Sen. Klobuchar visits women-owned Pine Island brewery

PINE ISLAND, Minn. (KTTC) – Senator Amy Klobuchar (DFL) visited a women-owned Pine Island brewery Tuesday that’s seeing great success.

South x Southeast Minnesota Brewing Company opened two years ago.

It’s owned by Anne Fahy-Gust and Tessa Leung.

It’s just one of three women-owned breweries in Minnesota. It opened in Sept. 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Six weeks later, it needed to shut down due COVID-19 restrictions on restaurants and bars.

Its new production building opened ten days ago and Sen. Klobuchar stopped by to survey the new operation. She recently helped pass legislation in Washington to give small brewers like South X Southeast better tax treatment than big corporations.

“We want to promote this business,” Klobuchar said. “I’ve worked hard in Washington to make sure small brewers get better tax treatment. We made some changes because they were being treated small as the big guys, and that’s ridiculous because these are jobs right here in Minnesota.”

Klobuchar also discussed bringing awareness and support for breast cancer patients for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last spring. She has since been declared cancer-free.

“There’s a reason we have this every year, and that is to remind people to get their mammograms. We know there’s a lot of survivors out there, a lot of people in treatment. Treatments have vastly improved even over ten years ago. It’s a reminder to also thank the nurses and doctors and frontline workers who are there,” she said.

Sen. Klobuchar received care at Mayo Clinic in Rochester during her fight against breast cancer. She had a lumpectomy which helped remove the cancer.

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