Over the last five or so years, the craft brewery movement has grown exponentially in Minnesota. The Associated Press says licensing records show two-thirds of Minnesota breweries have opened just since 2010. So, we decided to help you – and your livers – keep up with the taproom trend by stopping by some of these Twin Cities brewhouses. This week, we’re featuring Bent Paddle Brewing in Duluth.



Just a short walk away from the western nose of Lake Superior, nestled in Duluth, lies a brewery that specializes in bending the brewing tradition.

The concept for Bent Paddle Brewing Company all began when brewers Brian Tonnis and Colin Mullen met up and began discussing beer – at their wives’ friendly behest – in December of 2010.

“Brian and I had worked in the industry for the last 7 to 10 years and our career paths lined up and we got to talking. We were encouraged, of course, by our wives,” Mullen said. “We started meeting over beers … and it took us about a year to really commit to (starting a brewery) and start writing a business plan.”

Soon enough, the brewing duo was able to utilize their extensive – and differing — brewing backgrounds, and Bent Paddle Brewing was opened in April 2013. Their wives (who, let’s remember, sparked this whole thing!) also own 50 percent of the business, which is a pretty rare thing in the current brewing industry. Karen Tonis is vice president of operations and Laura Mullen is vice president of outreach and events.

Nowadays, things are moving very quickly for the young brewery, which strives to create classic styles of beers with just a little “edge” of inventiveness thrown in there to shake things up a bit.

For more on that and much more, check out the interview I did with brewer Colin Mullen below!





You know, what’s really cool is we all compliment the needs of the business. We all have specific skill sets. Not one individual has it all.

Do you and Bryan have different skills when it comes to brewing?

Yeah, Bryon did go through the Siebel Institute in Chicago and Munich (Germany) and got basically a degree in brewing science, so he has a very technical and refined experience with (brewing) operations.

And I came up in home brewing up through an apprenticeship. I have more of a tactile feel for it, so I’d be pretty terrified to run this whole brewery by myself (laughs), you know what I mean?

Are there certain areas that you’re better in/he’s better in?

You know, it’s just like cooking or anything else. There are different interpretations of what we’re trying to accomplish.

We have very individual skillsets, but we agree on a lot of important decisions regarding how we approach production and what our flavor profiles need to be and what ingredients we’ll need to use.

Why beer? What do you all love about it?

Now, these are my thoughts and it might not be shared throughout the group, but, for me, beer started out as a hobby. As a hobby, it’s one of those hobbies you can invest a lot of time with or keep it really simple.

For me, my growth trajectory has been to acquire knowledge and experience. And that’s what I really appreciate about it. You’re always learning something — even at the professional level.

It combines a little bit of chemistry, a little bit of culinary, a mechanical aptitude – you’re always building or modifying things. I mean, you’re always fixing things. That’s the first big difference between a hobby and a profession. You’re always taking care of the equipment because you’re using it day in and day out.

So, it brings all these aspects of functions into one really great profession. And at the end of the day you’re left with a delicious beer in your hand. There’s a lot of motivation in that as well (laughs).

What’s the philosophy behind your beer? I read that you guys “bend the tradition” – so what does that mean?

A large part of our overall theory when it comes to beer development is a sense of subtly and balance. We both don’t like to overdo any one ingredient. There’s a subtle art to finding that balance. Instead of hitting you over the head with the hops, the spice or something, we like to kind of sneak it in there and, you know, at the end of the day, it’s still beer. Like, ‘wow, that was a pleasant surprise.’

It’s a very careful manipulation of balance and ingredient presentation.

What we like to say at Bent Paddle is that we value tradition and the beer styles that came before us, but we’ll bend it just a little bit to suit our individual brewery, but we’re not breaking tradition. We’re just kind of tweaking it a little bit.

What is Bent Paddle known for, when it comes to beer?

Overall, our No. 1 seller of our flagships is the Bent Hop, which is a golden IPA. That’s the example before when I was talking about bending tradition. We knew that we were entering a very crowded IPA market, but we also knew that IPAs are highly-successful beers, especially in Minnesota. People love ’em. It’s a very fun beer to make.

What would you consider your most ambitious beer?

To date, definitely the most ambitious has been the Double Black series of beer. What we do with the Double Black is kick it up. We bring it from 6 percent (alcohol) up to 10.5 to 11 percent. And we tuck it away in bourbon barrels for 5 to 8 months. Around the holidays, like Thanksgiving, we released 750 bottles of that. So, you know, it’s one of those white knuckle rides. You’re sitting on ton of beer that’s aging in barrels, and you don’t know what it’s going to do after 5 to 8 months, but it’s something that we have a lot of experience with.

What do you all love about the Duluth area?

We chose to go up to Duluth for a variety of reasons. One being the amazing quality of the water we have for brewing.

Beer has four basic ingredients: malted barley, hops, yeast and water. So, we figured we have this great resource of water outside our backyard and that’d be a pretty smart way to go about it.

It’s very wonderful to brew with because it’s very neutral and soft, so we can actually replicate a lot of different water styles throughout the world. We can really dial in certain types of beer. So, from a brewing perspective, it’s a very cool thing — even though water’s not as attractive as hops or barley when people are thinking about beer (laughs).

Since you opened in 2013, have there been any major obstacles?

A couple of things I guess. One, right now we’re operating at year 10 of our initial projections. And we’re just two years old. We’ve had to squeeze 10 years of decision-making, equipment acquisition, hiring and just overall growth and development in a very short time.

Growth has been an interesting ride. It’s definitely a great ride, but it’s a lot of work.

We also got to play with some trademark disputes with a brewery out east, so went through some legal things, but were able to resolve that amicably. It’s one of those things where we were trying to focus on growth but then we were focused on a lawsuit. At the end of the day, we just want to make beer. But it’s not always that easy. (laughs)

What advice do you have for home brewers who want to take the next step?

It’s tough because the brewing schools are all full up, there’s a lot of demand for skilled brewers who have experience and there’s not a lot of entry-level stuff that’s going on right now.

But trying to get experience is a very huge thing, especially for potential employers. We don’t have a lot of time to be a training brewery. So, finding a way to get in on the ground level, checking the ego at the door and getting in there and getting dirty …

So, what does the future have in store for Bent Paddle?

At this point, our focus is maximizing the current trajectory. To a certain point, our brewhouse can only produce a certain amount of beer a year, the way it’s sized. For us, the focus right now is to really be in relevant Minnesota markets. We’re not looking to regionally distribute at this time, but we do a limited Wisconsin distribution. So, maxing out what we have and seeing where the market goes, but we’re really excited to see this whole vision come to fruition.

One last note: If you were curious about the name, the name Bent Paddle comes from the fact that Tonnis used a bent canoe paddle to mix his brewing mash while at Rock Bottom Brewery. The legend goes that the original one broke on his last day at Rock Bottom. He now uses a new one!

Follow Bent Paddle on Facebook & Twitter.