I stepped out of the car, the sun beating on my skin. The mask added a few extra degrees of heat to my bearded face. As my wife wrestled my daughter out of her car seat, I gazed across the street at our destination. A brilliant blue building rising from the street, with a glimpse of Leech Lake on the horizon. It took close to four hours in the car – an eternity with a crabby toddler – but we’d made it. It was time for craft beer from Portage Brewing Company.
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What a crazy year for craft beer – and every other aspect of our lives. I took a serious step back in 2020. Between COVID-19 limiting travel opportunities, the birth of my son, a growing daughter, and starting a full renovation of a circa 1870s farmhouse, beer took a back seat. Yet I still had great craft beer memories and writing these awards can be cathartic. Let’s go!
A quick reminder of the stipulations. Every award must go to a brewery that I visited in the calendar year. I won’t give a brewery the same award two years in a row. If I’m missing one of your favorites I’d love to hear about it.
Continue Reading…Fort Point Ferry Building
June 19, 2020
“It’s not open yet, thirty more minutes.” I said. “Let’s grab something inside.” My wife and I were standing outside San Francisco’s Ferry Building. It was our last morning in the city. Most of our trips end with an early rise and a mad dash to the airport. I prefer leaving in the middle of the day. You get a proper goodbye and one last chance to see something you missed. On that morning we took the California street cable car from Nob Hill to the Embarcadero. I stood on the front right corner of the car – in complete bliss – like a dog with his head out the window. My plan was to ride the euphoria into craft beer. Fort Point would make me wait.
Continue Reading…Fieldwork Brewing Company
May 23, 2020
“It seems like a lot of breweries are in bad neighborhoods,” my wife said. It was the tail end of our day. We picked up the rental car in the morning and took it across the Golden Gate Bridge for an afternoon admiring the redwoods at the Muir Woods National Monument. I angled to take the long way around the bay. It added thirty minutes to our trip, but we’d get to drive across the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge (I like bridges) and gave us a chance to try one of Berkeley’s highest rated craft breweries, Fieldwork Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Standard Deviant Brewing
May 10, 2020
If there is one thing that we organize our trips around more than craft beer it would be food. For our Honeymoon we went on a wonderful guided tour of Europe. We chose guided because planning a wedding was hard enough. It worked great but we had a fair amount of our meals to ourselves. Our plan was to wing it – something we’ll never do again. When you have two of your worst Italian meals in Venice and Rome, you’re doing something wrong. My wife chose Rintaro for our splurge dinner but we had some time to kill before the reservation. Why not go down the street to Standard Deviant Brewing for a drink or two?
Continue Reading…Magnolia Brewing Co.
April 25, 2020
It was the first day of March, our second day in San Francisco. The day prior we’d walked to Fisherman’s Wharf and the surrounding area. We started Sunday with a trip to the Painted Ladies of Full House fame and a pit stop for coffee and a donut (or two). From there we set course to the Golden Gate Park through the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. It was there that I scouted the brewpub we’d return to for lunch: Magnolia Brewing Co.
Continue Reading…Cellarmaker Brewing Company
April 18, 2020
My sister in-law told us we should avoid the Tenderloin neighborhood. They had stopped in San Francisco during a California road trip and their hotel was right in it’s heart. The Tenderloin is a high crime area of the city. Not an ideal place for an evening stroll. But I’d heard fantastic things about Cellarmaker Brewing Company and the neighborhood lay between our hotel and the brewery. Despite the warning, we set course.
Continue Reading…Inver Grove Brewing Company
March 28, 2020
It was the first day above freezing. My wife and I were out looking for a new place to live. I’ve owned a home in Bloomington, Minnesota for 13 years. With a baby in the car and another on the way our plans to move out to the country and settle down were in motion. Location is critical, not too far from work, not too far from the Twin Cities, and not too far from our families. And if there was a brewery nearby? A bonus. That’s why we were in Inver Grove Heights, and why we had pulled into Inver Grove Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Invictus Brewing Company
February 23, 2020
Most client meetings go well. In rare cases they throw me for a loop. I was standing in the parking lot of an office park, reeling from a meeting that just occurred. I wouldn’t say it went poor, but it wasn’t what I had expected or prepared for. I plugged “breweries near me” into Google Maps and put the car in drive. Time to decompress with a craft beer at Invictus Brewing Company.
Continue Reading…Foxhole Brewhouse
February 18, 2020
“Where is it?” I asked. We had parked in downtown Willmar, Minnesota and I was looking around for the brewery. It’s funny that the word downtown is used to describe both Manhattan and a town with a population of 20,000, but that’s the English language. “It’s over there.” Holli said, pointing across the street. Sure enough, a tiny Foxhole Brewhouse sign featuring a mischievous fox was set above a narrow building. “That’s a small sign.” I said. “It’s a lot bigger inside than it looks.” Brady replied, as we made our way across the street.
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