Keweenaw Brewing Company 25x25 FutureTrac

Keweenaw Brewing Company reached out to us in 2020 to create a structure for their brewery's back deck. The catch was that the brewery is located in Houghton, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula and just six miles from Lake Superior.

Lake Superior is no mere lake, it's actually an inland sea and it's wind speeds can easily get up to 50 miles per hour and gusts can reach over 70 miles per hour.

Building a semi-permanent tent in this neighborhood? That calls for a frame tent.

KBC chose a 25x25 Keder-style frame tent, known as a FutureTrac to expand their outdoor footprint and they bolted it right to the patio deck (steel and concrete construction) strapping it to the metal deck railing.

Typically FutureTrac installation takes 3-6 people but these Yoopers managed it with just two. "My son-in-law and I put it up in a couple of hours... We're both engineers so figuring out what went where wasn't a big issue. The frame is commercial construction and designed to say in place if desired and the tent is easily installed and removed as needed. Frame pieces are Aluminum and are easy to move," said brewery owner Richard Gray.

Four years later Gray reports that the tent stands firm. "Snow, snow, and more snow, 300 inches a year. We left the tent up the winters of 2020, 2021, and 2022... (it) requires snow removal but it worked fantastic."

We'll drink to that!