Fulton started in 2006 when four friends started home brewing on the weekends, 10 gallons at time, in a one-car garage in the Fulton neighborhood of South Minneapolis. The group had no intention of starting a business, but later realized their collective skill set just might be capable of launching a startup business. Jim had the big ideas, Peter built the equipment, Ryan dreamed up recipes, and Brian drank the beer. Before long, the operation expanded from Jim’s one-car garage to Peter’s two-car garage and that wouldn’t be the last expansion.

By 2009, the (admittedly biased) focus group of friends and family were consistently providing positive feedback on the free home brewed beer they sampled with a few recipes rising to the top including one IPA (Sweet Child of Vine), a subtle but complex blonde ale (The Lonely Blonde) and two imperial-style beers (The Libertine and Worthy Adversary).

While the first beer styles were coming into sharp focus, the founding of the brewery was anything but. Ryan was in the middle of business school, Jim was studying for the bar exam, Brian was planning a wedding, and Peter was expecting his first child. There wasn’t a ton of extra cash laying around to start a brewery, nor had anyone run a business before. What the friends lacked in industry ties or experience they made up for with passion.

The piggybank to build Fulton’s brewery was still empty, so contract brewing was the next sensible step. Sand Creek Brewing Company located a couple hours east into Wisconsin allowed Fulton’s founders to apprentice with an experienced brewmaster, learn the basics of operating a production plant, build distribution, and generate some modest revenue. The first pint of Sweet Child of Vine was sold to a customer on October 28, 2009.

Things happened fast. Less than a year later, Fulton beer was being sold in over 100 bars around the Twin Cities and would soon be sold in a place to call home in the North Loop neighborhood of downtown Minneapolis. As brewhouse layouts were designed and equipment was delivered, Minnesota passed a key piece of legislation enabling packaging breweries to operate taprooms. Plans were quickly redrawn, and bar equipment was ordered. Fulton began brewing and selling growlers in the fall of 2011, and by the following March, Minneapolis’ first taproom was opened at 414 6^th Avenue.

Three years later, with the growth of the taproom, the founders were finally able to quit their day jobs and hire Fulton’s’ first employee, Mikey Salo, as head brewer, and eventually, apart-owner.

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By January of 2013, consumer demand for Fulton beer was exceeding the space in the taproom and the capacity of the 20-barrel brewhouse. Later that year - three years to the day after the least was signed for the downtown brewery – the ink was signed on a 51,000 square foot building in NE Minneapolis. With eight times the square footage and an 80-barrel brewhouse, this was Fulton’s new forever home. The NE brewery cannot legally operate a taproom, but corporate offices, warehousing, and QC/QA laboratory are all located there. Today, the vast majority of Fulton beer – in kegs, bottles, and cans – comes from the NE brewery. In addition to housing the taproom, the downtown brewery has evolved into our laboratory for smaller batch and experimental brewing, including collaborations, taproom exclusives, and barrel aging.

In 2024, Fulton is among the top five craft breweries in Minnesota with a growing portfolio of craft beer, seltzers, and THC beverages available throughout Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. With quality as its keystone, Fulton continues to produce Sweet Child of Vine, one of Minnesota’s pioneer IPAs; the best-selling legacy Lonely Blonde, an easy-drinking blonde ale; and the award-winning Hop Kingdom 300 IPA, a decoratedWest-Coast-style IPA voted No. 1 American IPA in 2023 by the Minnesota Craft Brewer’s Guild. Fulton continues to innovate in the beverage space with hard seltzers and THC beverages growing its reputation as a trusted contract brewing partner. Built on trust, enthusiasm and integrity, Fulton remains rooted in the mantra of its founders: “ordinary people brewing extraordinary beer.”