Welcome to

The New Pavilion of
Glewwe's Castle Brewery,
Prior Lake, Minnesota USA

Home Made Root Beer since 1994

The Wife and I were tired of moving furniture and setting up tents,
so We Built a New Pavilion, November 2025-May 2026

Since 2010, the brewery has been open for social activities to share the joy of drinking an assortment of beverages. We had a rather large tent on the brewery patio with some furniture for guests to sit and enjoy an afternoon. More guests started coming as word spread about us, causing us to get more furniture and pop-up tents to keep the afternoon sun off of us. But after 2 years of retirement from his day job, Mark decided that moving tents and furniture to mow was too tiresome. It was time to have a more permanent solution for entertainment.

And then, as if fortune shown down about them, his fortune cookie said "Your willingness to take risks will lead to opportunities that others fear."

So Mark & Laurel sat down and started to jot down some ideas. We started with an enclosed building so we could entertain more and hide from bad weather. Kind of costly. What about a smaller enclosed area with a large covered patio. Better. Eventually we settled on a smaller enclosed area mostly to store some stuff and a large covered patio, kind of like one of those park pavilions. We were very happy with the EPS solid core brewery building so we figured we would use the same manufactured structure. After calling around, we discovered ProCon in Faribault, Minnesota. After gagging over the cost, we decided to move forward. The plan was to be done by the end of October 2025, but a few snags got in the way of that schedule.

The final plans were a 24'x8' enclosed building with an adjacent 24'x40' covered pavilion. And it would go up near the existing brewery. Electric but no plumbing. Sounded simple enough. Just needed to get a permit from the county. Ha! That took 3 months. For some reason they thought we were running a business and wanted to treat the building as such. Then they started looking at the existing brewery building. Apparently they decided we needed a holding tank for drainage water because the water was plumbed up to the brewery from the house. And then they wanted us to inspect the house septic tank and drain field. OMG!! All this scrutiny for a building that did not even plan to have water.

While we waited for the permit to be approved we boldly contracted to have some trees removed that would be in the way of the new building. It was a shame to see so much shade be removed, but the pavilion would provide its own shade. All in all 2 maple trees, an arborvitae, and a few branches of other trees that were encroaching the area were removed. It really opened up the area. Now we just need the permit to get started on the construction.

Anyway, in mid-November (yep, just after returning from WDW and 2 weeks after the original plan to be finished) we got permit approved to build. Now, if you know Minnesota, November is essentially part of winter. Remember we got 30 inches of snow in the blizzard on Halloween 1991. Pouring concrete in the winter is kind of tricky but luckily this year the weather stayed warm (above freezing) until 4 days after the concrete was poured. Then it got cold and the snow started to fall. The building materials are now under 4-6 inches of snow and the temperatures are staying below freezing. Not exactly ideal for outside construction work.

After a couple week sabbatical the construction crew arrived and the building construction started on the 8th of December. Admittedly, we were still fighting cold (yep, below zero fahrenheit) and even more snow. But the crew started putting up the structure. I was told that they would work through the winter as long as the wind chill remained above 0 F and it is not snowing/raining/sleeting (which in Minnesota, that really leaves out a lot of days during a normal winter). To their credit, on the 3rd day a few wall panels and some of the support poles were up. Then they finished the walls and added the roof trusses. About this time, the thoughts were that they should be done with the majority of the work by the first week of January. Some work would need to to wait, specifically bring in about another 10 yards of fill to put around the building and adding waiting until spring to pour the cement apron in front of the doors. But this was sounding very doable.

Then reality started to set in. More cold weather and snow. After several years of nontraditional winters in Minnesota had made us optimistic and forget what a true Minnesota winter is like. I even heard a weather person say it was going to be really cold and the temperatures were still going to be above 0^oF. We have become wimps! Needless to say, now that safety is our number one concern of our society, progress on the building project was rapidly slowing down. Humph!! Well, that and half of every workday was spent clearing snow just to find the build materials and work area. It is now new years day and they are taking a holiday. Mind you, there have been several days in the past two weeks that no one (or at most a skeleton crew) have not shown up. And today it is not snowing or insanely cold. I think I will take another picture and then go up and make and amber beer - or bottle the cider. At least I can make progress towards the future. But first, maybe a nice breakfast of Eggs Benedict.

It is now January 14 and the ice is becoming a serious issue for walking around. But the electric is now connected. The doors and window are now installed (and even a light over the doors). They are still putting up the siding and the light fixtures will need to be installed once the ceiling is installed. But the building is now seriously starting to look like the pavilion we had hoped for. In another week they should be finished with what they can do this winter. Then the final touches will need to be done in the Spring. On January 27, the crew brought in a dumpster and cleaned up the work site. Oh and we now have door handles on the doors. The electricians showed up at the end of January to install the electrical outlets and lights. At this point we don't expect to see anyone again until May to do the final work (more fill and the final concrete pad).

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More to come as progress continues.

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The whole Glewwe family hopes you enjoy the results of this project. Our products are still made by hand in keeping with a traditional old world charm.

We will now have room for more entertaining. In fact, our 2nd Swiss slave is planning a wedding reception for the family & friends in the USA for September 2026. If you would like a tour of the brewery & pavilion, please feel free to contact us.