Ex-Surly Employees to Open Barrel Theory Beer Company

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Two more employees have left Minneapolis’ Surly Brewing Company, with their sights set on opening a brewery in St. Paul’s growing Lowertown neighborhood in 2017.

Brett Splinter, Surly’s former director of technology, and brewer Timmy Johnson have announced plans to open a 10-barrel brewhouse, a 90-seat tasting room and a 4,000 sq. ft. cellar dedicated to barrel-aging.

“Our last official day [with Surly] was November 4,” Splinter told Brewbound. “Tim and I wanted to stick around until after Darkness Day,” he added of the annual release party for the Brooklyn Center brewery’s Russian imperial stout.

Splinter and Johnson are joined by CPA Todd Tibesar, who is joining the operation full time in 2017. The pair finalized the location of their brewery in mid-summer and ordered their brewhouse, which should be arriving next month.

The timing of Splinter and Johnson’s departure coincided with the public and acrimonious exit of head of brewing operations Todd Haug. Splinter told Brewbound that he and Johnson are close with Haug, but the timing was mere coincidence.

“We certainly didn’t leave on bad terms by any means,” Splinter said. “We don’t have anything bad to say about Surly.”

Splinter said he and Johnson gave Surly enough advance warning to backfill their positions.

“We didn’t want to just mic drop,” he said.

Splinter, who started at Surly part-time in 2013 running the tour program and later helped with the infrastructure and design of Surly’s Destination Brewery, said those experiences helped prepare him and Johnson for Barrel Theory.

“That really prepared us for this project,” said Splinter, who had worked for Surly full-time in IT since March 2014.

However, Splinter said Haug has offered advice to the Barrel Theory team, and he hinted at the possibility of a future collaboration.

So why open a physical brewery in a crowded and competitive national craft beer scene that now features more than 4,500 breweries?

“Small is really the future,” Splinter said. “We want to keep things close to the chest. Our measure of success is if we reach capacity and continue to provide St. Paul and the surrounding area with beer.”

He said the goal is to keep the taproom flowing, with pints, growlers, Crowlers and 750 ml. bottles. He said Barrel Theory will service a few local draft accounts, but the majority of the beer will be sold in-house.

“For us, it’s a measure of control that we want,” Splinter said. “It’s gotta be in our hands all the time end to end.

Once it receives TTB approval to begin brewing, Barrel Theory’s initial run of beers will feed the racks of whiskey and wine barrels that it’ll be stockpiling in its cellar — and serving as structural supports for the floor of the 1800s building, Splinter said.

“Priority one is getting the cellar filled,” he said.

Then, the brewery will brew IPAs, kettle-sour Berliner Weisses and more to satisfy its taproom.

“We plan on doing crazy IPAs,” Splinter said. “We love the things [hyper-local breweries] Trillium and Treehouse are doing out East.”

Though he wouldn’t provide specific figures, Splinter said Barrel Theory is fully funded through an unnamed silent partner.

“It’s all private money,” he said. “We want to keep that close to the chest, but it’s what we consider to be a good amount of money to us.

“I’ll say this is the biggest pay cut that I’ve ever taken in my life to do something that I couldn’t be more excited to do,” he added.