brewco.

The origins of this brewery/taproom all began with a familiar brand out of Minnetonka, Lucid Brewing Company.

The name "Lucid", however, is no more.

In its place is North Loop BrewCo, which owns both Lucid's classic brews (they are still being brewed!) and now its newest taproom in Minneapolis' North Loop: Inbound Brewco.

For a suburban business, it's quite the journey – hence the "Inbound" name.

"We grew up in the suburbs and we were 'Inbound' to downtown and we want to fully embrace our new location, which is North Loop," the brewery's marketing communications director, Spencer Ploessl, said.

The new taproom is a result of the brewery owners, John Messier and Eric Biermann, wanting to branch out and make a completely different beer experience than the full distribution, full package experience that was the Lucid Brewing Company brand.

And they want the Inbound beers to have a different personality than their main distributed beers from North Loop Brewco, too.

"We're going to do a wide gamut of things," Ploessl said. "We want to stay true to their styles but we will go off-style, we will do some crazy off-the-wall things – because we can. We want to get the brewers back to having a lot of fun."

Just to name a few, here are some of Inbound's beers to take note of: Wild Rice Porter, Apricot Pale Ale, American IPA and Imperial Saison. '

For more on those beers, and the business in general, check out my interview with Spencer Ploessl below!

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From what I gather, the journey to opening the taproom in Minneapolis was a long one. What was the spark that encouraged the owners into quitting their corporate jobs? And can you elaborate more on what brought the whole business to this point?

The two co-owners of the original Lucid Brewing Company out of Minnetonka, John Messier and Eric Biermann, were longtime homebrew guys with 25 years of experience behind them. They met at a homebrew club in Minneapolis.

That's when they decided to do the whole quit-the-corporate-job thing and wanted to open up their own brewery. So, they opened up Lucid Brewing. Lucid opened in November of 2011, started in June of 2000.

From there, Lucid gained traction and grew as a brand for the last five years.

Most recently, the two co-owners have decided to open up our newest place, Inbound BrewCo, branch out and make a completely different beer experience than the full distribution, full package experience that was the Lucid Brewing Company brand.

Lucid Brewing Company is no longer any more. Lucid Brewing has adopted a new name, which is North Loop BrewCo. The adoption of that new name comes from a full representation of our new space and new area, which is the North Loop of Minneapolis: The beating heart of the city, the capitol of the north, if you will.

So, those guys embraced that new name. All the beers that you've known under that Lucid name are still all the same: Air, which is 100 percent Citra Blonde; Photo, which is a west coast-style IPA; Duo, which is our double IPA.

All those names and beer styles are still all the same, still packaged in bottles and kegs, and go out to market. It's just the name that is now changed.

Now, we've opened up our brand new taproom and brewery experience, which is Inbound BrewCo. What it is is that we grew up in the suburbs and we were "Inbound" to downtown and we want to fully embrace our new location, which is North Loop.

We're keeping both brands completely separate. Why? Because one is a production brand for six-packs and kegs out in the general market and one is a taproom experience. You have to come to Inbound BrewCo's taproom in order to get the beers here.

They are two different beer experiences that we want to keep completely separate.

How did you decide on this location?

We were actually looking at western edge. We wanted to keep ourselves out in that market place. But as we came down here, we looked for multiple different building and this one actually happened to be it through the grapevine. You just meet the right people, the building was here and through a couple different partnerships we were able to lock the place down.

It used to be an old recycling sorting facility. Bulldozers and bobcats were in here just pushing stuff, sorting it, putting it on trucks and it'd leave.

We want to harken back to that industrial age here. There's some history in this building. There's still trolley car tracks that are laid in the building that we left -- we didn't rip them up. Keep it very industrial. We grew up in a warehouse in the suburbs and we wanted to leave it like that. Very functional, we have a stage for live music, kept the mess hall seating to have a lot of people interacting, all the open doors, so it feels very open.

And we have a lot of natural light so when you're inside it actually feels like you're outside.

On to beer: What's the philosophy behind the brews?

Because we've been doing production brewing for the last five years, it comes down to a lot of regimented schedules and forecasting, right? Distribution needs what it needs to get to their liquor stores and bars.

But here, we wanted to have the beer experience be free-flowing, more like that brewpub style. Granted, we're not a brewpub, we don't sell food here, but we do have food trucks.

But we wanted it to be that rotating styles. We have 32 different lines of beer, technically, so we're going to have 12 different rotating styles of Inbound beer. We're going to have six different craft sodas and coffees on tap, and then two different cask beer engine offerings. Right now, we don't have the cask offerings or sodas, but the rotating style concept is to offer something for the average consumer and the connoisseur.

And doing beers that are close to home as well.

One of our (customers') favorite styles here that we have right now is our Wild Rice Baltic Porter. It's brewed with actual wild rice. People are really loving it. That, as well as our apricot pale ale. So, the ability to do different things. Having that small brewing mentality – almost as if we're home-brewing.

We're going to do a wide gamut of things. We want to stay true to their styles but we will go off-style, we will do some crazy off-the-wall things – because we can. We want to get the brewers back to having a lot of fun. These guys know how to produce beers, so give em the freedom to make stuff that they enjoy in hopes that patrons and consumers will do as well.

I'm curious if there will be a conflict of priorities of the North Loop distribution beers and Inbound …

The business-side, no, because it's all calendared out. We know what we need (for North Loop beers), when we need it. And here, for the Inbound beers, we have it tightly inventoried. We know what we have and what we don't have when we see what's going through the tap lines to the consumer.

On the brewery side of it, the brewers themselves, that's all very regimented as well. They know what they need. They know forecasting for the North Loop brand for distribution. So, that's easy … those guys have been brewing those beers for the last five years and honed in on them so well…. that, after a while, it takes away the fun of brewing.

Eric Biermann says he just wants to have his brewers getting back to having fun. That's where the Inbound beers come in. They can have fun making beers like Wild Rice Porter, Apricot Pale Ale, and Imperial Saison, you know?

So, all the brewers work on the standard North Loop brews as well as the Inbound beers – at the same time?

Yup – 100 percent.

Could you describe a few of your favorite beers?

Our American IPA is fresh, dank, juicy beer. Not overly hoppy like a double IPA.

The Apricot Pale Ale has good hoppy-ness for the pale ale that it is, but the apricot itself shines pretty nice. It's not overly fruity by any means. It's not a fruity beer. But the hop profile brings out the apricot flavor very well.

The Wild Rice Porter is one of my favorites. It's got a caramel, nutty characteristic. It's about 8.2 percent (ABV). It's a pretty big beer, but it's pretty easy drinking if you're a dark beer connoisseur.

You're the marketing guy – so how do you utilize social media for the brewery?

To me, social media is a two-way conversation. The conversation we've been having here in real life is no different than it should be online, except for all you have in between us is this (picks up phone). I haven't met you in real life until today because we've been conversing via our technology.

Brands in general need to be very attentive of their consumers and those who don't fall short very quickly and become distrusted. Literally anytime somebody tweets at us, Facebook messages us, even if they don't tag us, I'm there trying to find them, like them and comment on it. Because if you don't at least acknowledge them with a like from the brand, then what is it?

When a brand enjoys what the customer is doing, the customer has a greater affinity for that company.

So, I'm all over it, man (laughs).

What's next for the brewery? Any goals/ambitions?

We're just trying to fit in, you know? The pendulum is swinging and we're trying to get it to settle right in here at the North Loop.

We've never done a real taproom before. We want to become that neighborhood taproom. Even if you want to just come out here and just hang out, we want to be that community place.