🍺 Arbeiter Brewing turns 5

In the years between when Arbeiter Brewing announced plans to open at Lake and Minnehaha in 2018 and finally opened in 2021, the neighborhood and city around them changed in ways that would've been impossible to imagine when they'd signed their lease.

Now, in the months since the brewery started planning this week's slate of events to celebrate its five-year anniversary, another wave of turmoil with little precedent has roiled the city in general, and Lake Street in particular.

The years bookended by these crises involved relatively few periods of normalcy. Yet, the neighborhood's only brewery has survived and even modestly grown during a period when many breweries haven't, with their original founding team and vision intact. They're celebrating with a series of events that continues through Sunday.

Background

The founders of Arbeiter — Garth Blomberg, Juno Choi, and Josh Voeltz — got to know each other while working at Northern Brewer, St. Paul's beermaking supply store that powered much of the 2010's homebrewing boom.