Many families in the area can trace their ancestry back to Germany, with several communities in and around Monroe County having strong relationships with their German counterparts thanks to sister cities organizations.

In Millstadt, one business has helped further strengthen that village’s international relations thanks to a shared love between Midwesterners and Germans: beer.

Millpond Brewing opened for business on Oct. 3, 2019, with owner Bryan Schubert having brewed beer as a hobby for nearly a decade prior.

Schubert spoke about how, in the years since, his brewery has proven successful for Schubert and his family, with a wide selection of drinks and a recent growth spurt.

“We just went through a production expansion here with some larger fermentation and conditioning tanks, so we should more than likely come close to doubling our capacity from last year,” Schubert said.

He also spoke about the day-to-day at the brewery, the schedule of food trucks running from February to November, his hopes to expand into St. Louis and Missouri through this summer and the start of a charity, with the first Millpine Derby on May 5 benefiting school food distribution programs in the area.

Another item of note for the brewery that Schubert mentioned was the Millpond Maifest, an annual event returning this Saturday featuring live music and a range of food options including potato pancakes and bratwurst burgers from Millstadt Sister Cities.

As Schubert described, Millpond has had a strong connection with the organization over the past few years.

“We’ve had a pretty good relationship with the Millstadt Sister Cities, and they’ve just been very supportive of Millpond from the beginning,” Schubert said. “Every year for our Maifest, they come out and they cook and they sell their food to raise money for their sister cities programs.”

Otto Faulbaum with Sister Cities of Millstadt also spoke about this relationship, noting how Maifest serves as Millstadt’s take on a German festival comparable to events in other nearby communities.

It also provides the organization the opportunity to better get its name out, with profits going toward various community efforts – this year being the Meals on Wheels senior program and a food pantry.

Faulbaum also recalled Schubert’s support of Millstadt Sister Cities even prior to Millpond, and this relationship laid the groundwork for one of Millpond’s more recent and most successful menu items.

“We knew he was a fan of Germany and, as we’d talked to him about this beer style that he fixes, it was clear that he was interested in authentic recipes,” Faulbaum said.

As both Schubert and Faulbaum described it, a local group enjoyed a trip last summer to Millstadt’s sister city of Gross-Bieberau.

As part of the trip, they were able to get in touch with members of the Schoenberger family which previously owned a brewery in the German community.

That brewery opened in 1835 – Faulbaum noted this was just a year prior to Millstadt’s founding – but closed several decades ago.

As part of the trip, Christina Schönberge – who on top of being part of the family also works in a company supplying brewery ingredients and teaching the trade – provided the recipe for what is now known as Dunkes Bier, a German pilsner style drink made by Millpond.

“There were numerous things we had to do to kind of ramp it up to be able to fit our system, but they gave us all the vital specs on that beer, and we were able to brew and replicate that beer here, and then we released it for our anniversary in October of 2023,” Schubert said.

Faulbaum noted a number of interesting facts about Dunkes Bier – particularly regarding its branding.

The can, he said, is meant to be practically identical to that of the Schönberger brewery.

Additionally, the word “Dunkes” comes from the Oldenwald regional dialect in Germany, essentially referring to someone from Gross-Bieberau in a positive way.

On the brewing side, Faulbaum said the drink has been received very well by German visitors who are now unable to taste the pilsner back home.

Schubert similarly said the drink has had a very positive reception in Millstadt, quickly becoming one of if not the most popular  beer the brewery produces.

“I think that, as a brewer, being able to brew a historic recipe like that, it’s a thing of dreams,” Schubert said. “It doesn’t happen very often. The brewery that has the original recipe has to be willing to hand their recipe over in a sense or help you work through ramping it up to fit your production facility. So it was extremely exciting.”

Both Schubert and Faulbaum also had something to say in regard to the preservation aspect of Dunkes Bier, with the Millstadt brewery essentially being able to keep alive a German recipe that was previously unavailable, having been around for nearly two centuries.

“Getting this recipe from our sister city, from the family there, is really culture heritage preservation because beer culture has been a huge part of German culture, and because this particular recipe is essentially, I won’t say it’s lost, but it’s not being brewed in Germany anymore, it’s very cool for us to be able to have this beer that was in Gross-Bieberau for almost 200 years,” Faulbaum said.

Schubert offered a similar sentiment.

“It was very, very exciting for us to be able to get that from our sister city where a lot of Millstadt residents, all of our ancestors immigrated from Gross-Bieberau,” Schubert said. To be able to have that, to preserve the cultural heritage of Millstadt and Gross-Bieberau with this beer, it’s very exciting. And the fact that the beer has been a success is only a bonus to that.”

Millstadt locals and visitors will be able to enjoy this and other Millpond beer offerings at Maifest this weekend.

The event runs from noon to 11 p.m. Saturday and noon to 7 p.m. Sunday at Millpond Brewing, 308 E. Washington Street, Millstadt.

For more information on Millpond, visit millpondbrewing.com.

For more information on Millstadt Sister Cities, visit millstadtsistercities.org.