Today we’d like to introduce you to Nick Patton. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Talking Waters Brewing Co. opened in July of 2016 (we just celebrated our 6th birthday!). It was originally started by 3 friends and Montevideo locals who loved craft beer and wanted to share that love with western MN. At the time, this area was a “craft beer desert.” Nick Patton, one of the three owners, had been home brewing for quite a few years and honed the craft to the point where he felt ready to give this idea of opening a brewery a fair shot. With the help of Phil Zachman and John Skogland (the other two owners), the three guys found/renovated a vacant building downtown Montevideo, piecemeal together a brew system in the basement, and put it in many long hours to make their dream a reality.
Family, friends, + community members rallied around Talking Waters and are why we have gotten this far. The Talking Waters footprint may have started small but has grown significantly over the years. We can find our beer in liquor stores and draft accounts across southern, western, and central MN. We are still 100% self-distributed!
John has since retired, and the company is now co-owned by Nick and Phil. The two handle all recipe development + brewing and have built quite the brand recognition in the MN beer scene. With how much the craft beer scene has boomed in the last five years, we are incredibly proud to be still here doing what we love every day + seeing the continued growth of the Talking Waters brand.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has most definitely not been a smooth road. Many underestimate how much work it takes to start and grow a craft brewery. It’s funny how the industry has been glamorized over the last 5 years. Breweries have popped up just about everywhere across MN.
One of our biggest challenges has been being located in a town of just over 5,000 people. We love our little community, but we can only do so much as far as sales go out of our taproom, which required us to ramp up distribution to get our beer out to as many liquor stores as we could feasibly deliver. It’s a grind to self-distribute (and leads to many more headaches), but we’re continuously working on growing our distro list while maintaining a beer quality standard we can be proud of.
We are six years in, and our team is still busting a$$ to make this thing possible. Nick and Phil still work 6 to 7 days a week. When you run a small business, there aren’t really “days off.” But we are fortunate to have a small team with a lot of passion for TW and where we’re going.
As you know, we’re big fans of Talking Waters Brewing Co. For our readers who might not be as familiar, what can you tell them about the brand?
Our tagline at Talking Waters is “handcrafting your next adventure.” We believe progress is born from the continual pursuit of adventure. The kind that comes from pushing boundaries, challenging expectations, and continuously experimenting. At Talking Waters, we handcraft a better life by making great beer. The Talking Waters taproom opened in July 2016, but our love for brewing started long before that. It’s quickly become a lifestyle that we are so damn passionate about. Our small team is connected to every step of the process, and we’re proud to be building a fun, adventurous, craft beer-loving community in the place where we grew up.
Within the industry, I think we’ve become known for making great IPAs – specifically west coast IPAs. We even won a few MN Craft Brewer’s Guild awards in 2021 for a couple of our lagers. A style we also really enjoy making. One of the things we’re most proud of is being in the top 25 MN breweries as far as overall rankings go on Untappd. We care a lot about and listen to what our customers say about our beer. That’s how we keep a pulse on our product’s performance in the market.
Lastly, we put a lot of effort into our digital marketing strategies. And stay incredibly active on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik-Tok, etc. It’s another way we get to hear/interact with our customers. It’s the best feeling when they tag us in their content + are somewhere cool on an adventure drinking our beer. That’s the kind of stuff that keeps us going. That’s why we started this.
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
One of the great things about the craft beer industry is the collaborative spirit. While it is incredibly competitive, brewers look after one another. Over the years, we’ve done many collaborations and have met some awesome humans. People we regularly stay in contact with to talk about all brewery challenges.
We have new breweries reaching out to us with questions, and we’re always happy to help and share our learnings. Our industry friends do the same in return. It’s a pretty unique industry in that way.
Pricing:
- Taproom Pints – $5-$8 each
Contact Info:
- Website: www.talkingwatersbrewing.com
- Instagram: @twbrewingco
- Facebook: @twbrewingco
- Twitter: @twbrewingco
Image Credits
credit: Talking Waters Brewing Co.
