Minneapolis Visit

Northern Brewer General
1

I’ll be in Minneapolis this weekend for the Chiefs/Vikings game. Arriving Saturday around noon and driving home after the game on Sunday. We’ve got a short list of breweries to check out, but question for the locals: what do you consider the must visit taprooms?

Planning to visit Day Block on Sunday for breakfast. Bacon flight? Yes please.

2

As much hype as Surly gets, they kind of deserve it. If you’re in the NE, you really can’t go wrong. If you’re at a boring taproom, walk two blocks to the next one. I’m partial to Insight.

3

I have a decent Google map set up (partially of recs received on Northern Brewer forum!) PM me your email and I can share with you

4

Thanks for the map Mike.

Anyone have any top notch bottle shops to recommend?

5

I’m a St. Paul guy, but my top list is:

  1. Booze Mart, West St. Paul (I’m spoiled because this is two miles from my house)
  2. Blue Max Liquor, Burnsville (tremendous selection of imports, also great Scotch selection)
  3. Total Wine (big chain, but good selection/price)
  4. Surdyk’s in NE Minneapolis (good selection, but mind the warm storage of IPAs/Lagers)
  5. Ale Jail, St. Paul
  6. France 44, Edina (good selection, lots of locals and imports, and they sample liquor generously)
6

Also, in case you weren’t aware, you can’t buy bottles on Sundays. Growlers only.

7

Unfortunately on Saturday we were unable to get to a bottle shop. We did, however, spent a lot of time brewery hopping.

In order of preference:

  1. Dangerous man. Awesome beer and cheap pours. Pretty crowded, but that’s totally justified.

  2. Indeed. Great space. Tried several of their non-flagship beers. They were all excellent. In particular, they have a nice sour and rum BA stout.

  3. Fair State. Wasn’t sure what to expect from a brewery cooperative, but these guys have a lot of variety on tap at reasonable prices. We tried everything. Most of it was excellent.

  4. Sisyphus. I tried four beers. All were well made. The SMASH mosaic was excellent.

  5. Day block. In the interest of full disclosure, we had breakfast here before the Chiefs/Vikings game and we were feeling a little rough from Saturday. Their pub ale and brown ale stood out to me. I would have no problem drinking pints of those. The bacon flight was good, but not really big enough to share.

  6. Boom Island. Admittedly I am not a huge fan of most clean Belgian style beers. But even my friends who tend to enjoy Belgian’s thought this place was only OK. I drank a bottle of their 4 year old lambic, which was outstanding.

  7. Surly. Glad I checked them out and I had a good time, but I do not have a reason to return unless they have Darkness (or something of that caliber) on tap. Their answer for everything is just to add more hops, which is not my game. The food was decent, but over-priced. Service was very efficient. The space is huge and honestly feels more like a cafeteria than a taproom.

I found it interesting that very few of the breweries had a TV, so we were unable to watch the ALCS. It was also interesting that most of the breweries do not serve flights. It was nice that most of the breweries featured a food truck or serve food in-house.

We had an amazing time. A lot of great beer at reasonable prices. Looking forward to returning to pick up where we left off.