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Food & Drink

How MN-Made Salted Nut Rolls Became โ€˜A Brewerโ€™s Lunchโ€™

A brief history of the delicious, locally launched candy craze.

The goods.
Gambit Brewing Co.

If you were, for whatever reason, to pop into a craft beer production facility and say, โ€œBoy, I could sure go for a brewerโ€™s lunch,โ€ you wouldnโ€™t be viewed as a total nutjob. No, youโ€™d be recognized as someone whoโ€™s jonesing for a Pearsonโ€™sย Saltedย Nut Roll.

โ€œItโ€™s not just Minnesota people that know about the Nut Rolls,โ€ says Daveย Berg, the brewmaster at New Ulmโ€™s August Schell Brewing Co. โ€œYou can go on Reddit and look at brewersโ€™ forums and theyโ€™re talking about Nut Rolls. Youโ€™ll get posts everywhere.โ€ย 

Joshย Secaur, head brewer and owner atย St. Paulโ€™s brand-new Gambit Brewing Co., confirms the nutty, salty phenomenon.

โ€œAll the Facebook groups, and Reddit, people are like, โ€˜Oh, I got two Salted Nut Rolls on my pallet, this is amazing!'โ€ he says. โ€œItโ€™s just one of those inside industry things thatโ€™s pretty fun.โ€

Who, or what, is this candy bar fairy who looks after hard-working brewers? Itโ€™s BSG Craftbrewing, the Shakopee-headquartered mega-supplier of hops, malts, grains, yeasts, and basically anything else required in the industrial production of craft beer. It was the first company to offer โ€œone-stop shoppingโ€ for craft breweries, Berg says, and it has since expanded throughout the country.

โ€œSomewhere along the line, and lord knows why, they started putting candy bars in with the orders,โ€ he says. โ€œIt was Salted Nut Rolls, sometimes itโ€™d be Nut Goodies.โ€

Over two decades ago, Kasota-based Mid-America Brewing Supply began peppering pallets with hard candies for brewers. When BSG acquired MAB in 2004, the shift was made to Salted Nut Rolls. Writes a nameless blogger for BSG: โ€œWhile one couldnโ€™t say that this changed the course of American beer and brewing as we know it, it definitely started something that has made a lot of brewers happy ever since.โ€ (BSG didnโ€™t respond to our request for comment on this hard-hitting story.)

Berg says the bonus goodies are even listed, gratis, on invoices. (This documentation catches warehouses workers red-handed when they swipe the bars, a common occurrence at Schellโ€™s.) Nut Rolls have become akin to a military rations for workers, serving as a chompable source of quick calories should shifts extend past dinner time. โ€œIt saved many a brewer, when itโ€™s a late night and the only thing you have around is the Nut Roll that came with your malt,โ€ he says.

Inclusion of the St. Paul-created candyโ€”typically one or two bars per palletโ€”hasnโ€™t come without controversy. Berg remembers the dark era when Twin Bing Bars, a lower quality confection from a lower quality state, temporarily replaced the Nut Rolls.

โ€œEverybody started complaining: โ€˜Where are the Nut Rolls?'โ€ Berg remembers with a hearty chuckle. โ€œโ€˜Why are you pawning this stuff off on us?โ€™โ€

Several breweries, like Blaineโ€™s Invictus Brewing and Pittsburghโ€™s Pennsylvania Brewing Co., have concocted Nut Roll-themed specialty beers, no doubt tips oโ€™ the cap to the 113-year-old candymaker who keeps โ€™em full. โ€œThe Salted Nut Roll has always been a hard-working candy,โ€ a Pearsonโ€™s PR man once told BSG, adding that his company is honored to have become a part of the craft-beer universe.

โ€œItโ€™s a sweet thing to have sitting on the shelf, like, โ€˜Oh, I left my lunch box at home today? Well, I got a Nut Rollโ€”thatโ€™s perfect,'โ€ Secaur of Gambit Brewing says. โ€œAndย when we got our first one hereย it was like, alright, weโ€™re bordering on becoming official now.โ€