Old World Flavor

After just a few minutes in the small town of New Ulm, Minnesota and you'll see just how deep their German heritage runs. Outdoor speakers pipe German music throughout downtown and on most afternoons you'll find New Ulmers at B & L Bar throwing back their favorite beverage.

Locally brewed August Schell beer is king around these parts. No surprise, since it's been brewed here almost as long as New Ulm has been a city! German immigrant August Schell came to the U.S. in 1856 and four years later he was brewing beer on the banks of the Minnesota River. Obviously it was a 100 percent German town back then and August Schell was producing lager beers and he was a smart man and a good brewer. And he actually brought his son Otto Schell on as a brewmaster. And after Otto Schell died, the brewery was in the hands of George and Emma Marti, August Schell's daughter. Then Alfred Marti, Warren Marti and in 1985 it was .Ted Marti".

Ted proudly adds, "Five generations later and we're still here. We almost got burned down in Dakota uprising, and we survived World War I, depression, prohibition.Today the brewery stands on the same site August Schell started brewing 148 years ago."

Fifteen styles of beer are made here from Schell's Dark to a Pale Ale. The brewery is listed on the National Register of Historic Sites and open for tours. We took a trip through the brewery. As we looked over the equipment, Ted pointed out that brewing beer hasn't changed much since August Schell's time, but because they're producing 80 thousand barrels a year, the process is pretty streamlined now. Barley is shipped from farm fields in the western United States to a malting facility and then Schell's brew house. Four kettles are used for the first steps in turning malted barley into frothy brew.

The "mashing" processes mixes the grain with water. Then it's heated, activating the enzymes in the malted barley and converting the starch to sugar. Then you get something called "wort." The next process takes place in a tank called a laudertun which separates the spent grains from the liquids. Incidentally, that spent grain is loaded onto trucks and shipped to dairy farms where it is used as food.

Meantime the wort is in the pre-fermentation mode where it's filled with vitamins as well as near ready beer. And after that it's boiled and hops are added for bitterness and flavor.Is it beer yet? No. Not beer yet. Still wort and still beer wort. The wort is off to be fermented for up to 10 days and then aged in cellars for several weeks. For beer lovers, it's worth the wait. And no brewery tour is complete without a stop at the tasting room!

Ted is proud of the company's products and points out the variety of dark beers, pilsners and seasonal specialties. Of course it hasn't always been fun and froth around here. Prohibition forced more than one thousand breweries across the US out of business. Schell's survived by brewing other sodas, non-alcoholic beer and making candies. And the year that prohibition started is now immortalized in the kegs of "1919" root beer that roll off the line. It's Dar Kjelshus' job to fill and cork the kegs before they go out the door.

He has a particular style and showed me how you fill the kegs, knock in a plug and send them on their way. As Dar says, "It smells good. Smells like root beer. It's a little bit of a mess. When I get home my girlfriend says I'm the sweetest man on earth.