North grad Deb Winter brewing new business in Elkader

By Janell Bradley

ELKADER – Buying an historic brick building in this town and renovating it into both her business and residence, has been a welcome adventure for Deb Winter.

She's only lived in the town the past year, but Winter grew up in nearby West Union and graduated from North High School in 1977.

Having just opened 'Deb's Brewtopia' – a homebrewing equipment and supply shop, Winter probably couldn't have ever imagined that a passion for home-brewing and entering competitions with her wine and beer would be the thing to bring her full circle and closer to her family.

The oldest in a family of seven children, Winter married her high school sweetheart and for all of the 34 years of her marriage, worked as office manager for a court reporting firm in Waterloo – a job she loved.

But with a divorce, came her decision to leave that community and move back closer to her parents and several siblings. As she readjusted to single life, Deb stayed alternately with her parents in West Union and youngest brother, David, who with his wife and children, live west of Elkader.

She admits at first, she didn't know which direction her life was headed.

"I had put in applications at several places, but then one morning I just knew. I woke up and thought, 'What's my passion? What do I know? What do I love'?" She had her answer.

Having gotten her start with brewing in 2007, Winter first entered her brews at the Iowa State Fair competition in 2009. She took first place gold with her pale ale and second with a Vienna lager. Since then, she's been entering competitions in California, Tennessee, Kansas City and other locales. She took first and second place honors in Vail, Colo. in January 2010 at the Big Beers & Barley Wine competition and participated in the Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing – an event for which she had to first qualify.

Winter admits there is a secret to the beer she's been most successful with, the American red pale ale. Acquiring pieces of discarded Templeton Rye whiskey barrels, she has a process to transfer the flavors of oak and Templeton Rye whiskey – to her beer. 

Another top award-winner is a bourbon oatmeal stout.

"No," Winter says with a grin and a laugh, "I don't do the 'chick' beers!" 

Winter also grows 18 varieties of hops. In all, her brew shop offers 46 varieties of grains to potential brewmasters. The combinations are limitless, she says.

While she offers kits for beginners, Winter also offers everything an experienced beer brewer or wine maker might need.

At any given time, she's likely to have seven or eight varieties of wine 'cooking' and another 10 or so completed and available for tasting in a 5 gallon kegs in a chiller. 

As for brewing beer, Winter is still establishing that area, but once it's up and running, she hopes to offer beers for purchase – by the growler, or by the keg, to area restaurants. If enough interest is shown, she will begin scheduling classes to individuals, on both brewing and winemaking. She estimates a person can get started spending as little as $30 or could spend up to $200 if purchasing all equipment and ingredients.

Overall, Winter is excited about her new venture.

When she started to look for a place from which to operate her brewing supply business, she says the former Clayton County Register building wasn't a tough sell. It had everything she needed: character emanating from the brick walls and floors, a storefront, a potential living area in the back and a garage where she eventually hopes to set up her own brewing tanks.

"What's not to love? There's the Turkey River, the downtown ... it was love at first sight."

Admittedly, there was a lot of work involved in renovation before Winter was ready to open shop. She says she used 100 tubes of caulk alone, closing gaps in the wood ceiling in what was once the composition/paste-up area of the long-time newspaper office. With help from her brothers and her Dad, Dan Winter,  Sr., she tore out walls and opened up the area that once separate the front office from the composition area.

As construction progressed and Deb was able to use the building as a residence, she found a calico cat in the alley that barely weighed a pound.

These days, "Ophelia the cat," joins the dog, "Louie," in having the run of the place, since Winter has rehabbed the one-time job-printing area into a studio apartment. The overhead balcony was once an office for newspaper employees. Now, it's a loft bedroom where the original pipe railing is still in place, as are the concrete steps leading upward.

Having the project as a goal was tremendous motivation for Winter. Nieces Jessica and Kate Winter helped with selecting colors for paint and getting a website in place. Other family members helped with construction and de-construction – and they frequently offer opinions on new brews she's trying, too.

"The support of my family has been unbelievable," she says. "It's really helped me believe in myself."

Deb's Brewtopia is open Tuesdays through Fridays, from 11 a.m. to 5 and Saturday from 10-2. The shop at 106 Cedar Street is closed Sunday and Monday. She can also be contacted at 563-245-3737 or toll-free at 855-210-3737. Her website, is: www.debsbrewtopia.com.

Eight years after Lands' End closes, employees reunite in old workplace

Pictured in a sitting area inside the new addition at Stoney Brook Village, are these women who gathered for a reunion of Lands' End employees. The women manufactured soft luggage for Lands' End, inside the building that was renovated in 2005, and reopened as Stoney Brook in 2006. Seated, from left: Sheryl Sievert, Calmar; Dina Hackley, Clermont; Missy Shindelar, Waucoma; Julie Lerch, Wadena; Kris Moser, West Union; Cheryl Olson, Eldorado; in back: Edie Daniels, West Union; Darla Wenthold, Ossian; Marilyn Brincks, Ossian; Arlene Molokken, West Union; Anne Mae Schlatter, West Union; Cindy Jacob, Sumner. 

By Janell Bradley

WEST UNION – Like the Real Housewives of reality TV, they laughed, cried and shared stories of marriage, divorce and children. They knew the names and faces of one another's children. Their workplace was like a neighborhood. As they worked, the women's frequent chatter competed with the hum of industrial-type sewing machines on which they sewed together soft luggage.

When one-time employees of manufacturer Lands' End gathered for a reunion Oct. 13, they remembered their days working together in an industrial building at West Union's southeast edge. 

They were competitive in the number of pieces they could turn out each week, but when the work day ended, several gathered socially at a local bar where everybody knew their names. Some worked at Lands End for just eight or ten years, while others marked 20+ anniversaries with the company. 

When the Wisconsin-based company closed its doors in West Union in April 2004, the 80-some employees were left  to decide if they'd change careers, find other employment, or take the company up on its offer to provide financial aid toward education in a new field.

Eight years later, a group of the women from Lands' End, held a reunion inside the one-time industrial building where they had worked together and caught up on the twists and turns one another's lives had taken.

Dina Hackley, Clermont, used the college aid package offered by Lands End to earn a degree as a registered nurse. Arlene Molokken, West Union, did likewise, and with her RH/IT degree, now works from home, for Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Sheryl Sievert, Calmar, is an HR assistant at Luther College in Decorah. Darla Wenthold works at Rockwell Collins in Decorah. Cindy Jacob, Sumner, went to work at Rockwell Automation in Sumner, but after five years, she saw that company close its doors, too. Now she's back in college, studying to attain an administrative assistant degree at Northeast Iowa Community College.

Missy Shindelar, Waucoma, went to work at another West Union manufacturer, Rupp Air Management. She says her co-workers there laugh when she tells them she's going to get more 'thread' – when what she means is 'wire' in her job at Rupp.

Edie Daniels and Anna Mae Schlatter, West Union, are both retired and enjoying time with their grandchildren. Kris Moser works in the dietary department at the Good Samaritan Center in West Union. 

Others who worked at Lands' End but didn't attend the recent reunion, have taken custodial positions, one went to John Deere, and another has her own embroidery and custom sewing business.

Although she worked various jobs over the past eight years, Cheryl Olson, of Eldorado, actually parks back in the same parking lot as she did in her days working for Lands End. For the past year, she's been activities director at Stoney Brook Village – the entity that resulted with the purchase of the Lands' End industrial site.

Unlike some manufacturing sites that sit vacant once a business shutters its doors, the  22,000 sq. ft. Lands' End building was purchased by four local business people of aging parents, with a dream to make the structure an assisted living center. Where 85 women once sat at sewing machines, an assisted living center offers up to 72 people needing living assistance. Twenty-five apartments were constructed originally, with another 11 added to Stoney Brook earlier this year.

As the women toured Stoney Brook Village and tried to remember how the building had looked when they worked there, they hugged and chatted as the volume of their conversations grew more animated.

While some of the women said they'd stayed in touch via social media, several others admitted they hadn't seen one another in months or even years.

Still, said Hackley, "From our days working here, we still have those ties to one another. We're still family after all these years."