Castle Danger Brewery gives away white pine seedlings for Arbor Day

Castle Danger Brewery is turning Arbor Day into a local restoration event again, handing out white pine seedlings at its Two Harbors taproom at noon on Friday, April 24. The giveaway ties one of Lake County’s best-known businesses to an effort that has already put tens of thousands of young trees back into North Shore soil.

The brewery says its White Pine Project has given away 36,900 white pine seedlings since 2018, while Boreal Community Media put the total at 37,000, a rounded figure that still underscores the scale of the effort. What began as a seasonal brewery promotion has become a recurring conservation campaign on the North Shore of Lake Superior, where white pines were once a defining part of the shoreline landscape.

Castle Danger says it holds the seedling giveaway around Arbor Day each year at the Two Harbors taproom, and the timing matters. Spring is usually the best time to plant white pine seedlings, and the brewery advises keeping bareroot seedlings cool and moist until they go into the ground. That makes the event more than a simple pickup stop. It is a direct handoff from a private business to property owners, families, and volunteers who want to plant trees that can grow into the region’s future canopy.

The restoration message is reinforced by White Pine Project IPA, a beer the brewery describes as a way to help reinstate the white pine population on the North Shore of Minnesota. The beer is listed at 5.6% ABV and is said to carry bright citrus, tropical fruit and pine notes with balanced bitterness. Proceeds from the beer have funded seedlings before, including a 2018 effort that supported 1,000 white pines for planting along the North Shore.

That broader role is part of why the project stands out in Lake County. The North Shore Forest Collaborative has cited Castle Danger’s White Pine IPA Project as an example of business support for forest restoration, noting that it has led to free seedlings for people to plant on their own properties. A 2024 giveaway listing said seedlings were available first come, first served and capped at 10 per person, and other event notices have mentioned live music and food pop-ups, showing how the brewery’s conservation work has also become a community gathering point in Two Harbors.