We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Bartley Blume. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Bartley below.

Bartley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

We’re quite different from the industry standard in the products we produce. Most breweries make only beer. We also make liquor, cider, honey wine, and cocktails. These offerings ensures that we have something for everyone.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Starting the only brewery-distillery in Minnesota is the latest in a long line of adventures for Bartley Blume. After attending Auburn University, Bartley began working for NASA’s destructive testing department, where he tested the durability of equipment and materials, sometimes with explosives. After NASA, Bartley joined a St. Paul–based aerospace engineering firm and spent 18 months in Australia building a transonic wind tunnel. Next, Bartley worked for the firm’s Business Development group, traveling throughout Australia, Southeast Asia, and South America before shedding the shackles of corporate bondage to make tasty adult beverages for a living.

Bartley started home brewing in 2007 after receiving a Mr. Beer kit from Brenda. The hobby quickly attracted a cult following among friends and family around the BBQ pit. With this encouragement, Bartley decided to go all the way and began to develop the Bent Brewstillery brand image and company vision. The plan was to start with a very small operation, using the 40-gallon homebrew system to brew for a small taproom while a local microbrewer brewed larger batches for distribution to bars and liquor stores. That plan changed when Bent Brewstillery merged with Pour Decisions in 2013. Now there’s a fully functional microbrewery in operation, pumping out brutal barley beverages for the public to enjoy.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

With the 1st COVID shutdown and quarantine in place order, we sat around wondering what to do. The idea of hand sanitizer was brought up so we did a little research and found a recipe that we could easily make. We gathered all the ingredients from where ever we could find them (most stores were sold out of everything medical) and made our first small batch. I called our local police department and fire department to see if they needed any. Our phone never stopped ringing after that! We provided sanitizer to a dozen police/fire departments, EMS divisions, organ delivery company, food shelfs, and anyone that needed it.

We were able to adapt to a horrible situation by producing something that was urgently needed. We produced around 70,000 gallons of sanitizer over the 2 month period.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

I started my journey as a self-funded project to turn my hobby into a profession. This changed when I found a brewery for sale. It was much larger than I planned to start with but the opportunity was a 5-year jump in my business plan. So I reached out to friends and family and told them my plan and shared my business/marketing plan. They were impressed enough to invest in my dream.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.BentBrewstillery.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bentbrewstillery
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bentbrewstillery/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BentBrewstiller
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv25ZetJy5RdbHimAsZyFfg