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Carol Woten, part-owner of TLC Brewery, stands with store merchandise in the repurposed bank vault.
TLC Brewery’s brewing equipment creates beer by mashing grains to create wort and boiling it with hops before it is fermented and chilled.
Carol Woten, part-owner of TLC Brewery, stands with store merchandise in the repurposed bank vault.
TLC Brewery’s brewing equipment creates beer by mashing grains to create wort and boiling it with hops before it is fermented and chilled.
TLC Brewery turned a bank into a craft beer brewery in Holy Cross that’s set to open April 28. The brewery is co-owned by Tom Roling, his wife Linda, and sister in-law Carol Woten, whose first initials make the company’s TLC name. The name also lends itself to their slogan — “Crafting our beer with tender love and care for this little community.”
According to Woten, Tom Roling has been a brewer for eight years, experimenting in a five-gallon bucket with different beer types and ingredients as a hobby. Before long, his experimental home-brewed beers became popular in the community. He and Linda have lived in Holy Cross for years, operating a commercial door and hardware company named Opening Specialists. Woten is a retired executive for a robotics integration company in the Quad Cities and is currently taking online brewing classes from Cornell University.
“We always enjoyed going to breweries and tasting beer,” said Woten. “A little more than a year ago we were out at a brewery and said, ‘You know, when we retire we should really consider starting a brewery’. At first, we just looked at it like ‘Yeah, yeah, sure’, but then we thought a little more about it and started looking at buildings.”
The trio settled on the purchase of a bank building that had been owned by the city for a few years but didn’t move to open the brewery until this past year.
Woten said, “Last July I decided I was no longer super satisfied in my current profession, so I said, ‘Why don’t I just leave my job and we can get started a bit sooner with the brewery?’”
Turning a bank into a brewery wasn’t easy. Woten said the most challenging part of the renovation was removing the night deposit with 30 inches of concrete, a project which required renting a jackhammer. The bank vault will now be used to store merchandise and the drive-up window from the bank is now a drive-through to sell growlers of beer by pushing them through the teller window. TLC Brewery has decided to lean into the heritage of the building by using banking terms for the names of all the beers.
According to Woten, Holy Cross was chosen as the brewery’s location for three reasons. The first was that it was already the hometown of two of the owners. Aside from that, Woten said they saw a need in the area for a craft beer brewery and considered the location good for customers passing by.
“There wasn’t anything that did craft beer. Dyersville has craft beer, Guttenberg is getting a brewery, there’s now a taproom in Peosta and Dubuque has a number of breweries, so from a location perspective, this is also a nice place to be. The fact that Holy Cross is off the highway is a little more convenient than a drive-by like Luxemburg. It’s also pretty conveniently located for bicyclists who like to ride the Great River Road and we’re on the end of a snowmobile trail, so there are snowmobile clubs who come to this area in the winter. Groups of motorcycles will often come through town as well.”
Woten said the recent popularization of craft beer in the region largely has to do with its customization, enabling drinkers to find a style that’s just right for them.
“I think it has a lot to do with how you can get so many different flavors and styles of beer. There’s nothing wrong with commercially made beer like Budweiser or Miller, but craft beer offers a higher ABV or alcohol content if that’s what you desire. You can have a beer that’s very hoppy if you like the bitter taste. You can add fruit flavors, something that’s crisp and light, something that feels milkier in the mouth, it’s very customizable.”
TLC sources ingredients from The Brewhouse in Dubuque, the same location Tom Roling sourced from while homebrewing. The brewery currently uses a one-barrel system in the basement making one barrel, or two kegs, each time beer is run through the system. This designates TLC as a nano-brewery, or very small scale. Woten said the possibility exists for expansion later on.
“We hope there’s a need for us to increase later on. It’s unlikely we’d be able to fit anything much bigger in our space, so we’re a bit limited by size, but it’s a nicely-sized system that should make enough beer for a period of time. Hopefully, we’ll expand and manufacture someplace off-site and this place could just be the taproom at some point.”
TLC Brewery hopes to raise awareness in the immediate community to allow people to try craft beer and help Holy Cross grow and expand by bringing in more revenue for the community and partnering with other local businesses.
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