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April 28, 2025
LA CROSSE – The Mississippi River Valley is known for its abundance of water channels and tributaries.
So when it came to naming his La Crosse brewery 10 years ago, Brent Martinson said it only made sense to somehow incorporate the Great River into the name.
“The inspiration behind the name came from the river turtles that can be seen on any given day stacked up on logs, competing for the best location to bathe in the warmth of the sun,” the co-owner of Turtle Stack Brewery said.
Martinson said it’s hard to give a business a good name these days, mainly because “it seems as if every name has been taken.”
“Having a unique name helps,” he said. “I hate naming things, and I can’t decide on stuff. The name ‘Turtle Stack’ finally popped into my head in the middle of the night about a year after I started serious planning.”
A traditional start
Like many other brewery stories, Martinson said he got his start in the industry in a very traditional way – homebrewing.
“I went to medical/graduate school at the same time and had a friend living in Ohio – I was living north of Chicago,” he said. “I visited him, and his wife had started him on homebrewing. I brewed my first batch with him at his house, and then I started doing it in my spare time in my studio apartment north of Chicago.”
After quitting medical/graduate school, Martinson said there was a period when he didn’t homebrew much.
“When I ended up in La Crosse for the first time, another friend of mine had bought a house, and we turned the basement into a brewery,” he laughed.
Martinson said he used his medical science background to “teach myself beer science.”
“I brewed pretty consistently to learn how to evaluate ingredients and use ingredients to get the flavor profiles,” he said. “I’m mostly self-taught, but beer is a creative outlet for my scientific interests.”
Martinson said his first homebrew batch dates back to 1998.
“My peak homebrewing was probably about 2005,” he said. “Then, at the end of 2008, I moved from La Crosse to the Milwaukee area and brewed at the Water Street Brewery in Delafield. I brewed there for about four years before I found the right investors and got this thing started in La Crosse.”
Martinson said he co-owns the brewery with Vincent Stodola and June Lambeth.
Starting in La Crosse
Though Turtle Stack only officially opened in 2015, Martinson said the idea behind it was many years in the making.
“Even before I took the job in Milwaukee, I had been working on a business plan, but with the (Great Recession of 2008), those plans got scrapped,” he said. “It’s always good to make connections, network and learn how the industry works, so I trained under a brewmaster (in Delafield) who’s been around forever. He’s still someone I can call when I’m trying to figure something out.”
Martinson said he always knew La Crosse would be the location for his brewery.
“Milwaukee was just the nearest place I could get a job, but when I moved back to La Crosse, we looked at lots of downtown buildings and eventually found the right one with a great landlord,” he said. “He’s very supportive of our business. He was moving his clock shop to another building he had and wanted something fun in his building – I guess we fit that description.”
Martinson said a lot of work went into transforming the 125 2nd St. S. space into a brewery.
“We gutted it and then rebuilt,” he said. “We were lucky in a couple of things. We tore up the floor, and the top wood floor under was really pretty. It’s probably like an 1890 maple wood floor, but it has that weathered look people really like. We didn’t have to work too hard to get that look. A lot of work went into all the utilities for plumbing, electric and cooling for the tanks for the brewery.”
As the co-owners look to the brewery’s future, Martinson said the goal is to work on Turtle Stack’s marketing.
“Honestly, one thing we need to work on is our marketing – that’s never been my strength,” he said.
In the beginning, Martinson said he didn’t have a lot of time to focus on marketing because his focus was on “trying to make sure the beer is great, every time.”
“We are working on getting our marketing up and going,” he said. “We need to get in front of more people, so that’s the next step of our evolution here.”
Part of the marketing strategy, Martinson said, is event hosting.
“We’re working on getting more events into the brewery, which is something we haven’t done much of since COVID-19,” he said.
On every third Thursday, Martinson said Turtle Stack does “Pints for a Purpose.”
“It’s where donations and 10% of sales go to whichever group we’re supporting that month,” he said. “We also do an off-and-on event with the La Crosse Public Library called ‘Story Time for Adults,’ where the library brings in people who read excerpts from books. People sit and drink and listen to people read.”
Martinson said they are working on “a lot of things” in terms of events.
The beer, space
Martinson said Turtle Stack has a small taproom with seating for about 50 patrons.
When the weather turns warmer, he said they can add additional outdoor seating.
Beverage wise, Martinson said the brewery has nine beers on tap all the time, four of which are considered core beers and available year-round.
“Those are pretty simple, easy-drinking beers,” he said. “One of our beers – Betty the Gnome, a Belgian-style Blonde Ale – won the 2024 World Beer Cup Gold Award. Besides the core beers on tap, I rotate others in, even putting a ‘weird’ one in the rotation.”
That current “weird” brew, Martinson said, is the CoBalt, (a toasted Coconut Baltic Porter).
“It might be our most popular beer we’ve ever made,” he said. “Maybe it’s a little unfortunate because I feel like a lot of our beers are so good, and people love the one you put coconut in – go figure.”
As head brewer, Martinson said he’s been chasing different styles of beers since the late 1990s, so he has a pretty good grasp on what it takes to make a good brew.
“I kind of cut my teeth on those classic continental, European/English style beers, so that’s where my head usually goes for my beer list,” he said. “Also, when I’ve traveled, I find small local breweries and see what they’re up to and see what’s interesting.”
When he decides on a brew, Martinson said he puts it into recipe form.
“Usually, the first time I brew a beer, it might need some tweaks,” he said. “If it makes it to a second batch, I can usually dial it in quickly.”
In addition to the brewery, Martinson said Turtle Stack beer is available in about 20 tap lines around town in local bars and restaurants.
“We also have cans available at six grocery stores,” he said. “Though we’re hoping to sell more beer, that will take an expansion. We only have a three-barrel system, so we can’t currently do much more.”
Martinson said for now, it’s “working on a lot of details” for a possible expansion in the future.
“It’s nothing more than that right now,” he said. “If we expand, I can say it would likely be a new building. We just need more space and bigger equipment.”
Though no food is served at Turtle Stack, Martinson said patrons are allowed to carry in food.
“That way, we get to support other local restaurants and foster relationships in the community,” he said.
‘Beer it Forward’
For the past few months, Martinson said Turtle Stack has been doing a program called “Beer it Forward.”
He said he got the idea from a recent trip to New Orleans.
“While I was in New Orleans, I went to a brewery where people could pick a category or something weird that would describe a person and put that up on the board,” he said. “If someone sees it on the board and it describes them, they can get a beer someone else bought for them. And most of the time, they’ll pay it forward after they’ve collected beer.”
Martinson said the idea is still catching on at Turtle Stack.
“I imagine once we get heavier into the tourist season, a lot of people coming into town might feel like that describes them,” he said. “It will be fun for them to come into town and feel welcomed. Hopefully, they do the same thing for the next people coming in.”
For more on the brewery, visit turtlestackbrewery.com or find it on Facebook.
