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By
David Page
Frank
Yarusso knew that college students can be a beer distributor's best
market, but he never realized how much help they could be in actually
marketing beer until he received a phone call a few years ago from
a group at the University St. Thomas. The Tommies had found him
by calling the telephone number printed on a bottle of Blue Diamond,
one of Yarusso's labels and one of their favorite beers.
The students wanted to know if Yarusso would
be willing to have Blue Diamond be the subject of a class marketing
project. Yarusso agreed to meet with them.
"I
learned that a lot of students bought cases of less expensive beer
to share with friends,"' Yarusso said, "but they also
bought six-packs of more expensive beer for themselves."
That discovery convinced Yarusso to shift
his focus to what the industry calls "hand-crafted beers,"
and he bought the Brewer's Cave label from the now defunct Minnesota
Brewing Company in St. Paul.
The
original Brewer's Cave beer was first produced in 1885 by Christopher
Stahlmann, a Bavarian immigrant who operated a brewery in the caves
under what is now West 7th Street, on the future site of Minnesota
Brewing. Stahlmann's beer was made from the natural spring water
that bubbled up beside his underground Cave Brewery. The caves,
which eventually extended a mile wide and three levels deep, had
a natural coolness that was perfect for storing the finished product.
Yarusso's plan to resurrect Brewer's Cave
beer was almost scotched when Minnesota Brewing went into receiver-ship.
However, he was able to cut a deal with Bremer Bank for the label
and formulas and to coax Minnesota Brewing's former brewmaster,
Sig Plagens, out of retirement to serve as an adviser.
Plagens,
who had learned the art of brewing in the German cities of Berlin,
Hamburg and Bremen, immigrated to the U.S. in 1959 and landed a
job with Schmidt Brewery in St. Paul. Plagens became the head brewmaster
at Schmidt in 1985 and continued in that role when Minnesota Brewing
reopened the West 7th Street brewery in 1991. With the closing
of Minnesota Brewing in 2002, Yarusso moved his labels to Gluek
Brewing Co. in the central Minnesota town of Cold Spring. Once home
to Cold Spring Brewing Company, that brewery has been using the
water from a natural spring since 1874.
Yarusso
got his start in the restaurant business. A graduate of St. Paul's
Johnson High School, he joined the Marines in the early 1960s and
after his discharge bought the former Scotch Mist nightclub in
Minneapolis. In the late 1970s, he joined his uncle as part-owner
of the venerable Yarusso Brothers Restaurant on St. Paul's East
Side and a dozen years later moved to Arizona to start a restaurant
of his own.
The
original Brewer's Cave beer was first produced in 1885 by Christopher
Stahlmann, a Bavarian immigrant who operated a brewery in the caves
under what is now West 7th Street.
When
plans for his Arizona eatery fell through, Yarusso began distributing
Minnesota Brewing products. After Super Value acquired the rights
to export Minnesota Brewing products, Yarusso took the advice of
former Minnesota Brewing CEO Dick McMahon and began purchasing his
own beer labels to distribute. "That way no one could take
(distribution rights) away from me," he said.
Yarusso
accepted an offer from Johnson Brothers Distillery in Princeton,
Minnesota, to use its chemists and facilities to create new beers.
His first brew there was a hot pepper-flavored beer similar to what
was becoming popular in the American Southwest. "It was pretty
hot," Yarusso said. "We used to joke as I was carrying
it back to the Twin Cities from Princeton in the trunk of my car
that I'd better not get rear-ended or the car would explode."
Yarusso worked with Plagens to tone down the flavor, and soon he
was distributing Cerveza Caliente and a non-alcoholic version called
Cebada. Shortly thereafter, he was producing alcoholic and non-alcoholic
beers called Hista and Kista for export to Korea. "I can't
even remember which was which," he said. He created a beer
called Riverside Light for the Riverside Resort and Casino in Laughlin,
Nevada, and just because he liked the name, created a label called
Coyote Beer.
"Seagrams threatened
to sue me because it had something called Coyote Tequila,"
Yarusso said. He agreed not to use the name, but now, he said I'm
thinking about bringing (Coyote Beer) back since Seagrams sold the
tequila label to a European company."
Yarusso
bought the Diamond Blue label from Minnesota Brewing and rechristened
it Blue Diamond, which is also the name he has given to his brewing
company, now head-quartered in the basement of the former St. Paul
Academy on Dale Street and Portland Avenue less than a block from
his home.
For the three varieties of
Brewer's Cave - Black Barley Ale, Amber Wheat and Golden Caramel
Lager - Yarusso and Plagens have abided by the Reinheitsgebot, the
German Purity Law of 1516 that man-dates that beer be made only
of water, barley and hops. "That means there are no additives
or preservatives," Plagens said, "all natural ingredients."
The beers take five weeks to brew, rather than the typical three
weeks, and they are not mass produced. The most recent batch totaled
only 341 barrels. Brewer's Cave is now available at Thomas Liquors
on Grand Avenue, and 1st Grand Avenue Liquor Store has agreed to
start carrying the label early next year. Yarusso is also working
to get his beers into local bars and restaurants and to begin offering
it in kegs. With all that he has learned about handcrafted beers,
Yarusso is more than comfortable offering advice for those who enjoy
a good beer. "Always drink beer from a glass," he said.
"Don't ever use a glass that has had milk in it, even once.
And always pour the beer into the middle of the glass, not down
the side."
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