About The Brewery

The FORTUNE brewery is my home brewery in Saint Paul, MN. It started in 2007 with a bucket and a beer kit, and the hope is to some day have commercial production. The time in between is devoted to working out recipes and striving to produce the best beer possible.

Brewing here is seasonal, beginning in April or May and ending in October. No beer is produced during the winter but I try to have enough in rotation at the end of the season that I have many fermenters to keg from all winter long.

The brewery is a five-gallon batch all-grain setup. There are four primary fermenters, six secondary fermenters, and kegging capacity for thirty gallons. I've considered equipment for larger batches but would rather keep the variety of brewing only five gallons at a time.

For serving, there is a converted freezer that can hold six cornelius kegs, and has six taps. This glorious beer oozing machine is shown in the photo below. The gas plumbing allows for six independently controlled gas connections each with its own check and supply valves. There is a seventh gas connection on another regulator to allow a beer to be force-carbonated while other kegs are at serving pressure.

What's In A Name

Beer is, of course, something I greatly enjoy. I love to drink beer and I love to brew it. And I especially love when others love to drink the beer I have brewed. Brewing is a most sophisticated craft. The effort involved in creating a single batch, and the large number of opportunities for failure, truly makes brewing a labor of love. A single batch of beer can take months to complete, and one misstep along the way can instantly ruin the batch.

Despite the time, effort, and precision required to produce great beer, there is not a lot of money in doing it, at least not nearly as much as in most other entrepreneurial adventures. Still, I am compelled to brew, and to someday brew commercially. And even though I would be wholly satisfied in making beer that others love to drink, it is somewhat disappointing that I would never make a fortune doing it.

Then it occurred to me, that the only way I could make a fortune brewing would be if I called the beer FORTUNE! So there it is, now I can be out on the deck all day, drinking beers, and making a FORTUNE.