THE STARKELLER

Location

2215 North Garden Street, New Ulm, MN 56073

507-359-7827

ABOUT STARKELLER

With the launch of the Noble Star Collection, there was a need for a separate space away from the brewery due to limitations with aging sour beers. Enter the Starkeller. This facility has not only provided a space to ferment these mixed-culture Berliner Weisse beers, but also provides an additional taproom rental space in New Ulm.

The Starkeller is overflowing with rich history from Schell’s with the focal point being the 1936 Cypress wood lagering tanks that were restored for the purpose of aging sour beer. After prohibition, the brewery purchased wood tanks because they were cheaper than steel tanks and they were in use until 1991 when the brewery made some updates. Since, they were stored away and the introduction of this line of beers presented the opportunity to bring them back to life. The vessels that once aged our Schell’s beers were the perfect solution to age sours because the wood tanks breathe a bit of oxygen whereas steel does not.

When you come to the Starkeller for a beer, you might sit at the bar made of an old copper kettle from the brewery, or might glance at the tin on the back wall that came from the farm that once stood in its place. It’s a unique experience that you won’t find anywhere else.

STARKELLER’S SIGNATURE SOURS

The Starkeller Series has been our exploration of the Berliner Weisse style of sour beer. Our beers were brewed at our main brewery, using a traditional decoction mash and no-boil method, then the wort was transferred to the Starkeller, where we pitched a mixed culture of yeast, bacteria, and brettanomyces. The beers were then transferred into one of our 10, original 1936 cypress wood lagering tanks for aging.

Over the course of one to two years, these beers transformed over time, developing a refreshing lactic acidity and a fruity, estery bouquet. Once the beers reached maturation, they were then either packaged or transferred onto fruit for several more months of aging.

When the beer was ready, it was then hand-bottled with fresh yeast and priming sugar to bottle condition. Over the course of the next two months, the beer would develop a champagne-like carbonation in the bottle before it was finally ready to be released. No two sours ever take the same path and they progress at their own pace, which makes this collection of beers so unique.

“If there is a Champagne of beers, it is definitely Berliner Weisse, with its unusually pale color, sustained small head, intense sparkle and, especially, its fruity acidity… It is the most quenching and refreshing of all beers, and one of the lightest. It is feminine, teasing and complex, with no pretensions to great gravity.”

-Michael Jackson. “The New World Guide to Beer” 1988.