Right now, it's the vast carcass of a hardware store; but it will soon serve craft beer lovers of Glencoe and beyond.
Monday night, Jonathan Lueck was inside the site, a former Agri-Fleet and Big Bear store at 610 13th St. E., Glencoe, across from McLeod Cooperative Power, pulling up tile by himself. He'll have a taproom and all his brewing gear set up in a few months, and Lazy Loon Brewing Co. will become the town's flagship brewery. All this comes after he closed on purchasing the building Friday.
“The city of Glencoe had the liquor ordinance ready for my initial closing date,” Lueck said of his expected July purchase. “They were very accommodating.”
With city leaders seeming confident, Lueck has set his sights on attracting local beer drinkers. Neighboring cities such as Norwood Young America, Cologne and perhaps even Hutchinson could supply Lazy Loon with customers.
“(I want) to provide some level of a community environment,” Lueck said. “To me it's important to be supportive of the town. (It's important) to listen to people when they come in and hear about what they want.”
The brewery-in-progress has potential for a lot of customer space at about 8,400 square feet, he said. Lueck will likely only use about 2,500 square feet to brew and can his primarily German-style range of beer.
Eventually, he said, he wants to add a full kitchen to the space.
Lueck began looking for a place to build his business about three years ago. He said he started as one of the first “small” breweries in the Chaska-Victoria area after becoming licensed in 2014. He distributed privately to local businesses, wary of big-name distributors that focus on marketing well-known beer.
“Let's just say if I was with a distributor, and I knew the effort to sell craft beer, I'd be disappointed,” he said. “You can't go into a bar and have the bartender say, 'Hey, try this local beer.'”
It took some time for Lueck to start building a dedicated taproom partly due to his purchase of a bowling alley in Norwood Young America. From this, he had some takeaways.
“It was neat learning the business,” he said. “But it delayed the brewery (building) process. Even though I'm serving craft beer, beer fans want to have that equipment in the same building. I learned that to have a true taproom, you need that.”
Lazy Loon Brewing Co. expects to be open in early 2019. Until then, Lueck's beer is on tap at Lazy Loon Lanes, 305 Wilson St. E., Norwood Young America.
For more information about Lazy Loon Brewing Co., read a previous story written about Lueck.
