Chipping Away at Expectations — Drekker Brewing and Fargo, North Dakota

Whenever I mentioned that I might visit North Dakota, someone would invariably say one of two things. “‘Fargo’ was a good movie/show.” To that, I would nod. Or they’d say, “Are you going to see the presidents?” To which I’d reply, “Other Dakota.”

In reality, my trip was for the sake of the state’s beer scene, which has now blossomed to a couple dozen businesses across the vastness of the Peace Garden State. Their scarcity at least makes complete sense: With about 750,000 people, it’s the 47th most-populous state in the union. And it wasn’t until 2013 that state legislators passed a law permitting craft brewers to serve their beer in their own taprooms and also self-distribute, giving the state’s industry modern-day laws that have allowed craft beer to thrive in so many other places.

In Fargo, I followed a rail line out of town to an enormous brick building that had been used by Northern Pacific Railroad in the 1880s to repair locomotives—it’s actually six years older than the state itself. Sometime in the late 1960s, however, it went dormant, stayed abandoned, and became useful to squatters and trespassers. Decades later, when the founders of Drekker Brewing Company saw it, they envisioned it to one day be the home of their brewing operations. 

BUBBLES, BUBBLES EVERYWHERE

Through a partnership with a development company, Drekker eventually secured the site. They cemented over the old railroad tracks inside and built a five-foot-high wall made of Drekker beer cans to separate the brewery from the customers who gather at long farm tables and in front of vintage pinball machines that line another wall.

With six-to-eight beers released every other Friday, Drekker moves beer through its tanks, lines, and customers at a maddening pace. Their specialty: powerful Double IPAs, pastry-inspired beers, and smoothie Sours. But it’s in this frenetic, eclectic, and contemporary trio that Drekker’s mad plan starts to make sense. There are 21 taps at the main brewery and 24 more at its 100,000-square-foot food hall/event center/hotel, lovingly called “Brewhalla” and described as a “food and entertainment wonderland” perfect for beer lovers, whether they’re trying to connect with Viking ancestry or not.

Both those beer lists offer something for everyone, with an array of flavors likely to entice even those who don’t think they like beer: a chunky sundae Sour is flavored with crème of coconut and heavy with fruit and there’s a Blackberry Cobbler, pastry-inspired beer from brewery’s Slang de Jour series that tastes just like dessert—the Drekker dreamers dreamt it up by brewing with blackberry, granola, cinnamon, brown sugar, and vanilla.

In the midst of an onomatopoeic mood, I plopped down at Drekker’s taproom bar and tried some Plop, a fruited hard seltzer heavy with pineapple, tangerine, and crème of coconut, which co-founder Mark Bjornstad told me was modeled after the Painkiller cocktail. Different versions of the seltzer are made to mimic other cocktails, desserts, and even a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. White Claw, Truly, Vizzy—alcoholic seltzers made for adults—were never quite my style, but to see all the riffs Drekker could hit was like being there for the release of Willy Wonka’s line of Fizzy Lifting Drinks. 

“To chonkify a beer is to take your taste buds on a chonkcation.”

What came next is what Drekker is also well-known for—a smoothie Sours series called “Chonk.” Watching the thick liquid pour, it was like I’d entered another room of Wonka’s factory, every new version of this series stuffed with flavor ready to explode. Strawberry Guava Banana Fluff, CherryBerry Almond Cheesecake Frosé, and ‘Merica Cake are just a few of these beers that have a look, aroma, and taste that practically acts as its own verb: To chonkify a beer is to take your taste buds on a chonkcation.

LITTLE SURPRISES AROUND EVERY CORNER

Sipping playful drinks in a whimsical space helped me realize how important it is to challenge outside impressions of Fargo and what its beer scene is capable of. This place is more than just a movie or show, even if that’s why many people may know of it.

“It’s not a craft-beer-naive state,” Bjornstad says, explaining why the Drekker team can be as wild as they want when it comes to creating and curating flavor experiences for drinkers. There aren’t 150,000 people in the city, but you don’t have to try hard to find a devoted customer for anything that’s served here.

“We like to challenge customer expectations about what a beer can be. Create experiences. Destroy people’s expectations. That’s what people are yearning for.”

“We like to challenge customer expectations about what a beer can be,” says Bjornstad. “Create experiences. Destroy people’s expectations. That’s what people are yearning for.” 

When I talked with Bjornstad about their beer, he pointed to a mural by a local artist known as Punchgut and those Willy Wonka connections got clearer. One of the chocolatier’s famous quotes had been paraphrased on the wall: “We are the music makers / And we are the dreamers of dreams.”

“O’Shaughnessy,” Bjornstad says, attributing the full quote to the original author. It offered us a chance to sail off on some quote roll, metaphor run, and hyperbolic journey, landing with a story about some local man who’d built an actual Viking ship and the symbolism behind Drekker’s Viking logo. It was an important link to Fargo’s Scandinavian heritage. “Vikings are almost like these real-life mythical creatures,” Bjornstad says.

Settling back onto solid ground, we walked next door to the construction site that would become Brewhalla, Drekker’s Disneyland of beer, which opened in March 2023. Its food hall and hotel would certainly attract out-of-towners, Bjornstad remarked, but Brewhalla was built as community space. 

“There’s no tourist trap in Fargo. What you’re getting is an Upper Midwest experience.” Fargo doesn’t take itself too seriously, Bjornstad adds. “We try to show people how weird, how fun, how creative this town can be … People walk away understanding great beer can be made anywhere. It doesn’t require terroir.”

TO VIEW PARADISE, SIMPLY LOOK AROUND

Most people think of Fargo because of the eponymous movie and TV show, but both have brought fame and tourism to the city. The movie theater downtown has an 8-foot Marge Gunderson statue to honor Frances McDormand’s Oscar-winning performance that helped embed Fargo in the minds of cinephiles. Several miles outside of downtown, a visitor’s center provides pamphlets for local attractions, but the real draw is a display case filled with film scripts and swag from the Fargo film set, four different posters for the movie and show hanging on the wall, and the movie’s wood chipper, which is considered part of one of the most infamous murder scenes in cinema history. (The machine even includes a fake, socked foot sticking out in case someone forgot about that plot point)

Danni Melquist, Director of Marketing at the Fargo-Moorhead Convention & Visitors Bureau estimates that approximately 15%-20% of travelers to the city are drawn to Fargo specifically because of the Coen brothers’ movie. Judging by what Fargo can offer beer lovers, I like to think a much larger percentage of tourists should be coming for its breweries, like Drekker.

That night, back at my hotel, I turned back to some cans brought from the brewery. I popped open a Wheez the Juice—a Hazy IPA and reference to the film Encino Man—and searched for the movie on the television. Already there was another film to help me remember Fargo.

Words by Noah Lederman
Photos by Zachary Lucy