

Crookston’s Craft Maltsters
Beer lovers Adam Wagner of Fisher and his father, Tim Wagner, a fourth-generation Red River Valley farmer, have launched an independent craft malting company. Last December, Vertical Malt opened a “micro” malt house in Crookston to malt small batches of barley grown on the Wagner Family’s 2,100-acre farm in Polk County. The start-up currently makes 250 pounds of malt, the foundation of beer, every week. Over the next nine months, Vertical Malt plans to scale up production to