It’s been only a week, and Anders Bloomquist and Lauren Nielsen haven’t quite settled into their new home.
Yes, they have the Christmas decorations up, complete with little stuffed nisses and a garland of Danish flags wrapped around the tree. But there’s also the box spring on the three-season porch and the stack of beer books in the dining room, topped with an old edition of The Homebrewer’s Garden.
Most guests don’t come in the house, though. The Fair State Brewing Cooperative packaging tech and union steward is around back, pumping a keg propped up on two-by-fours in his garage. He’s spent much of Thanksgiving weekend out in that drafty, half-finished garage, serving everyone in the Lexington-Hamline South neighborhood of St. Paul a pint of Union Lager.
The beer is as much a manifesto as it is a Dortmunder-style Lager. Brewed as a collaboration between Fair State and August Schell Brewing Company, Minnesota’s only other union brewery, it symbolizes the Fair State Co-op Workers’ Union’s commitment to upholding a standard of fair treatment and high-quality beer. It’s a bready conversation starter, opening up channels with the new neighbors. One moment, they’re talking about the 1914 craftsman’s former owners; the next, the benefits of collective bargaining.
Union Lager was just released in 12-packs, but you gotta know someone to get a backyard keg like Bloomquist’s. Call it benefits of membership. Bloomquist is hopeful it’ll become a core brand for the country’s smallest union brewery, and that his yard will become a convivial gathering spot worthy of the beer.
