ST. PETER — The youngest brewery team in Minnesota is celebrating a global win for making a very old Scandinavian-style beer.
Yes, it turns out those Old World Scandinavians did make beer.
St. Peter’s Paddlefish Brewing — opened last year by a couple of recent Gustavus Adolphus College grads — is hosting a party June 1 for winning a World Beer Cup gold medal two weeks ago in the historical beer category with its Vinter Liv Scandinavian Raw Ale.
A farmhouse ale brewed with birch leaves, juniper berries, lemongrass and Kveik yeast imported from Norway, Vinter Liv was a collaboration between Paddlefish and Swedish Kontur, a gift shop just down from the brewery on Minnesota Avenue.
The Swedish store asked the brewery to make a special batch of beer last year for its annual Vinter Liv party (translation: “winter life”). It did so again this year, and that batch became the only beer the brewery paid to enter into the World Beer Cup on May 1 in Indianapolis — even though co-owner Dave Long admitted, “We kind of made it on a whim.
“We knew it turned out really well, and we knew it was a unique kind of beer,” Long said. “The fact that it was so different and rare made us think it would have a chance of winning.”
The style of beer dates back hundreds of years, when Scandinavians did not have big enough metal pots to boil their beer — hence the “raw” in the name. (Paddlefish could not officially serve it raw; there are laws against that now.)
Ironically, the head brewer behind this Old World beer is believed to be the youngest brewer at a commercial brewery in Minnesota: Luke Dragseth, who’s 23. He was not a newbie when it came to the Scandinavian flavors, though.
“My grandmother is Swedish, and I have cousins in Norway, so I’ve been exposed to a lot of Scandinavian flavors,” Dragseth said.
The Paddlefish team is working on what it’s calling its Sauna Beer, which will incorporate cedarwood aroma and some of the other “botanical beer” ingredients associated with those flavors. However, now that Vinter Liv has won this award, Long noted, “I think we probably won’t wait ‘til next year to brew it again.”
Paddlefish did have one keg of Vinter Liv stowed away. It will be on tap for the June 1 party, which will last from 2-4 p.m. — or until the keg runs out. The brewery also had 20 crowlers of the beer that had been stashed away.
Paddlefish was one of five Minnesota breweries among the nearly 1,800 entered that won medals at the prestigious international competition, considered the Olympics of beer competitions.
The other winners in the historical beer category — defined by organizers as “beer styles that have largely died out” — included Michigan’s Archival Brewing with Æger’s Wreath (a Finnish farmhouse ale) and Colorado’s Mythmaker Brewing with Lichtenhainer (a sour, smoked wheat German beer).
Paddlefish otherwise does not specialize in Old World beers like its Vinter Liv, but it does nod to other facets of Minnesota heritage with its flagship beers. They include the Jolly Green Giant Hazy IPA, honoring the big billboard along Hwy. 169 in nearby Le Sueur, and Red Owl Amber, named after the defunct grocery-store chain whose St. Peter outlet is where the brewery now resides.