USA, MN: Bluff Brothers Brewing opens in Spring Valley

About six months after a Wisconsin-based brewery closed its brewery and taproom in Spring Valley, Minnesota, another brewery has opened in the Fillmore County community, the Post Bulletin reported on October 16.

The brothers behind the new Bluff Brothers Brewing were actually hoping to have another brewery down the street from where they were looking to open.

“We didn’t look at it as competition,” said Mitchell Plaehn, co-founder of Bluff Brothers Brewing.

However, Hop & Barrel closed its Minnesota taproom and the downtown Spring Valley building Mitchell and his brother Marcus Plaehn were eying for their business fell through.

The siblings instead bought a building off of U.S. Highway 63. They opened the business to the public the first weekend of October.

“That was the biggest hurdle,” Mitchell said. “Just getting to the point where we can open the doors.”

Although another brewery in town would help make Spring Valley a draw for craft beer fans, Bluff Brothers sits on a destination-rich path for craft beer fans .

Bluff Brothers joins a roster of destinations for craft beer enthusiasts between the Twin Cities and internationally-known beer tourism destination of Decorah, Iowa.

The brewery is a result of three years of work and planning. Some prodding by Mitchell’s then-girlfriend and now wife, Sami Plaehn, to move their homebrewing hobby out of their kitchen helped.

“She kicked us to the garage,” Mitchell said.

The brothers began honing their brewing skills there. Soon, Mitchell had an inkling that his homebrew beers were good enough to take to a new level after he ran out of the kegs he home brewed for his wedding in September 2021.

In a bit of deja vu, on Sunday, Oct. 15, two of the brewery’s beers — their Oktoberfest and a lager — were gone.

“It’s a good problem to have, I guess,” Marcus said.

Family and friends put in hundreds of hours to renovate a commercial building on the north side of town into a taproom and production space. To acknowledge their contributions, the brothers put up a display with white paint-laden hand prints of the more than three dozen people who put in work to make the brewery a reality.

Sami, who kicked the brothers to the garage now puts in hours in the taproom as does Marcus' wife, Maddie. The brothers' parents also help out at the business as well.

Anticipating being in a small space, the brothers bought a small brewing system from a brewery in Dyersville, Iowa. It allows them to brew only 1 barrel of beer at a time (about 31 gallons). They have room to ferment six barrels of beer at a time. That means on some nights, the pair brew back-to-back batches to fill one of their two 2-barrel fermenters.

That can make for long days.

“There’s days where you leave your full-time job and you don’t really feel like brewing until midnight,” Marcus said. “But sometimes that’s what it’s got to be.”

The two say they look forward to meeting other fans of craft beer, but add that they intend to make beer with their Spring Valley and Southeast Minnesota neighbors in mind.

“That will essentially be our bread and butter,” Marcus said.

Mitchell said he’s working to make the taproom a welcoming, cozy place.

“Kind of like the feel of a cabin,” he said.

The taproom is open to the public Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, which is about what the pair can manage while they have other full-time jobs.

The brothers said they hope to make the operation their only jobs, get a bigger brew system and add a fireplace to the taproom.

However, only two weeks into being open to the public, they said they don’t want to get too far ahead of themselves yet.

“We’re glad to finally be getting our beers out there,” Mitchell said.

17 October, 2023