AWARDS
Leading Edge Award
Trenton Inselman
56
COMMERCE | 2023 Profile Magazine of the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce
Trenton Inselman grew up in Morrison , Okla ., but spent much of his time growing up in Stillwater . It was no question that Inselman would attend Oklahoma State after graduating from Morrison . His entire life was spent traveling to Stillwater for home games , rooting for the cowboys , and bleeding orange .
Inselman graduated from OSU with a degree in Agricultural Economics and went on to work at the Stillwater Chamber of Commerce as an Economic Development Coordinator . As Inselman worked through the pandemic on his couch he had the opportunity to think about where he would go next .
With no experience in brewing , Inselman said his passion was always about what breweries stood for . “ Breweries are always welcoming , each one is a little different and they all have their own style ,” Inselman said . “ But I fell in love with what they could do for friends and family and collaboration .”
Inselman took a risk , applied at Iron Monk and was hired as an assistant to the head brewer . After working under him for 6 months , Inselman was promoted to head brewer and took the reins to the entire brewery . As head brewer he is responsible for anything that happens behind the glass wall , this includes brewing , canning , cleaning , carbonating beers , and packaging beer for distribution . Everything that Iron Monk produces is created right here at the Stillwater location .
A few months into Inselman ’ s tenure , Iron Monk was asked to submit a request for proposal to Oklahoma State Athletics , as they were searching for an official craft beer .
Inselman and his bosses , the owners of Iron Monk , Jerod Millirons and Dave Monks , spent countless hours crafting a response to the RFP . There was no doubt that they would be a respondent and they knew they had to do it right . They put together a compelling package and presented it to Athletics Leadership in historic Gallagher Iba Arena .
At the time of the proposal , they had no beer name , no beer , and no official can . Inselman sold the group solely on themselves and what Iron Monk means to Stillwater . They knew they wanted to make a blonde ale , something they did not already make . While awaiting the RFP decision , they used their pilot system to start working on different blonde ales . After finding out they won the proposal the team had a quick turnaround . They scaled up their favorite pilot blonde ale , brewed the beer on their 40 barrel system , and were blown away . “ It ’ s been the same since that day ” said Inselman . “ And it will always be the same . We ’ ve brewed it over 28 times since then , and are on track to quadruple our production just on this beer alone .”
As for the name , the group wanted a name that stood alone , something that looked good on a beer menu but still had meaning to the University . “ We wanted something that was true the second OSU existed and will be true for the rest of OSU ’ s existence ,” said Inselman . “ OSU was founded on Christmas day of 1890 . We don ’ t have a beer without the founding date of 1890 , we probably wouldn ’ t even have a brewery if OSU wasn ’ t founded in Stillwater .” Given the gravity the group felt from the year 1890 , they settled on “ 1890 Original ”.
“ We wanted something that was true the second OSU existed and will be true for the rest of OSU ’ s existence . We don ’ t have a beer without the founding date of 1890 , we probably wouldn ’ t even have a brewery … .” — TRENTON
INSELMAN