Missy Martens and her husband Jon own Copper State Brewing Company in Green Bay, which just turned three-years-old in June. If the building looks familiar to you, it might be because this is where Hinterland Brewery used to be located before they moved to Ashwaubenon. The couple actually bought the brewery before even buying a brew kit to try and make beer. Luckily, Jon’s an engineer and as Missy would say, “the process and everything makes sense to him.” Jon also took a six-week course at Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago that focused on the science behind brewing.
Breweries are just like any other business right now being impacted by COVID-19. They aren’t just affected because bars were shut down earlier this year, but now they have to worry about how many people are inside their business, and it’s also harder for them to get some of the ingredients and materials they need to make the beer. For example, there’s a big can shortage at the moment. She said the large companies are buying most of them, but the smaller places need them too. They aren’t selling as much draft beer since people aren’t going out as much so they need to try and sell canned beer.
Missy also explained how they get hops from all over the world and in some cases it’s harder to find. The good thing is that they have a hops broker. “He gets hops for us from all over the world…we get hops from New Zealand, and Australia, and we get some from Czechoslovakia, and from England…so we kind of have hops from all over,” Missy said. One of the reasons they do this is because hops that are grown in different places around the world pick up different characteristics, which leads to different tasting beers. If a brewery has too much, they have a type of Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist for brewers called a Lupulin Exchange where they can buy and sell from brewery to brewery.
Missy had some advice for anyone interested in becoming a brewer. She suggests that you give it a try working in someone else’s brewery before making a go of it on your own. Missy said that some people have a very “glorified” view of what it’s like to own a brewery and there’s way more too it than what you’d assume. “Some people can make great homebrew…but it’s a lot different to be running a business with it,” Missy said. She brought up how it’s a ton of cleaning, a ton of maintenance, and like most companies, you’ll have business headaches. There’s more that goes on than what you might see on TV or in the movies.
When I say there’s more to it, I mean it. Missy talked about the science behind making beer. There’s a reason her husband Jon needed to go to a brewing course in Chicago. The process is a lot to take in. Here’s Missy explaining what a day of beer making looks like for them.
Missy explained that it takes one day to make the beer, but then it needs to sit for about three to four weeks depending on what type of beer it is. After that, it’s good to go! Hearing how much science is behind making the beer we drink should give you a little more appreciation for the brewers we have here in Wisconsin.
Cheers!
