A new taproom has opened up in Stover.
Brian and Leslie Welpman, of Welpman Springs Brewery, spent the last two years building a new bar for residents. After years of selling and producing popular freshwater beer, the family took one step forward to bring a taproom to their small town.
According to welpmansprings.weebly.com, "Welpman Springs is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Missouri Goldfish Hatchery, Inc., a fourth generation family owned and operated business."
"I'm a fourth-generation fish farmer, too, and my great-grandfather started this place. And one of the reasons he started in 1929 was because they had a great big spring on it," Brian Welpman said. "No electricity in the rural parts of this country until 1952, so he said it was cheaper to find a place with a spring on it than it was to come and have him drill a well, put in a generator set and then pump the water out of the ground. So he bought this place in 1929 because it has a big spring on it. And it turns out that it's fantastic quality water. Good water to brew with."
In 2014, the Welpman family decided to enter the brewery business after they saw an ad from Sam Adams's LongShot American Homebrew Competition. Brian Welpman said it came to him like a bolt of lightning. "You can make this stuff at home," he thought to himself.
"So we started looking into home brewing equipment, and we started making some beer at our house," Brian Welpman said. "We did that for 10 or 12 years probably and thought we were doing good. Leslie was a part-time (business and employment strategies professor) at State Fair, and she started working at the local Co-Op, too, and we said this might be an opportunity for us to employ ourselves a little bit, so maybe we'll turn it into a business."
Brian Welpman said through crafting beer; they fell in love with the industry. They developed seven flavors: Gold Ration American Wheat Ale, Unwanted Competition Blonde Ale, Shubunkin Punkin Amber Ale, The Bite American India Pale Ale (IPA), Pete and Jack Double IPA, Spawn Stout and Rosie Red Irish Style Red Ale.
On the back of each beer can is a short story telling the history of Welpman Springs and its services as a goldfish hatchery. Brian Welpman told the Democrat although it began in 1929 as an oriental goldfish hatchery, in the 1950s, it switched over to cultivating the Golden Shiner fish, which is used as a bait minnow. In 2023, the family continues to raise bait minnows as well as sell spring water to processing plants.
"We use the spring water in every beer that we brew, and we don't feel like we are standing on our ancestors' shoulders here," Brian Welpman said. "So we're honoring the history of the hatchery a little bit. It's a different and interesting story to tell and we're trying to tie that into every beer that we sell too..."
After several years of successfully crafting and selling beer, the Welpmans decided to set up their taproom. According to the family, the idea began in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic. While restaurants and businesses were shut down, Welpman Springs sold more beer and bait minnows than it had previously throughout the pandemic. Although the Welpmans took their beer to festivals, competitions and local events, they felt they needed to expand to remain profitable.
"We said if we're going to keep doing this and be successful, we need to get into some of that retail," Welpman said. "Get some retail money going, too, because it's quite a bit more profitable than what we were doing. So we decided to go ahead and open the taproom. So it's been a couple of years in the making, but we finally got it up and open."
Customers can drive out to 517 Hatchery Road in Stover to join the Welpmans for a drink. A motivating factor for the family was the small size and population of Stover and surrounding areas. They felt residents needed a place where they could have a drink and meet up with other people.
Outside of Welpman beer, the taproom sells drinks from Bee's Knees Brewing Company from Versailles, Fitz Root Beer from St. Louis and more. The owners said they want to keep everything as local as possible, which includes the interior of the building as well. Locals will find hand-crafted furniture built by Brian and Leslie Welpman as they sit down to enjoy their drink of choice.
The taproom is open on Fridays and Saturdays from 1 to 7 p.m. with live music and snacks from local businesses to enjoy.
"We look forward to having everybody out, anybody that can venture this way," Leslie Welpman said. "We appreciate sharing this beautiful environment with them."
Democrat photo/Kaden Quinn: Handcrafted furniture greets guests as they walk into Welpman Springs Brewery new taproom.