Waite Park's Back Shed Brewing, Craft Beer at it's finest

Craft beer lovers will enjoy Waite Park’s Back Shed Brewing for it’s friendly atmosphere and unique brews. This is a fantastic craft brewery tucked away in the parking lot of Crafts Direct at 624 Sundial Drive, Waite Park, Minnesota. It is a few blocks of the main roads through Waite Park, but worth the short drive from anywhere in the St. Cloud area.

According to the brewery, “At Back Shed Brewing we believe that the taproom is the heart and soul of our business. We will strive to provide the best overall craft beer drinking experience and a unique & inviting environment for all of our guests.”

The walls of Backshed Brewery are full of history and meaning, from the farm photos to the 624 address sign.

Meet Backshed Brewing’s Head Brewer

Chris Simonson, their Master Brewer was cheerful and friendly, and happy to talk to me about the brewery. Check out the short video. Here are the questions from our interview conversation:

Why did you decide to put in a brewery here?
What does Back Shed Brewery offer besides beer?
How do you decide what to brew?

Here is the full Back Shed Brewery Interview with Chris the Head Brewer:

Hey, there I am here today with Chris. He is the head brewer at Back Shed brewery. Hey Chris.

Hey, how are ya?

Hey I am great thanks. And we're here in Waite Park, Minnesota. And I just wanted to talk with him a little bit about the brewery. And can you tell us a little bit about how you decided or why you decided to put a brewery in here?

Sure, absolutely. So this space before it was a brewery, um, is owned by the Schlecht family. Jen and Jason and Scott, and this space over here where we're at today, where you're, where you're taking the video today, it used to be their outlet store for the craft store and just didn't have a lot of traffic or anything.

So they were looking for something to diversify the business and the owners love craft beer. I'm good friends with the owners for many, many years. I've been home brewing for 16 or 17 years.

Awesome.

So one day they said, Hey, you want to go on a wild adventure? And, uh, hence back ship brewing was born. So, um, COVID hit, which slowed us down a little bit.

Like they did a lot of people in the industry.

Understandable.

Yeah. But, um, so it was kind of just, uh, uh, they wanted to diversify their business, not just crafts. Craft, beer craft store. So here and here we are.

Great. And what else brewery offer besides just beer?

So we have, 10,000 square feet to be exact. And so that affords us to be able to have events and stuff here. So being we are associated with the craft store. Many times we'll have crafting events. So if you've heard of like paint and sips and or those kinds of parties, we do that over in our event space over there.

Um, we have live music. We try to have live music at least once a week. Sometimes we have it more. Um, we do food trucks. Uh, we do pop-up shops, which is where vendors will come in and sell homemade jewelry clothes, a little boutiques. Uh, that kind of stuff. So we always try to keep a good amount of people coming in and out of the brewery.

Um, not just for us, but for people to enjoy when they come in to have a beer.

Awesome. Sounds great.

How do you decide which, um, what to brew? That's a good question. Um, And I have a different tastes in beer, but of course you have to appeal to what people are going to buy. Right? So, um, we try to brew, we kind of always do like a, almost like a 60, 20, 20 kind of thing.

So we grew 60% of what people want. What sells the best. You got to have those. Um, then we'll do 20% of kind of what the owners and I like. And then 20% we have just a little fun with and try to kind of keep on top of market trends, beer fads, those kind of things. And have a little fun.

Right now we have about 20 beers on tap, which is pretty good. And we're trying to keep it at about that and real diverse too. Right? So we have everything from hazy IPAs, regular IPAs our best-selling beer as a blonde ale, we have some sours, we have some stouts, so we're trying to keep a wide variety to appeal to everybody.

That's great. Well, thank you so much. This has been a pleasure talking with you and I wish you all the best. Thanks for stopping in. All right. Take care.

What is craft beer?

Craft beer is a special kind of beer that is hand crafted, typically in small batches. Small batch brewing is the ticket to bringing out the unique flavors, qualities, and aromas that are often masked by larger batches.

Brewing beer is a process that has been around for centuries. In order to make your own beer, you will need some basic equipment such as a pot, spoon, thermometer, and… wait, that sounds like a lot of work.

If you are more of a craft beer drinker instead of craft brewer, just head over to Back Shed Brewing, let them do all the work and you can just reap the rewards of their labor. You won’t be disappointed.

Here are a few things to help you get the most out of your experience. The large open table area has a warehouse type of feel, but the atmosphere and ambiance quickly warms you from the inside with friendly staff and pleasant surroundings.

Their tables are varied in size and height. There is a combination of bar height tables, long tables with bench seats, and cozy cow-patterned chairs here and there. It is are easy to rearrange the tables and seating to suit your party’s needs.

They have an assortment of tables and benches, and even a few comfy cow-print chairs here and there.

Back Yard Brewing is generally kid friendly, complete with an assortment of games for kids and adults alike. They even have a few bins of very realistic looking toy animals for kids to play with. We met friends there and happened to have our toddler and soon-to-be preschooler with us and feared we would need to make an early exit.

We called in advance to make sure kids were okay to have along and knew from their friendly response that it was no problem to have the kids with us. As it turned out, we were pleasantly surprised that the kids did great with all the toys and table games they entertained themselves with.

In addition to having great beer, the brewery lends itself well to crafts of other types as well. The brewery shares a parking lot with Crafts Direct. The owners of Crafts Direct, the Schlecht Family, actually own Back Shed Brewery. So naturally, the extra gathering space is frequently used for not just live music and special events of that nature, but also craft events like paint and sip parties. What a perfect way to enjoy multiple “crafts” at one time.

It is nice to know that they also have several non-alcoholic options including quite a few flavors of both sparkling water and soda.

Just know If you are coming for food, there are a variety of pretzels available for purchase along with meat sticks and cheese sticks. But there isn’t a restaurant or food service on site, but there are menus for delivery from Erberts & Gerberts sub shop and House of Pizza, both of which have great food. But it is nice to know in advance the dining situation.

This brewery, with its friendly atmosphere, is great to have available in central Minnesota. Come check out their great assortment of hand crafted brews. But don’t take my word for it head on over to experience the taste of Back Shed Brewery Company’s craft beer with your own taste buds. You will be glad you did. And don’t forget to bring your friends as it is a great place to hang out and relax. Enjoy your visit!