Schell’s Brewery Celebrates 160 Years of Beer

With all the craziness that has happened in 2020, one may have forgotten about a certain milestone of a certain Minnesota brewery in New Ulm Minnesota …. if you haven’t guessed what Im talking about yet, well it’s the 160th Anniversary of the August Schell Brewery !!

I remember hearing about the anniversary earlier this year and I was getting ready to write about it but then with all the stuff happening with covid, it totally blew my mind. And as of last night, I was surprised I still haven’t made a blog post about it!

I starting to think that I myself am also getting old too because I used to be on top of everything in the local beer scene but with all the taproom closings and openings …and closings again, the article fell to the wayside and now here we are, at the end of the year.

So what can really be said about a brewery that has been passed down through six generations of family members, that survived a war that destroyed the city, that also survived during prohibition, that stayed relevant in the 1970’s when big beer was killing small breweries. A brewery that stayed afloat with contract brewing, a brewery that crafted a new way during the craft beer revolution and stayed in business during a world wide pandemic?….not much really haha

So this year doesnt just mark the 160th year in the beer business for the second oldest family run brewery in the United States, this year also marks the next generation transition for the brewery.

It’s true, this year Ted and Jodi Marti are stepping aside to let their three sons (Jace, Franz and Kyle) to run the business. Of course we know that they have already had integral parts in the brewery, one of them being the side project known as the Starkeller, but this will be their time to shine as the main players of operation.

Schell’s will continue to make the beers that made them famous and will also continue to create variations of those classics like Grain Belt’s seltzer N’ice breaker and the new improved Schell’s own IPA. Another couple new beers happening right now is the “Shift Happens” series, which includes some big ABV double dry-hopped lagers.

Of course if you havent tried the Cream Ale or the Dark lager yet, you might be missing out. Oh also on the shelves right now is this years winter seasonal “Snowstorm” series which is an Oat Stout coming in at 6.5% ABV.

Sadly most if not all of their anniversary celebration plans have been cancelled due to the pandemic. What are the chances to have something like that fall on the same time as a big milestone for the brewery, but again it’s Schell’s and they will survive it.

So what will next year bring? Will there be a 161st Anniversary celebration? Will Schell’s build a new 500 floor skyscraper brewery in downtown New Ulm? Will there be a new Grain Belt Chocolate Milkshake Sour IPA coming out? …I hope not haha.

But I would suspect they will continue to crank out 140,000 plus barrels per year and have some new traditional style beers with some modern tweaks and less… how do I say it “flavor of the minute style beers” coming out for next year.

So I just want to say hats off to the August Schell Brewery on 160 years of brewing and for a continued 160 more years to come!