It all started with us buying a house on the Crow River, remodeling 90% of it and being left with an extra room in the basement that we weren't quite sure what we going to do with it. Having a love of local craft beer and fond appreciation of all the craft breweries that we spend our time at in the Twin Cities and surrounding area, it was then decided that we would remodel this room to be a 'craft beer bar'. The conceptual idea was to design the room aesthetically after the local taprooms that we've come to love, having a fridge full of our favorite local brewery elixirs available to share with friends and family. It was great! 

Then one day after researching 'how to make beer' and seeing the simplicity of the process, a father said to his son (of legal drinking age, of course) "Hey, do you want to try making our own beer?"... and so it began. Like most home brewers starting out, we began our journey brewing small extract batches on a stove top, fermenting in plastic buckets and bottle conditioning. We made some okay tasting beer and some pretty bad tasting beer, but we thoroughly enjoyed the process and science behind it and were hooked. Things soon evolved into all grain brewing with brew-in-a-bag using a modified cooler for a mash tun, along with boil pots over a janky propane turkey fryer burner. We started refining our process, learning more, creating our own recipes, upgrading our gear and updating our testing equipment... we continued to chase the white rabbit down the hole of brewing knowledge... learning more about different yeast strains, water chemistry, effects of fermentation temperature, hop varieties... everything to do with brewing. We built a modified refrigeration unit to house a few kegs... started kegging our beer, then ran liquid lines into what would become our new 'tap room'. The name 'Crooked Crow Brewing' was established as a reference to the scenic Crow River that we overlook and take in the views while enjoying our brewed libations. March of 2022, we made the decision to change our name to Krooked Brewing (more info at our blog page).

We are now brewing indoors, in our taproom, on a three vessel 100% electric brewing system... we have pumps, we have hoses, we have a plate chiller, we have a steam condenser, we have stainless steel temperature controlled fermentation vessels... Our current brewery and taproom, you would say "Is like the real thing, but only smaller". We still continue to learn new things everyday, we continue to refine our process... making tweaks and adjustments to our recipes, learning how small variables can effect our beer and playing with them. A couple of guys with a passion for craft beer attempting brewing perfection and having as much damn fun as we can doing it!

The next chapter in our evolution? To be continued...

Thanks for stopping by and Cheers!

Rick & Christian