Architects: HGA
Area: 50,000ft²
Country: USA, minneapolis
Year: 2015
Photographs: Corey Gaffer, Paul Crosby
Text description and images are provided by the architects.
Surly Brewing MSP is designed as a 50,000 GSF destination brewery that combines gardens, beer hall, event center, restaurant, and brewery production in Minneapolis’s Prospect Park neighborhood.
The 8.3-acres project is located on a brownfield site and comprised of 7 separate parcels of land divided by the municipalities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Planning for the project focused on both the brewery operations for both initial and future needs – the facility is designed to account for upwards of 200% expansion on the site.
The building massing was specifically tailored to fit the combined program of brewing and social gathering space, culminating at the gardens. Corrugated metal siding complimented with red cedar accents reflects the industrial character of the neighborhood and importantly, the Surly brand. The design concept, based on transparency throughout, was developed to put the brewing process on display. The patron is immersed in the brewery experience from multiple vantage points within the building and garden.
Visitors arriving from car, mass transit, bike or foot are channeled to a central entrance plaza anchored by a fire cauldron on one end and fountains at the other. The plaza choreographs an entrance experience leading to the front door of the facility.
From there, visitors are introduced to part of the brewing process in the entrance “chamber” with dramatic floor-to-ceiling glass walls framing views of the fermentation cellar. Further into the space, an open beer hall with long drinking and eating tables features window walls that look into the brew house (the heart of the brewery) at one end and out to a beer deck and gardens at the other.
On the west side of the beer hall, an operable glass wall lifts and slides open, allowing a free flow of space 10 feet high by 40 feet wide from interior to exterior as visitors wander out to the deck, beer garden and amphitheater.
Redevelopment of the brownfield site required navigating the complexities of multiple parcels of polluted land with varying easement and restrictive covenants through multiple jurisdictional reviews.
The brewery draws on the industrial DNA of the site incorporating the corrugated siding of the surrounding shipping containers and positions the buildings outward focal point on an abandoned grain silo. The landscape design also reuses existing building foundation walls along with salvaged building materials to define outdoor rooms.
At the upper level, the space is divided into a more formal restaurant and an event center, named Scheid Hall in honor of the late State Senator Linda Scheid who helped author the “Surly Bill” that allowed brewers to sell their product on their premises.
The event center includes a pre-function area and bar overlooking the beer hall and brew house. The restaurant and event space additionally have an exterior deck on the second level overlooking the amphitheater and gardens below.
Throughout the building and site, strategic connections link people to one another and the brewery. With a carefully choreographed tour route and curated graphics, visitors are immersed in the Surly Destination Brewery Experience—a brand in and of itself.
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