New beer business taps into town's brewing past

MONTGOMERY, MINN. – A symbol of Montgomery's past reappeared on the northwest side of town about 10 years ago — thanks to a power-washing project on the facade of an empty factory.

As Steve Simon sprayed layers of grime and paint from his recently acquired 130-year-old building, he uncovered giant letters spelling out the name of a product once bottled there.

"The Chief Beer" was a popular label for the old Montgomery Brewing Co., one of the bottling houses that once operated in the eastern Le Sueur County town.

Simon's discovery untapped lots of talk about the town's history, along with a discussion of a new business at the former plant.

Converting the 25,000-square-foot factory into apartments had been Simon's original plan. Although some of the repurposed building's space is leased out, its lower level is again in use as a beer business.

"My brewery was an afterthought," said Chuck Dorsey, co-owner of the small-scale operation that opened in December 2014.

Dorsey is married to Simon's daughter, Stephani. He's proprietor of the new Montgomery Brewing Co. A.J. Newton is the head brewer.

Several varieties of handcrafted beers are served to customers in a taproom, which is open for a limited number of hours five days a week in Montgomery, a city of about 3,000 people 50 miles south of the Twin Cities.

The taproom's decor makes it easy for customers to reminisce. Stories draw many of the town's residents to the 1882 landmark building. For example, in 1935, an industrious brewmaster lost his life while polishing the insides of his beer vats.

"Apparently he was overcome by the fumes," said Dale Ruhland, 67, the town's unofficial beer historian.

Ruhland, a local electrician, is the descendant of a Wisconsin brewmeister who worked for the founder of Pabst before starting his own bottling plant in Baraboo, Wis.

Early on a recent evening, Ruhland joined Montgomery residents Orville and Marilyn Richter, 92 and 86, respectively, at a taproom table.

Montgomery had been home to various breweries before 1920 when a federal law banned the manufacture and sale of alcohol. After Prohibition ended in 1933, E.P. Richter got back in the brewery business, his grandson said.

When settlers arrived in the late 1850s, a vast hardwood forest called the "Big Woods" covered Le Sueur County. Logging was the big business in the late 1800s, but beer-making took over around 1903, when the Milwaukee Railroad Co. built a branch line to meet other lines at Montgomery.

Immigrants from Czechoslovakia made up the majority of brewery employees during the first decades of the 20th century. "Those were glorious times for the brewery," Ruhland said.

A military draft in 1939 drained the brewery's workforce. The labor shortage resulted in the brewery's vats shutting down in 1941.

When Dorsey and Newton opened their operation at the site, it was one of the state's first breweries to take advantage of a new law allowing towns to permit Sunday growler sales, according to a 2015 Star Tribune story. Minnesota has about 130 breweries in operation today — slightly more than the number before Prohibition.