Member Spotlight: December 2018

Imminent Brewing and Keepsake Cidery
This month’s spotlight is all about collaboration.  Both Imminent Brewing and Keepsake Cidery have successful businesses brewing beer and fermenting hard cider respectively.  But, not content to do that work within an isolated bubble, both have actively sought out ways to collaborate with other local producers.  Just last month, a delicious result was released in the Imminent taproom: the Norske Double Berry Graf.  Graf is the term for a beer/cider hybrid, and this brew goes even further: the beverage includes fresh-pressed apple juice from Keepsake Cidery as well as cherries and honeyberries from Cherry Leaf Farm in Northfield.  Derek Meyers, Imminent’s distribution and taproom manager, says that collaboration has been at the heart of their business plan from the beginning, as an active way to be present in the community, connect, and do good.  They’ve brewed beers featuring products from other Cannon Valley Grown members in the past (basil from Waxwing Farm, rhubarb from Spring Wind, berries from Little Hills Berry Farm), so the Norske Double Graf is not a one-time kind of thing.  Nate Watters, cider maker and co-owner of Keepsake, also takes a proactive approach to building connections locally:  his Wood & Spirits cider is aged with staves soaked in whiskey from Loon Liquors in Northfield, another cider was fermented with wild plums from Get Bentz Farm, and plans are afoot to partner with Loon to distill and age an apple brandy.  Yum!!!!!  As Derek puts it “collaboration is a way to bring out the flavors of our community”.  Words to live (and eat and drink) by!