Today we’d like to introduce you to Dakota Soule.
Hi Dakota, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Upper Hand Brewery, located in Escanaba, Michigan, was founded by Larry Bell of Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2014. Our focus has always been to provide the highest quality craft beer made right here in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula that highlights the spirit, lifestyles, and cultures of our great northern Michigan community.
We started as solely a production & distribution brewery, releasing our craft beers throughout the U.P., Wisconsin, and northern Minnesota. It wasn’t until 2016 that we built out a taproom space on-site for our locals to come enjoy our products straight from the source. We were also able to start hosting community parties and events like our Backyard BBQ, Lumen Snowshoe Walk, Double Ringer Humdinger, 906 Day, Plaidurday, and many other grand events that our locals and regulars have fond memories of to this day. From 2014 until 2018, we released our products in kegs and glass bottles, and in 2018 we upgraded our packaging capabilities to start offering cans instead of glass bottles. Cans are more transportable (especially for those outdoor adventure-seekers), easier to recycle, and simply more “in demand” of a packaging format than bottles, so the decision was quite clear to us to make.
Also, in late-2018/early-2019, we discontinued our distribution in Wisconsin and Minnesota and refocused our efforts to distributing our product throughout the entire state of Michigan. We like to say that we launched “Below the Bridge,” in reference to the Mackinac Bridge that connects the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan. Our distribution footprint has been only the entire state of Michigan ever since.
In early 2022, Upper Hand Brewery (along with Bell’s Brewery) were sold by the Bell family to New Belgium Brewing Company, based in Fort Collins, Colorado. Unfortunately, Upper Hand’s “small brewery” status in the greater New Belgium portfolio hindered our innovative ability to provide specialty products out to the mass market, so a scale-back to our Core Portfolio ensued for a few years. In late 2024, the decision by New Belgium Brewing Company was made to liquidate Upper Hand Brewery entirely. Thankfully for the staff employed at the time, there was an interested buyer that made an offer to purchase the entirety of Upper Hand including all of its assets, land, equipment, recipes, intellectual property, etc. that was accepted by New Belgium, and the sale officially went through on February 28, 2025.
Now under new ownership by Seven Beverages, Inc., a privately owned company based in San Marcos, California, Upper Hand has reclaimed its Independent Brewery status as a Microbrewery member of the Brewer’s Association, sitting wholly outside of the Bell’s Brewery or New Belgium Brewing Company family. Our new ownership has stressed the need for our business to be ran and operated completely by the individuals who live in Escanaba and work at the brewery, which has allowed our staff to feel renewed and reinvigorated, and has enabled us to once again start innovating and providing new products to our local patrons as well as to our broader distribution market. We’ve made significant investments in new equipment and expanded outdoor hospitality spaces, allowing us to provide more excitement and value to our local community and be able to share that authentically U.P. spirit and passion with our fellow Michiganders throughout the state.
As a testament to our new business model’s great success, it’s a little-known fact that during the entirety of Upper Hand’s existence as a member of the Bell’s and then New Belgium family (2014 – 2024), our brewery, when viewed as a stand-alone entity, never profited a single dollar. It wasn’t until our new owners allowed us to take the metaphorical reigns ourselves, build a new business plan, and focus on what our community’s and customers’ needs were that we were able to see profit and end the fiscal year on the positive side of $0. It has been a tremendous amount of work since the ownership change in 2025 to make that a reality, and a lot of sacrifices had to be made along the way, but we’ve also had a lot of fun throughout it as well, and it’s all been extremely rewarding to the each member of the team here. Seeing our vision and our hard work pay off has been greatly satisfying to all of us. And hey, we’re Yoopers. We strive in the face of adversity, we face challenges head-on, and we dig in our heels and put in the hard work to build something each of us can take pride in creating together.
Upper Hand Brewery’s story is one of great favor, immense challenges, essential re-establishment, persevering hard work, and satiating success. From once family-owned, to then corporatized management, and then to our current model of private investment, our team has seen many sides to operating a business, and we’re using our knowledge of it all to create something unique and special to us that keeps our staff’s families supported and our customers pint glasses filled. Our full-time staff of 6 employees, along with our part-time seasonal taproom and production staff work diligently to pursue our common goal of providing the highest quality craft beer made right here in the U.P. that highlights the spirit, lifestyles, and cultures of our great northern Michigan community. We are excited to continue to pursue our growing opportunities and to be able to share our passion with as many people as we can. As we like to say around here, “Our beer is from the U.P., for wherever you are.”
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Our obstacles and challenges have been shielded financial targets and misguided cost expectations, changes in ownership, and a seemingly never-ending downturn in demand in the craft beer industry.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am the General Manager of Upper Hand Brewery. Before our new ownership, I was the Production Manager here. I started as the Production Manager in July 2022, and assumed the role of GM in March 2025.
Prior to my work at Upper Hand Brewery, I worked in a suburb outside of Chicago at a Flavor House, primarily in R&D of flavors for alcoholic beverage manufacturing (White Claw knock-offs and the like, for example). I was there from 2018 until 2022.
My four years of flavor innovation has provided me with the unique knowledge and insight into the ever-expanding world of Naturally Flavored beverages, including beers, seltzers, FMBs, and RTDs. I am excited to continue to utilize my knowledge and expertise at Upper Hand Brewery and help bring new innovation products to market within our brand portfolio.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Throughout history, no one achieved great success without taking risks. The world is always changing, and the only way to not be left behind is to change with it, and that requires risk. I work to ride the line between perfectly collected order (no risk), and overwhelming chaos (complete risk). Usually, I know I’m on the right path if I can challenge myself with a new task or new undertaking while recognizing that I have something familiar as a foundational baseline to reference against or help support me. Risks are rarely undertaken alone, and I believe that a group of individuals who all share a common goal, and all agree to take the risk together, provide a much better chance of seeing success in their endeavor.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.upperhandbrewery.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/upperhandbrewery
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/upperhandbrewery
- Other: uhb@upperhandbrewery.com
