Robin Shepard
Humble Forager is brewing at Octopi and has entered the Madison beer market.
Austin Jevne and Annie Henderson opened the small brewpub known as Forager Brewery in Rochester, Minnesota, in 2015. Jevne, a Madison native, has now created a spin-off enterprise called Humble Forager Brewery, and most of its beers are being brewed at Octopi Brewng in Waunakee.
Jevne, 36, graduated from West High School in 2002 and moved to Minnesota to attend St. Cloud State University. “I’ve always loved Madison. It’s the city of my dreams,” says Jevne, who lives in Rochester and travels to Waunakee a couple of times a month to work on new recipes, distribution and marketing.
While he was in college, Jevne’s homebrewing hobby grew and eventually he found himself looking for jobs in the brewing industry. One of those was with the packaging line and barrel-aging program at Rush River Brewing Company in River Falls, Wisconsin. That resulted in Jevne assisting in a few start-up breweries in the Twin Cities before finding himself back in Rochester with plans to open a Belgian beer bar. Even though that pub never materialized, it did lead to his meeting Henderson. Together they created Forager Brewing with its small four-barrel brewhouse.
Brewing there over the past five years inspired Jevne to expand. However, Minnesota law restricts a brewpub from distributing, so Jevne created Humble Forager Brewery as a separate company. In doing so, he had to give up ownership in the Forager Brewery pub in Rochester. While Jevne is still involved in occasional brew collaborations at that site, Henderson is the primary owner and runs the day-to-day operations.
Jevne uses Octopi for most of Humble Forager’s production, with the exception of select stouts and porters made with Fair State Brewing Cooperative of Minneapolis. Forager beers are distributed primarily in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois; however Jevne expects product to reach 17 states by the end of the year. Forager beers are also heading out to the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
Jevne turned to Octopi because he was looking for a way to be closer to his hometown of Madison. “Whenever I come back to Madison I feel at home. I still have family and friends in the area,” he says. He even dreams of someday opening a small brewpub in the Monroe Street neighborhood, where he grew up, although he has no immediate plans to do so.
He’s also friends with Levi Funk, owner of Funk Factory Geuzeria. Funk is the co-developer of the Untitled Art series of beers with Octopi. Jevne and Funk worked together last spring in producing three Untitled Art beers: Florida Weisse, Blueberry Smoothie and Blackberry Berliner Weisse.
Humble Forager brands launched over the summer with several style-based series. The Coastal Sunshine lineup features fruited sour ales, Elevated Perspectives features double IPAs; Cloud Hopping features hazy IPAs, and the final series focuses on strong stouts and porters featuring pastry-style sweet adjuncts.
Part of Humble Forager’s signature is a commitment to sustainability. “We try to buy fruits from companies that are sourcing with fair trade practices, and we look for real natural flavors for our stouts and porters,” says Jevne. “We want flavors to show up with balance, but we also want our beers to have a full, intense, flavor profile, with real ingredients,” he adds.
Jevne expects a new Humble Forager beer to be released each month for the rest of this year. Later this month, watch for Voyager’s Getaway, a brew inspired by Hostess Snowballs, with hints of roasted coconut, marshmallow, vanilla and chocolate. October features Coastal Sunrise, a breakfast pastry-inspired sour beer with flavors of blueberry pancakes, vanilla beans and maple syrup. And coming out in November will be a sour called Coastal Sunset, which Jevne describes as like an ambrosia salad, with notes of cherry, tangerine, pineapple, marshmallow and walnuts.
Select Humble Forager beers can be found in the Octopi taproom, which is currently open for to-go sales only Wednesday-Saturday with online ordering and curbside pickup. Right now Octopi is selling Forager’s Forest Fortress, an imperial pastry stout, in a two-pack for $17. In local craft beer stores, Forager beers sell in 12- or 16-ounce cans of two- or four-packs.
