Summit Brewing Co. founder Mark Stutrud announced in September that he was retiring from his role as CEO.
The godfather of the local craft brewing scene will stay involved with the company as a board member and brand ambassador, meeting regularly with distributor and retailer partners and staying abreast of goings on at the Legislature.
As Stutrud prepares for at least a partial retirement, he reflected on the transition he made in the early and mid-1980s from chemical dependency counselor to craft brewer, with his desire to re-establish a “true beer culture” in the U.S., sharing the ups and downs that brought Summit to be.
He also opined on the current state of craft brewing in the state and on the burgeoning THC beverage market, which has grown significantly since May 2022 when the Legislature legalized the sale of hemp derived THS edibles in mainstream retail grocery and convenience stores. It’s a market Summit is studying and may enter at some point, but likely not in its current form.
When he was starting out, Stutrud spent years studying the industry before opening Summit. He spent vacation time from his job doing apprenticeships with brewers like Bill Newman, founder of the now defunct William S. Newman Brewing Co. in Albany, New York and creator of English ales Stutrud says were ahead of his time.
He sought allies and mentors like Charlie McElevey, the founding master brewer of Redhook in Seattle who was originally from Grand Marais, but was schooled in brewing in Freising, Germany at the Technical University of Munich; and local master brewers like Fred Thomasser and Paul Hauwiller, who both retired from the Schmidt Brewery.
And, ultimately, he attended the Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago, one of the last surviving brewing schools in the country – all in the name of making sure he knew his stuff before going into the business.
Stutrud spoke with MinnPost. His comments are edited for brevity and space.
MinnPost: Congratulations on reaching retirement. What will you be doing now?
Mark Stutrud: My job description moving forward is pretty clear cut. I’m out there loving customers and working with distributors. The distributors are our first customer.
And then the retail customers are next in line, although I spend the majority of my time, 80% on the retail level. And that’s really where it happens for us. And that’s where I like to be connected and keep my ears open and make sure that we’re supporting their sales. Because right now, liquor stores, they’re experiencing a slump not only in beer sales, but alcohol sales overall. It’s a matter of staying in touch with a lot of the customers.
MP: Take me back to the beginning – what made you decide to leave a steady career in chemical dependency counseling for what at the time was a nearly non-existent craft beer industry?
Stutrud: I moved from North Dakota to the Twin Cities in 1980. I took a position at St. Mary’s Hospital where, after a few months, I accepted the position of being the supervisor of the evaluation unit of the Adolescent Chemical Dependency Program at the time.
And so, I was in charge of 12, 14 staff, not only in charge of the budget, but also the clinical supervision, which was a lot. And then I had a bunch of nurses that wanted to be therapists, and I don’t know, it was a total of, I guess, 70 beds.
So, for me, in that career path, the next step would’ve been a director of some program. And by that time, I’d had almost eight and a half years of inpatient treatment experience in hospital-based settings. And also, back to 1982, that’s when I started fantasizing about what I was going to do with myself.
I thought about going to medical school and going towards psychiatry. I had an accelerated degree. I thought about going into private practice. And then the third option was just this wild, crazy idea of starting a brewery. I was a home brewer. And through that hobby, I started really digging into learning about some of these great pioneers that started up. The last two years I was at St. Mary’s Hospital, all my vacation time went spent in breweries doing apprenticeships or learning the trade.
MP: You went through a lot of training before you actually opened Summit. Why?
Stutrud: I talk about being a home brewer, I mean, that led to a direction of research, but there’s no basis of credentials for running a commercial brewery. It’s two different worlds.
I recognized that early on and I also knew that we would be competing directly with all of these big American and international brewers head on. I wanted to make damn sure that the quality of our beer was there. I mean, it’s one thing for a beer drinker to say, well, “I can’t drink this stuff. Who the hell’s going to drink this?” That’s one thing, taste reference. But for someone to say, particularly within the industry, that’s substandard, that’s not very good beer.
MP: Did you ever think twice about what you were doing?
Stutrud: There was late 1983 when things were getting very serious. I would sit by myself and I would think, “Well, if I do this, I sure as hell have to learn from the folks that I’ve met, and I have to be prepared to deal with the unexpected.” And to kind of sum it up into one thought, “Well, I’m going to go through more than I could ever anticipate.” At the same time, I really didn’t waver my commitment.
MP: Unlike when you were starting out, breweries are everywhere now. You paved the way – does that do anything for you?
Stutrud: The first mindset that I go to is from a very technical point of view. I really tear the beer apart. I keep my opinions to myself, but I really explore, just from a sensory point of view, the quality of beer and how whoever’s in charge of brewing, their level of technical expertise. So sometimes, and even with our own beer, I have a diagnostic mindset, which sometimes interrupts the pleasure of just enjoying a beer.
I like going to other places and scoping them out. But to be perfectly honest, a handful of years ago, there was a certain amount of fatigue that set in. I would be excruciatingly polite. Because of my reputation, I guess, a lot of people would seek out my opinion. And it’s really not my place to lay a judgment on what somebody is doing. They should know better themselves if it’s their profession.
But you can tell pretty quickly with some of these places when you walk in that, yeah, this guy’s a glorified home brewer. He has some concrete ideas of what he wants to create, and it’s a very creative artisanal process. But when it comes to shelf and flavor stability and doing deep analysis, they can’t control the lab or afford a lab, but they have to understand the foundations of quality, which has been lacking.
So that’s where I get critical of this evolution of craft beer. And I’ve had discussions with some well-known master brewers within the craft brew industry and they say, “Well, do you mean every doggone brew pub or taproom should have a sophisticated laboratory if they’re going to be being a part of this industry?”
And I go, well, not necessarily – unless they start to package beer outside their four walls. When they’re putting beer into cans or bottles or crowlers, then you’ve got to be very concerned about flavor and shelf stability because you’re going through the distribution and retail tiers.
Beer is extremely sensitive to dissolved oxygen and air. We measure it in parts per billion. And a part of the filling process in terms of packaging is that container gets evacuated. Just the ambient air inside is vacuum(ed) in a purging of CO2 is introduced twice before the beer even goes into the container. So, when you hold a jug up to a faucet and you just let her rip, and then you screw a cap on there and then send it off to somebody, or pre-fill it a week before somebody buys it, the beer isn’t in the best shape it should be.
MP: How big of a deal is it? It’s beer, it’s subjective. Does it matter?
Stutrud: My problem is I have really high expectations of someone if they consider themselves a master brewer. It’s truly my problem, and I understand that, and I own that. There are a lot of people out there that are just having fun in this business, and they’re able to share their brew with people who are enthusiastic about that.
MP: Will some of what you’re talking about self-correct? Especially now, with a saturated market and breweries going out of business, aren’t the highest quality going to survive?
Stutrud: According to the textbook? Yes. When you think of the tech bubble that happened several years ago. The issue is that people could figure out at a faster rate whether or not a software was faulty, or if we’re manufacturing shoes, if they hurt and didn’t fit. It’s something that was immediately recognizable. A beer, again, is so subjective.
People who are kicking out substandard beer, it’s not recognized by the consumer at the same rate as other products, whether or not it’s software, a car, shoes, or other types of food.
MP: You want to see the people that do the work correctly rewarded for their efforts?
Stutrud: Yeah. And the people that are putting out substandard beers, they’re not even accountable for it. That’s the other thing that bugs me is that Mr. or Mrs. Liquor Store Owner are having cans that are rupturing or bomber bottles that are popping off on the shelf creating a mess, and then they’re the ones that pick up the mess. They call up the brewery and the brewers say, “Oh, geez, I’m really sorry.” And then somehow, they get this level of forgiveness.
MP: As you’re retiring, what are your thoughts – Summit’s thoughts –on the THC beverage industry?
Stutrud: We are really taking a deep dive on what needs to be done to produce a shelf stable product that’s consistent and we’re really exploring the technical and the science side of THC beverage production.
Then once we would establish an internal protocol of quality and the analysis, then we would pursue producing that type of a beverage. So, it’s a part of our DNA in that we won’t produce and release a beer unless it hits some very high standards. And at this point in time, that’s what the THC beverage industry needs is to have a high level of standards that are clearly communicated to the consumer, because there isn’t an agency out there that is telling anybody to do so.
I mean, we’re producing a food product. Beer is a food product. People ingest this, and when you’re making something that people put in their bodies, that’s a huge responsibility.
MP: So, you have some concerns with the quality control of the THC industry as it stands right now?
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Stutrud: When you do it commercially, there’s a higher expectation than having some of Aunt Emma’s Magic Brownies over a holiday weekend. Now, today, Aunt Emma could be selling her magic brownies at a truck stop in Minnesota if she wanted to. You don’t need a license. You just need some nifty packaging – Aunt Emma, with all the psychedelic background that she’s surrounded by, and then maybe a clever phrase to entice people to buy that brownie.
So, that’s a crazy situation that we’re in today. And again, going back to brewing, that is (one) of the most difficult things to do when you’re brewing on a small scale and when they’re all batches, is to develop the expertise to make sure that that beer is consistent.
MP: So, even if the regulations and barriers to entry hadn’t required you to know your craft this way, you’d have studied it just as intensely?
Stutrud: Absolutely. Well, if I’m going to make something, I sure as heck should get educated on how to do it right, whatever it is I’m going to make, whether it’s a car, a shoe, tortillas.
I mean, that’s what craft is all about. And from the German origin of the word, it’s a livelihood. It’s what you do for a living. And I would hope that excelling at that livelihood is a central core of the experience.
MP: As you’re preparing to pass the baton – Chief Strategy Officer Brandon Bland will take the CEO role in March – how is Summit doing? Is the company where you wanted it to be?
Stutrud: Has Summit been successful in terms of developing, fostering a new industry? Absolutely. Do we excel at what we do when it comes to the style and quality and integrity of our products? Absolutely. Have we truly focused on human capital and fostering an absolute positive work, culture and workplace? Absolutely.
For every year that we’ve been in existence, have we been financially successful? Not necessarily. So, when you think about defining success, there are many, many layers.
When you are able to establish a certain level of quality, there’s always a deeper level to go to after that, and that’s a part of growth, and that’s a part of that responsibility to the consumer.
So, when you think about the fact that, A, we only did 1,500 barrels our first year, and it was all draft to where into the late 2000, 2010, 2015, 2016, of where we’re kicking out 2 million cases of beer a year. Isn’t that something? Those are a lot of units to sample. So, the more production that you’re kicking out, the more sampling and analysis that you’re also doing to ensure quality to the consumer.
So that’s what I mean where it just gets deeper as you grow along with all the investment that we’ve made in technology and production capability that you would see at a big brewer.
I mean, we embrace that, but at the same time, you’ve got all this hard capital. We pay attention to the human capital, even to the point of where my CFO at one time said, “You care more about people that profit,” which is fair enough. A lot worse things you could be accused of true enough.
Right now, we’re producing about 80,000 barrels a year. That’s down 10% from the previous year. We’re in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota and 90% of our sales continue to be in Minnesota.
In 2017, 2018, I thought we would be hitting close to 200,000 barrels a year by this time and have deeper penetration and be a little more of a commercial threat to the bigger brewers, having a bit more market share to keep them on their toes. That was my aspiration.
The fact that it hasn’t come out that way as of today doesn’t mean it still can’t happen in a handful of years. Whether or not we diversify into THC or something like that, we’re running the analysis. There’s such a positive legacy that can continue to flow forward.
