Once upon a Fargo frostbite, before the city had quite realized it needed its own unhinged Norse feberdrøm, four friends — scientist Mark Bjornstad, builder Darin Montplaisir, businessperson Jesse Feigum, and engineer Mason Montplaisir — were hunched over bubbling carboys and questionable life choices in somebody’s garage, plotting the beer revolution the way other people plot road trips or dubious tattoos. Seven years they brewed and schemed, polishing recipes like swords, polishing their Viking swagger like it was the prow of a longship about to sail into a land of light lager and utterly wreck it. They named it Drekker Brewing—half drink, half dragon-headed ship—because “Gods of Malty Mischief” was probably already taken.
By fall 2014, they flung open the doors of a modest downtown taproom, the air thick with malt steam and the quiet certainty they’d never be able to make enough beer to keep up. And of course, they couldn’t. The tanks doubled, tripled. The lines stretched out like winter shadows. The beer—juicy, sour, unapologetic—snarled at the notion of “just another IPA” and then blew past it in a haze of fruit pulp and hops big enough to club a moose.
Then came the move to the Mothership, a hulking, 1880 Northern Pacific locomotive shop that once birthed iron beasts and now births hazy beasts, pastry beasts, and imperial beasts of every glorious stripe. They called it Brewhalla, because Valhalla didn’t have enough neon, and filled it with beer art so feral it looked like the inside of a Norse shaman’s trance state after two too many double IPAs. Fargo hadn’t seen anything like it since—well, ever.
But Vikings don’t just stop at one conquest. In 2023, they bolted a $20 million temple of pure temptation onto the brewery: the new Brewhalla, equal parts food market, live-music lair, hotel, and beer-sodden berserker jubilee. You can now drink a triple-fruited smoothie sour while buying artisan dumplings, catch a band in the event hall, then collapse into a boutique hotel bed ten steps from the taproom. It’s not a night out. It’s a saga.
Today, Drekker ships beer to 30 states and flings cans across oceans, their art-dripped tallboys a sort of psychedelic Viking graffiti in the global craft scene. And still, every month, they hand a chunk of the till to local causes, because pillaging is so passé and UnPillaging is way more punk.
Drekker Brewing: Seven years of planning, a decade of joyful mayhem, one very large hammer still swinging at the gates of the ordinary, and a Thursday beer flight at Peaks & Pints in Tacoma’s Proctor District. Skål.
Peaks & Pints Thursday Drekker Flight
Drekker Brewing Swirlee Peach Creamsicle
6.4% ABV | Fruited Sour
If nostalgia had a blender and a wicked sense of humor, it would crank out something like Drekker’s Swirlee Peach Creamsicle — a peach-laden fantastical blur that tastes like your childhood freezer discovered craft beer. This smoothie-style sour is all ripe, sun-warm peaches folded into vanilla silk, riding a tangy kettle-sour wave that snaps just enough to keep you from drowning in dessert. It swirls, it swoons, it practically begs for a striped paper straw, but make no mistake — this is grown-up ice cream truck territory, and the only thing melting is your self-control.
Drekker Beneath the Coconut Palms
6.6% ABV | Fruited Sour – Collaboration with Resident Culture Brewing Co.
Like a sun-bleached postcard from a beach you’ll never quite find again, Beneath the Coconut Palms is Drekker Brewing and Resident Culture Brewing’s shared daydream of what happens when fruit decides to throw a luau. First comes guava, lush and unapologetic, wading in with passionfruit and raspberry in tow, all swirled together like some tropical fever dream that’s half cocktail, half illicit smoothie. Then the toasted coconut drapes itself over everything like a hammock in the late-afternoon heat, just boozy enough to make you question whether you’re at the bar or barefoot in the sand. It’s juicy, tangy, and indecently fragrant — the sort of beer that makes you want to call in sick, find a tiki hut, and disappear until someone sends a search party.
Drekker Fluff Stuff: Strawberry
6% ABV | Fruited Sour with Marshmallow
This is what happens when strawberries crash a cloud party and invite marshmallows to bring the sweet chaos. Fluff Stuff: Strawberry is Drekker’s unashamedly dessert-level sour — bright, tart berry juice swirling through a pillowy marshmallow haze, all thick and creamy enough to make you wonder if you should’ve brought a spoon. It’s part cotton candy daydream, part farmers’ market jam jar, and entirely too easy to “just sample” before you realize your taster glass is already empty. A liquid sugar rush that somehow keeps its dignity, even as it’s licking strawberry puree off its own fingers.
Drekker Braaaaaaaains Kiwi Pineapple
6.5% ABV | Smoothie / Pastry Sour
If a tiki bar in some neon-lit afterlife decided to abandon all restraint and dump the entire fruit bowl into the blender, you’d get Braaaaaaaains – Kiwi Pineapple. Drekker’s smoothie-sour madness smashes ripe kiwi and sun-bleached pineapple into a decadent puree, then swirls in sea salt, vanilla, and a lactose silkiness so lush it should probably come with its own chaise lounge. It’s electric green meets golden sunrise, tangy enough to snap your eyes open, sweet enough to keep them half-closed. Each sip is a full-tilt tropical hallucination — part beach vacation, part phantasmagoria of fruits — with a finish that whispers, “You’re going to need another taster glass… and maybe a tiny umbrella.”
Drekker Slang Du Jour Raspberry Cheesecake
6.6% ABV | Smoothie / Pastry Sour / Pastry Berliner Weissbier
Slang Du Jour – Raspberry Cheesecake is what happens when dessert loses its mind, gets on a plane to Fargo, and decides to live in a beer can. This isn’t “inspired by” cheesecake — this is cheesecake, reimagined in Berliner Weisse form, all thick raspberry swirl, granola crumble illusion, and cream cheese decadence so rich you might check if it came with a fork. Lactose and vanilla lay down the velvet, tart berries keep it from collapsing into cloy, and somewhere in there a sour backbone whispers that, yes, this is still technically beer. It pours like an indulgent dare, smells like The Cheesecake Factory’s secret menu, and drinks like a surreal dessert fantasy you should probably share — but definitely won’t.
LINK: Peaks & Pints beer and cider cooler inventory
