Business & Tech

PHOTOS: Behind The Scenes At Harriet Brewing

Jason Sowards reveals some of his secrets to local homebrewers.

When the door to Harriet Brewing's opens, you're hit in the face with a fist of warm, moist air that carries a faint tinge of sweetness. Clouds of steam pour up from around the corner and machines screech as Harriet employees clean kegs for the evening's brew. The overall effect is to suggest a construction area or a factory, rather than the delicate, almost chef-like approach Harriet's owner Jason Sowards says goes into his beer.  

Like practically all of Minneapolis' micro- and craft beer startup breweries, Sowards and Harriet Brewing started as a homebrew operation in Sowards' Linden Hills home, albeit an expensive, scientifically-driven one. Sowards stays true to his roots, though, offering detailed technical tours for the city's legions of homebrewers. Southwest Patch joined him on a Thursday night to get a behind-the-scenes look at what makes his beer so good.

So what's his secret? His recipes may be popular, but at the core of his method is enthusiastic, rigorous experimentation that shows his previous career as a chemical engineer. It helped him not only refine beers, he said, but helped him solve unexpected problems with city water that cropped up when he tried to scale his recipes up to industrial proportions. 

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"Take good notes, because everything matters" as you brew, he urged the crowd of 20 beer enthusiasts and homebrewers. "The minute you tell yourself 'Nah, this doesn't matter' is the moment it comes back to bite you."


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