As I alluded to in yesterday’s post, today we are kicking off the Christmas segment of this page with the 12 brewers of Christmas. Every so often when traveling around to different breweries, you come across someone so down to earth and awesome that you can’t help but make them the First Brewer of Christmas. I would like to introduce everyone on the page to the co-owner, head brewer and vice-president of sanitation at Arctic Circle Brewing Company, Deven Sills.
From the minute I walked into Arctic Circle for the interview, I felt like Deven and I had known each other our entire lives (even though I had never met him before). Our entire conversation ended up just being two beer geeks talking about what we know and love. Neither of us wanted to end the conversation and we could have gone on for hours, possibly days just talking about beer.
Deven started his brewing journey back in 2015, when he started brewing out of a condo that he was living in at the time. Deven and his business partner Eric Lehman Jr., were traveling around quite a bit to breweries outside of Michigan, and they noticed that there were quite a few styles of beer that were under-represented in the State of Michigan. After four short years of traveling around and brewing their own beer, Deven and Eric began to plan on opening their own brewery to supply the craft beer world with their wonderful creations. After a global pandemic and a few years getting all their ducks in a row Arctic Circle Brewing Company finally opened in 2021.
Deven did not have any brewing experience in a professional setting before he decided to open up Arctic Circle for the world to sample his creations. Deven’s inspiration for brewing beer for a living was that he always had a passion for creating things. He was always trying new things out in the kitchen and changing and tweaking recipes on a daily basis as he was cooking. This naturally translated into brewing beer when he took it up as a hobby. He will warn you though, make sure you want to brew beer for a living before you do it, don’t do it for the supposed glitz and glamour of being a brewer. This is still very hard work, and doing it for a living can take away all the fun out of your old hobby.
Now we are going to move on to a little bit more about his business, Arctic Circle Brewing Company. The first and most obvious question that I had was why did they choose the name Arctic Circle? Deven responded very quickly that back in high school Deven and his friends used to hang out at his business partner Eric’s parents basement, which was perpetually cold and was nicknamed the Arctic Circle. There were many faces that used to come and go from the Arctic Circle throughout the years, but everyone was always welcome at the Arctic Circle back in high school. Bringing that name to the brewery was meant to make the brewery just as inclusive as the Arctic Circle was back in their high school days.
One really cool distinction that Arctic Circle Brewing Company can proudly lay claim to, they were the first brewery in Michigan that was a majority black-owned brewery. Deven claims that it is polarizing at the same time though, it is really cool to get recognized as the face of the brewery and to be easily spotted when at festivals and conventions. At the same time though he is also being held to a standard that really hasn’t been set by anyone else yet in the Michigan beer scene. He wants to make sure that what he does in the industry doesn’t taint the possibility of people of different ethnicities to follow in his path.
Deven takes pride in celebrating African-American culture at the brewery. From a specially curated playlist which features a lot of hip-hop, rap, and R&B selections. To the beers that he creates, whether it be names for the beer that play on hip-hop culture, such as the Ten Craft Commandments IPA (RIP Notorious B.I.G.). Sometimes the beers themselves are even made with ingredients that are sourced from Africa, like their Juneteenth beer that they have released every year. Bringing African-American culture to the brewery and the brewing industry is very important to Deven.
When it comes to the beer styles that Deven prefers to brew, he prefers German and Belgian style beers, unfortunately those don’t exactly sell as well as they used to. Being a brewer professionally, he has to brew what the customers are looking to drink. A lot of the beers that Deven brews now at Arctic Circle include coffee stouts, pastry stouts, and sours. For Black Friday recently, they released 24 stouts in 24 hours. That is a hell of a lot of different stout options, wish I could have made it there for that.
Unfortunately, Arctic Circle has made the difficult decision to close their doors on December 22nd of this year, so by my count that means you have 9 days left to pay them a visit. After 3 years in business, the struggles that a lot of breweries are feeling right now has caught up with them. This really stinks, these are some of the nicer people you will ever meet in the entire brewing industry. They don’t plan on dwelling on it though, they are going to go out with a bang and celebrate all that they have accomplished in their 3 years of business.
For their last week in business they plan on running a variant of their Sour Magazine Day, and doing a Sour Magazine week. They plan on releasing 4 to 6 different Sour Beers a day for the entire last week of their operation. I really hope that I can fit this into my schedule, but with the craziness of the holidays coming up, I unfortunately can’t guarantee that I will make it.
I did ask Deven a very difficult question during our time together, I asked what he will miss most about life at Arctic Circle once they have served their last pint. He replied almost immediately with the answer of the community. Deven has grown to love the people that come in and visit the taproom to taste his creations. He has watched people’s lives change from the first moment he met them. His customers have had kids, bought houses, gotten married and have enjoyed pints with him throughout the years as they have told him all about their lives outside of being his customer. Deven and his customers have grown together over the past 3 years and he says it will be difficult to not see them on a consistent basis once the taproom is closed.
Deven did warn me though, the coming weeks are the end of the current iteration of Arctic Circle Brewing Company. Don’t unfollow them on social media though, there may be plans for the future involving them.
Before the doors close, the last pint is poured, and our First Brewer of Christmas, Deven Sills takes a well-deserved vacation. Let’s all make sure to send Deven and Arctic Circle Brewing Company out with a bang. In the words of Deven himself, “Drink local, it is more important now than ever before”. Stop by the taproom, have a beer and see what they have created in 3 short years at the brewery before it is too late. Prost!
#drinklocal #michiganbeer #holidaybeer #craftbeer #brewery #michiganbeer #beer #beerlovers #cheers
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