Head Brewer and Owner, Dan Brouillette, opened Lumen Beer Company this past June and recently brewed his 31st beer. No two brews have been the same. The small taproom at 1433 S 13th Street in Little Bohemia specializes in a lot of beers with a lot of flavor. Style-wise, Lumen focuses on hazy, fruit forward IPAs and Sours.

“I also like to play around with a lot of non-traditional beer ingredients,” Brouillette offers. “We have a beer on the menu right now called Paparazzi that has 36 pounds of a vegan gelato mix. I like to play around with different things, try to take culinary inspiration from desserts and other foods that I like, and make the beer version of that as close as possible. It’s almost pushing the limits of what a lot of people would consider a beer.”

That same flavor experimentation translates to dark beer with the example of Boo, a decadent, peanut butter stout, that Brouillette likens to recreating his favorite Halloween candy as a beer. Beers aged in bourbon and wine barrels from Midwest Barrel are in the works for future release. The barrels are steam cleaned so that they’re not fresh oak, and then Brouillette has some fun with the journey.

“We’re going to put more classic styles, like a German Pilsner, in one of those barrels, and then let it age,” Brouillette said. “It’s about experimenting with the classic styles and seeing how we can make them not so classic. We like to do something different, and not everything works, but it’s a fun process.”

Amid those bigger flavor swings, the brewery experiments on a small scale to identify which variables affect which flavors within the brewing process. IPAs are Brouillette’s first love and get more space on the menu, and it’s this style that he likes to tweak most.

“Whether it’s substituting one grain for another, changing up the ratios of the grain bill, mixing in different hops at different times, whether it’s in the Whirlpool or dry hop, it’s cool to experiment and see how changing those affects different factors,” Brouillette explains.

Where does Brouillette get his inspiration from? He used to travel often for work, and he would always make time in his work schedule to visit as many breweries as he could on each trip.

“I would try beers from different regions, whether it be the northeast, or out in California, or wherever,” Brouillette said. “There were a lot of beers created in those markets that we didn’t have readily available here. It’s becoming more common that those beers are available in more locations, but I think the other thing was trying to remember and recreate those beers that I had at those breweries and bring that back here and make my own version of it.”

Brouillette has combined a decade of creative ideas and homebrew recipes to create an evolving menu.

“When you homebrew, you have room to try things with the small batches,” Brouillette said. “It’s a little riskier now, because there’s a little more money involved when it comes to each batch, but at the same time, we’re not making monstrous volumes of beer in small breweries, so you can get away with some experimentation.”

Lumen’s taproom is finding its groove, too. It took an immense amount of work to remodel the 106-year-old building – that was most recently an antique store – into a modern craft brewery. The taproom opens into a small event space next door, and Brouillette has plans to call it Glow Gallery and feature local artists’ work.

Lumen has only two employees in addition to Brouillette, and so the trio is putting in long hours. Brouillette wanted to tackle the many odd jobs a brewery has the first go-around so that he could advise his employees based on experience. He also enjoys meeting customers.

“I thought that was really important because everybody who goes to a brewery wants to talk to the brewer,” Brouillette said. “Every brewer I talk to says the same thing, and I get it, too. As a beer nerd, going to breweries and being able to get your beer served to you by the brewer or to sit down and talk with them is fun because you get a little peek behind the curtain as to what the process is and what the secrets are that go into the beer. I like sharing that stuff too.”

A look at Lumen’s social media is a peek at Brouillette’s background in advertising, photography, and graphic design. Brouillette used his eye for design to put together Lumen’s brand.

“Lumens are the measurement of light, and I make dark beer and light beer and pink beer and orange beer and everything in between,” Brouillette said. “It was a crossover of my photographic world meeting my beer world. I would think of the type of imagery that I want to put out there for people to get the vibe of Lumen, and it’s always bright, dramatic, a lot of shadows, bright highlights, and color and contrast.”

Brouillette used a deconstructed lightning bolt for the logo and played around to figure out what looks good on merchandise. He likes to use small touches of pop culture humor, his love of photography, and word association while remaining concise, resulting in one or two-word beer names.

“All of our sour beers have photographic names,” Brouillette said, citing Rule of Thirds and Skewed Perspective as beer name examples. “In the case of the Paparazzi brew, it’s because it is a photographic term based on Italian language because of its gelato inspiration.”

The creativity behind the social media and products gives customers a chance to interact with the product. Lumen will soon release a beer called Hop Hero for the Husker hockey game where players compete for the hero’s trophy. One half of the can will be red and white for the Nebraska colors, and the other half is black and gold for Iowa. Customers can turn the crowler to show their team’s colors.

The journey to open a brewery has been a momentous time in the head brewer’s life for many reasons.

“I had proposed, got married, and I had a baby between signing the lease and pouring the first beer,” Brouillette said.

Brouillette said he appreciates how helpful other breweries were in answering his questions and providing advice. He spoke to local brewers from Monolithic Brewing, Kros Strain, Vis Major, and breweries he had visited on previous travels.

“So many of the brewers that I emailed were so helpful with sending back great information that I was then able to put in place,” Brouillette said. “So, I felt like I got to start on second base just from utilizing the knowledge from those people and taking all the stuff that they were willing to share, and then being able to implement it from day one here. I didn’t have to learn some of those hard lessons. There’s still plenty of lessons that we did learn. I didn’t know what I didn’t know, but at the same time, having those people be so helpful was great.”

Visit the taproom at 1433 S 13th Street in Little Bohemia. To learn more about Lumen Beer Co. visit their website at www.lumenbeer.com and follow them on Instagram: @lumenbeerco.