Fulton Beer - Lonely Blonde

This blonde ale pours a bright golden color with good clarity and a cap of pale foam that offers up a pleasant, inviting aroma. Look for a crackery malt undertone overlaid by bright noble hop character including herbal, grassy notes with a dash of spice, a touch of hay, floral tones, and a hint of citrus. On the palate, the malt core delivers a satisfying crackery impression with some tangy wheat and a light hint of caramel. Those noble hops evoke a decidedly central European character, delivering bold herbal spice, cut hay, and earth, amidst a soft floral impression. The hops come through with moderate bitterness, merging with zesty carbonation to provide lift and plenty of drying bite. Food pairing options abound; we'd go with dishes that play off the central bready character and the spice, such as pizza or grilled brats with mustard. Cheers!

The story of Fulton Beer begins in 2006 with the four folks behind Fulton Beer—Ryan Petz, Brian Hoffman, Peter Grande, and Jim Diley—starting to homebrew together in Jim’s piddly (and cold) one-car garage. Rest assured, Minnesota gets cold. But that homebrewing inlet, like so many unexpected and fiscally questionable paths into professional brewing, led them in 2009 to start Fulton Beer together. As the story goes: Ryan and Jim were in debt from grad school, Pete and his wife were expecting, everyone else was newly or about to get married... The four had no savings, no cache of brewing connections, and no real industry experience. The circumstances, in other words, were perfect.

In the time since, we’ve been able to watch Fulton Beer grow from a small, contracting brewery into something much more established—and all in spite of the less-than-super-great chances for the whole endeavor. The first keg of Fulton Beer was served at The Happy Gnome out in St. Paul; this was back in late October of 2009. The intrepid four signed a lease for their first brewery in September 2010, which became the first brewery taproom in the Twin Cities. And, having quickly exhausted that production space, they began building a second brewery in late 2013.

Today, the majority of Fulton Beer’s production takes place at their second location: a 51,000-square-foot facility in northeast Minneapolis, about five minutes from their original spot. Today, they brew several year-round brews in addition to a wide array of limited "Garage Series" brews, barrel-aged beers, and sour mixed culture beers, plus a line of increasingly popular hard seltzers. To learn more, visit www.fultonbeer.com.