Welcome to The New Brewery of Glewwe's Castle Brewery,  Prior Lake, Minnesota USA Home Made Root Beer since 1994

Since 1994, Mark has been borrowing Laurel's kitchen for his brewing activities.  Occasionally, the brewing may move out onto propane burners, but inevitably, he was using the kitchen for bottling, labeling, cleaning, etc.  With the advent of the root beer sales at the Prior Lake Farmers Market and the volume exceeding anyone's most optimistic projections, she insisted to have her kitchen back by the end of the 2006 market season.

So Mark & Erik sat down and started to jot down some ideas.  Upstairs loft with bedroom, shower, and stool for guests (and when Laurel kicks us out to the dog house).  Attached machine shed.  And many other grandiose ideas.  In the end, we had visions of a 30x60 building, in-floor heat, walk-in cooler, and NSF equipment (including a stainless steel 3-bassin sink).  We even built a Legos® model to visualize the concept better.  While visiting the 2005 Minnesota State Fair, we discovered GenCon Construction in Jordan, Minnesota.  They built an EPS solid core building with lots of insulation, etc., and took kindly to the idea of building a "little shed" for a man's brewing hobby.  After some negotiations of cost, schedule, and features - the plans were drawn up for a 28'x52' shed, floating concrete slab floor with in-floor heat, a 8'x8' walk-in cooler, a 12'x8' storage closet, lights, electric, water, and a 15'x30' patio in front.  After the location moved up to the top of the hill behind the house, it was clear that we had the plans for a real nice "shed".

Construction began the first week of April after a late March snowstorm.  We had to remove a half dozen trees to make room for the building - then there was excavation and the digging the trench for water & power from the house.  But in the end, Mark & Erik both love the building.  It pretty much finished up after 6 weeks in mid-May.  The naming of the building is still up in the air, but the current favorites are:

Feel free to make a suggestion and vote for your favorite.  Judges decisions are final.

The whole Glewwe family hopes you enjoy the results of this project.  Our products are still made by hand in keeping with a traditional old world charm.

We now have room for more production, research and development, and some entertaining.  In fact, Erik's High School graduation party was the first event to utilize the brewery entertainment facilities. We expect the annual corn feed will have a new venue, and Mark & Laurel are much more interested in renewing the annual Oktoberfest.  If you would like a tour of the brewery, please feel free to contact us.

The Entrepreneur

The final draft plans

Let the construction begin

There sure are a lot of pieces to this puzzle

Start with the floor, complete with in-floor heating

The walls go up and up

And we get water & power from the house

And the inside is starting to take shape

And we found a SS Sink

SW corner of interior, set up for Thanksgiving Dinner. We do quite a lot of entertaining up at the brewery.	NW corner of the interior, with a eternal Christmas Theme. Notice the pub tables.
NE corner of the interior, with casks, equipment, and the sink.	SE Corner of the interior, with cooler, taps,  and stein collection.

And we even have a sign welcoming our guests.