I keep a very detailed list of every craft brewery in the State of Minnesota for a project that I’m working on. Because we live in Bloomington, a city that does not allow them, I’m always on the lookout for new locations opening near us. When I saw one that popped up in Edina, Minnesota it instantly went to the top of our “we want to go to a brewery but don’t want to drive” list. That brewery: Wooden Hill Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Barley John’s Brewpub
March 24, 2019
I’m at an age where you start to see your friends less and less often. Everyone has a family and they’ve settled into their own routines. There are a few people that I’m lucky to see more than once a year. I’ve been working in St. Paul for over a decade and one day it dawned on me that one of those friends lives relatively close to my office. It took just a few texts to line up a time after work to meet my friend Adam at Barley John’s Brewpub in New Brighton.
Continue Reading…Imminent Brewing
March 22, 2019
While my wife and I were on our thru-hike of the Superior Hiking Trail we had 22 days to discuss our approach to parenting. It was a nice way to kick off a new chapter of our life by getting aligned about one of the biggest changes in it. One year later and we had our baby girl! Something we agreed was that we would regularly plan some individual time away from our parenting duties while the other filled in. When my turn came up I called my friend Mitch and we decided to visit Imminent Brewing, the only Northfield area brewery that either of us had yet to imbibe.
Continue Reading…Eastlake Craft Brewery
March 13, 2019
One of my primary goals for 2018 was to use all of our expired Groupons. When my brother in-law and sister in-law reached out to us for week night brewery visit I looked at my stack and was surprised to find that only one remained! A couple of texts later and we were on our way to Eastlake Craft Brewery.
Continue Reading…Summit Brewing Company
February 26, 2019
It was the first wedding anniversary since our daughter was born. My wife was on maternity leave and I was on paternity leave and we were determined to get out of the house and enjoy what was left of the summer. We chose to begin by giving the tread of our new stroller an off road test on Fort Snelling’s Pike Island. Instead we got lost immediately after leaving the parking lot, took a harrowing trip down a steep path, and ran out of energy before we really began. Once we pushed the stroller back up the hill we agreed that it might be more fun to just go have a drink at the Summit Brewing Company Ratskeller.
Continue Reading…Flat Earth Brewing Company
January 28, 2019
We have a couple of friends that spend most of their leisure time exclusively in the Minneapolis area. Imagine our surprise when we received a text asking if we’d like to accompany them to a relatively under the radar brewery in St. Paul. They’d seen a photo of their patio on Instagram and they wanted to see it first hand. After meeting them at another brewery in Northeast, Minneapolis we headed to the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood of St. Paul. Our ultimate destination: Flat Earth Brewing Company.
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I really enjoy writing this article, but these awards get harder and harder every year! That’s mostly because there are so many great breweries in the state and partly due to some self imposed limits. Every award must go to a brewery I’ve visited in the calendar year and I won’t give a brewery the same award two years in a row. I also added a Best Innovation category to reward the breweries that are consistently pushing the envelope! I’ve visited almost 100 breweries in Minnesota and written posts about a healthy amount of them. If I’m missing your favorites I’d love to hear about them. Let’s get to it!
Continue Reading…Lake Monster Brewing Company
November 28, 2018
It just so happens that the breweries that I visit the most I tend not to write about. I’m always thinking that I can take photos and write notes the next time I visit, but I just never do. This year my wife was pregnant and as a result we weren’t planning on visiting many new breweries. I vowed to do any and all blogging activities for each brewery that we visited but had never taken the time to write about. The top of that list is a taproom that’s so close to where I work that I’ve visited them more than any other, Lake Monster Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Earth Rider Brewery
November 15, 2018
Dinner at Va Bene Caffe has become a tradition that we perform every time we visit Duluth, which is usually a couple of times a year. Towards the end of each meal the conversation leads to a discussion on where we will go for drinks afterwards. Only a pair of brewpubs remain that I’ve yet to visit but I’d heard about a spot across the Minnesota Wisconsin border that I had to try: Earth Rider Brewery.
Continue Reading…Hop & Barrel Brewing
September 6, 2018
I don’t think it would be a shock to anyone to learn that I visited a brewery for my birthday. Though, it may be a surprise that I went to one in Wisconsin. My wife and I tried something different this year. We each decided on a miniature road trip and I decided I wanted to have lunch in Hudson and then work our way up the Wisconsin side of the St. Croix river. While we were in town, it only made sense to follow our lunch with a couple of drinks at Hop & Barrel Brewing.
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