Big Sioux Brewing Society hosting second annual homebrew festival at Woodgrain

For the second year, the Big Sioux Brewing Society will host a homebrewing festival, drawing brewers from across the area.

At the event, which will be held at Woodgrain Brewing Co., there will be up to 40 brewers. The festival is also free to the community, ages 21 and over, and will be held on July 31 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Last year, the event was held at Severance Brewing Company, which was capped at 20 brewers – half of this year’s participants.

This year, the fest looks a little different.

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There will be three categories including people’s choice, homebrewer’s choice and brewery choice. Employees of Woodgrain will pick their top choice, with the winner getting a chance to brew their recipe on a larger scale.

Participants are to provide at least five gallons for sampling and their own pouring systems. Brewers are limited to entering the contest with one beer, but there are no guidelines for styles of beers.

“We wanted to give some more opportunities," TJ Tedrow, who’s part of the Big Sioux Brewing Society, said. "Obviously, with a community like this...we’re kind of spread around. There’s people in Hartford that homebrew. There’s people in Watertown and other kinds of rural areas--they can join the community and come in."

Organizers hope the event can keep growing and said they’ve promoted the event within the state as well as in Iowa and Minnesota this year.

“It might take some time … We’re hoping to at least take that and hopefully build it into something. As long as people are willing to participate in it, we’re gonna still do it,” Tedrow said.

The law that made the event possible

A few years ago, event organizer Bud Molyneux and a friend went to a homebrew fest in Omaha, and that’s what sparked the idea, he said. Molyneux got his start after his mailman gave him information on homebrewing products.

While he wanted to start the festival earlier, he was unable to due to South Dakota law. It wasn’t until 2021 that the South Dakota Legislature passed Code 35-1-5.4.

“(We) went down there (to Omaha) … Thought it was fun, so we thought we’d try something up here now that the laws got changed, we could actually do it,” Molyneux said.

The law included cider and made it permissible to take homemade alcoholic beverages onto licensed premises, and it also stated the premises must be licensed to sell alcoholic beverages themselves.

An amendment added provisions on the sample size amount, which is three ounces, and South Dakota Code 35-4-66 also included a provision that exempted homebrews from needing a license to transport homemade alcoholic beverages.

Finding community in the homebrewing society

In addition to being a homebrewer since 2003, Molyneux was also the head brewer at Hydra Beer Co., which was acquired by Lupulin Brewing Co., in 2019. Hydra Beer Co. opened in 2015.

Molyneux has been a part of the home brew movement in Sioux Falls dating back to the early 2000s. Initially, the group started as a Yahoo group.

The group has grown since then and evolved into the Big Sioux Brewing Society, where members get together to try samples from each other and talk about the brewing process.

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“We’ve built up, I think, a pretty good community of homebrewers around the area. I think there’s a lot of really good talent, and this homebrew fest is like the epitome of what a lot of these people want to do," Tedrow said.

"Instead of family and friends," he added, "we can share with strangers and kind of play the role of like a pro brewer for a little bit."

The Big Sioux Brewing Society is also preparing for another homebrew fest after this one, which will be held at Remedy Brewing Company on Sept. 24 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. during the brewery’s Oktoberfest celebration.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Woodgrain Brewing Company holding second annual homebrew fest