“Would you like to hold a baby chicken?”
James Raymond knows what he’s doing. It’s not a question most folks say “no” to, especially after a couple Pale Ales. But what he doesn’t tell the folks at Dual Citizen Brewing Company in St. Paul, where he’s using the chicks to sell CSA shares, is how, in 14 weeks, the downy yellow chick in their palms will be killed, drained, boiled, and defeathered. The CSA people are signing up for will be filled with their muscle and sinews.
Farm life is a brutal reality, but Raymond’s TünTüm Black Hill, a 40-acre biodynamic farm in Webster, Minnesota, exists to help people make the connection between the birth, life, and death of the food they’re eating. On the farm that morning, James and I talk about how to bring the same consciousness to beer. We examine a two-story cage once used for drying corn cobs and wonder if it’s tall enough to cultivate hop bines. We ponder if the sallow soybean fields can be converted to a pasture for rare grains.
Raymond has too many ideas as it is. The entire farm is a dream, a reconstructed reality he pieced together from a collapsed plan to open a boutique hotel. Raymond wants to set up glamping sites in the back acreage. He wants to raise peacocks and sell liver pate. He has a gorgeous green-and-cream 1969 Ford Ranger F-150 that he dreams of converting into a fully electric vehicle.
Before he can start cultivating heritage beer ingredients, there are realities that need tending. The homestead just got running water, and there’s a turkey living in the breezeway. One stubborn cow, named after director Taika Waititi, keeps escaping the paddock. Raymond is in love with the idea of a collaborative beer—TünTüm Black Ale, I suggest—but he’s raised enough chickens to know when it’s safe to start counting.
