Author: David

Beer Bars: Ward 6, Saint Paul

By on December 5, 2012in bars/restaurants, Features

 

A new beer-conscious dining option on the East Side of Saint Paul has opened on a street already rich with local history. Ward 6 on Payne Avenue is now open daily for dinner as well as for brunch on the weekend. Proprietors Eric Foster and Bob Parker, both East Side residents, wanted a pub-style atmosphere with quality food and quality drinks and found the perfect spot one block north of Phalen Boulevard and within view of the former Hamm’s Brewery.

Chef Liz Olson’s dining menu highlights real food with real ingredients; sauces are house-made, fries are house-cut, the corned beef is house-cured…the list goes on. Offerings run the gamut from salads to poutine. Features include grass-fed beef burgers, a grilled cheese with camembert, a nightly special and a good-old fish & chips. The actual menu reads with a bit of whimsy so sharpen your wit and enjoy.

The food is reason enough to visit, but Ward 6 is a prime destination for the local craft beer enthusiast. Twenty taps stand at the center of the restored wooden bar.  Foster, a beer judge, has crafted a tap list that is discerning rather than voluminous and entirely local with only two exceptions: Hamm’s, which is now brewed in Milwaukee, and one rotating “imported to Minnesota” line currently occupied by Avery’s Old Jubilation.

Minnesota beers offered include selections from Summit, Surly, Steel Toe, Flat Earth, Pour Decisions, Lucid, Badger Hill, Fulton, 3rd Street Brewhouse and Indeed. Pints are five bucks (three for Hamm’s) and happy hour is from 4 to 6; pints are $3 and Hamm’s is $2.  Small pours are available for those looking to taste a few styles. The knowledgeable bar staff would be more than happy to help you experience the beers Minnesota has to offer.

Ward 6
858 Payne Ave
Saint Paul, 55130

Hours:
Hours are expanding – Check their Facebook page for the latest

*Vegetarian & GF options – ask your server

    

 

Beer Travels: Ale Asylum, Madison, WI

By on October 19, 2012in beer travels, breweries, Features

If you want to see what a destination brewery might look like, head down I-94 a few hours and see for yourself one brewery’s take on the concept.

What could be considered – by volume only, let’s make no qualitative comparisons – a Surly proxy in Wisconsin, Ale Asylum in Madison is now settling into their brand new brewery and tasting room.  Occupying 45,000 square feet on a once-vacant corner near the west entrance/exit of the Dane County Regional Airport, their new facility sits like a welcome sign to weary travelers and a statement of regional identity.  They opened their tasting room in late September but haven’t fully started production in the new brewhouse.  Regardless, the beer is flowing and people are pouring in.

For anyone familiar with Ale Asylum’s previous location, you won’t notice a change in the beer offerings, and they do still serve food.  The new place is simply much, much bigger – five times, in fact – and thoroughly impressive.  It was two thirty on a rainy, miserable day when I visited and the place was full. Patrons enter the airy bar where they can immediately catch the current tap list and decide where to sit, which turns out to be no small task: there’s the bar, the seated dining room or the patio, and the latter two have two levels each.

The facility is huge and could easily handle large crowds.  However, when it comes to serving beer and food they are careful to state in principle that the new facility will happily remain a tasting room, albeit a large one.  Ale Asylum beers are served across Madison and the folks at the brewery are wisely leaving the restaurant work to the restaurants.  The food menu at the tasting room is one page front and back consisting of appetizers, salads, sandwiches and pizzas.  The choices are limited but familiar and local suppliers keep it from feeling run-of-the-mill.

At the time, the staff was obviously still growing into the new facility. Not all regular beers were available on draft and were substituted by bottles; flights were not available because they’re getting new flight trays and glassware.  Expect their four year-round offerings –  Hopalicious (their flagship), Madtown Nutbrown, Ambergeddon and Contorter Porter – to be available in the tasting room on tap or in a bottle.  Seasonal brews are available on a schedule and a select few will be exclusive to  the tasting room; bring a growler and take your pick.  Yes, they’ll fill anyone’s growlers so long as it’s clean, sealable and had has the Surgeon General’s statement on it.  Isn’t that convenient?

If you are at the brewery and do not prefer beer you’re in luck because wine and liquor are served; I don’t think they’ll fill a growler with booze though.  Then again, it is Wisconsin. . .

Drive time from Twin Cities: 4.5 hours, approximately 250 miles.

Food: Try the beet salad, Chad in the kitchen is proud of that one.

Also see: The Green Owl Cafe has pretty good food.  It just so happens that their good food is also vegetarian.  If you’re downtown, stop into Amy’s Cafe & Bar just off State Street for an unapologetic, welcoming ambiance.  If it’s Sunday night, try karaoke at the Come Back In.  If nothing else, bring your bike and cruise around the many bike paths around the lakes.

Beer Travels: Toppling Goliath Brewing Co., Decorah, IA

By on October 17, 2012in beer travels, Features

[Though we champion Minnesota beer first and foremost, we also know that our dear readers like to travel a bit from time to time in search of tasty beers. Below you’ll find David’s account from a visit to our neighbors to the south. -Ryan]

Northeast Iowa doesn’t look like “Iowa”.  It’s rolling and quite scenic so the typical hog & corn jokes aren’t going to stick nearly as well as they would elsewhere.  Perhaps that’s why the folks at  the Toppling Goliath Brewing Company in Decorah so proudly boast that their region should be a destination for beer lovers.  Toppling Goliath’s (TG’s) taproom is perched on a small hill, halfway between the Luther College campus and downtown Decorah. I showed up on a Sunday if for no other reason than to take advantage of Sunday sales.

The Beers:

Dorothy’s New World Lager has evolved to be TG’s bridge to the craft beer world for the uninitiated. In it, they took California Common and dialed-back the hop bitterness just slightly.  You can’t argue with the results, it is their top selling beer.

TG’s calling card, though, has got to be their wizardry with Pale Ales.  While you’d think there would be limited things you could do with the style, TG creates a number of beers that are able to stand apart from one another.  Of their regular offerings, the Golden Nugget IPA is the house favorite for hop-heads, followed closely by pseudoSue Pale Ale – named for “Sue” the largest T-Rex fossil ever found.  Without knowing why they chose to name it after the famous dinosaur, I’ll assume it was a move intended to ensnare paleo-nerds like me.  It worked; I left with a growler of it.

For the more adventurous, the Hop Patrol series of limited-release, well-hopped IPAs showcases what just one hop variety or a creative blend can do.  On tap were 1492 (Columbus hops) and ZeeLander (Nelson Sauvin hops from New Zealand) and both were impressive in depth and complexity, especially given their single-hop origins. In the spirit of Halloween there is new addition to the series featuring Riwaka hops: the Riwakan Dead (hah, get it?).  Mercifully, this one doesn’t taste like candy corn, pumpkin or brains; purely hops.

Expanding:

Construction is underway on a new 10,000 square-foot brewhouse complete with a 30 barrel brew system and bottling line.  It is scheduled for completion in early 2013.  The taproom serves virtually all their beers and will remain at its current location with regular hours. Their brews can also be found at other Iowa and Wisconsin locations.  If you’re in Iowa City or La Crosse you might get lucky.  Check their website for an up-to-date list of locations serving their beer.  There are no accounts in Minnesota…yet.

Drive time from Twin Cities: approx. 150 miles from the Twin Cities, 2.5 to 3 hours.

Food: No full menu at the taproom.  Pretzels, though.

Also see: Dunning’s Spring, around the corner from the brewery, boasts some spectacular scenery and for mountain bikers, Decorah Human Powered Trails maintains 20 miles of singletrack in the Decorah Park system.

 

 

 

Bemidji Brewing Company

By on September 8, 2012in breweries, Features, MN

Paul Bunyan & Babe are just blocks away

Do yourself a favor and spend some time in Bemidji; you won’t be disappointed.  It’s a pleasantly bustling, yet relaxed town with plenty of nature around to admire and get lost in.  In fact, if you stop by on a weekend you can sample the Mexican-Scandinavian fusion food truck, the Local 303.   The novelty of a lefse fish taco made with walleye should alone be reason enough to bring you in, but I’ll give you more: it will soon be the only place to find the beers offered by the Bemidji Brewing Company.

Foundations

The seeds of the Bemidji Brewing Company were sown while Tom Hill, Tina Hanke and Justin (call him Bud) Kaney were in college.  There, they experimented with homebrewing and developed a passion for good beer and always harbored an inkling they would someday make a living out of it. Their careers took them, collectively, across the country from Alaska to Rhode Island, Texas to Montana and gave them some great experiences with craft beer.  In those years, Tom became a Certified Cicerone and worked at Northern Brewer while Tina and Bud had become well-practiced in community organizing, programming and marketing.  Feeling need for a change to the daily grind, the three chose to come back to their Northern Minnesota roots (Tom and Bud are BSU grads) and make their passion for beer into a full-time endeavor. The first step, though, would be getting back to Bemidji.  When they decided to launch the business, Tina and Bud were in Missoula while Tom was in Saint Paul.   These geographic limitations meant Skype meetings and document sharing were the norm while the three of them hashed out their plan for the brewery.  They launched (and successfully funded) a Kickstarter project [see the MNbeer.com profile of the Kickstarter trend here] and their nano-brewery was off and running.

Running in place, that is.  With a plan, but without a facility, the three were entertaining the thought of working from a shared-space when, by pure serendipity, Harmony Co-Op  in Bemidji opened the doors to their Community Kitchen.

Harmony Co-op Corner

One of the co-op’s visions for the kitchen is to be the extra push needed for a food producer to get a professional business off the ground and Bemidji Brewing’s plan presented a great opportunity for both the brewery and the co-op.

Making it work

This fortune came with a unique twist when it came time to obtain federal approval.  The TTB informed them they were the first brewery in the country to operate out of a shared space and as such, required more detailed assurances than normal.  Harmony Co-Op proved to be a steadfast supporter and was willing to assist with making necessary adjustments to obtain the federal approval. Working within a shared space means, among other things, Bemidji Brewing needs to clear out at the end of a brew day, so their equipment needed to be nimble, compact and for the most part, portable.  They found this in a custom-built steel brewing stand that is equipped with two burners and can hold three 30-gallon kettles. Perhaps most importantly, the entire stand can be loaded in and out as needed. To utilize the available fridge space in the co-op they use 26-gallon keg-style fermenters and a caged area in the existing walk-in cooler will house the finished product.

Finally, the three founders of the Bemidji Brewing Company are back, settled in, and finished with Skype meetings and long trips away from home.  The facility is set and the equipment is at the ready.  Federal approval came in August 2012 and now with state approval pending, Bemidji Brewing is only waiting to start selling beer and become a success story for the Co-Op’s Community Kitchen.

Expect to see Bemidji Brewing beers on tap this fall at select Bemidji locations. Keep up with the latest on their website  and on Facebook.

FermenterBrew Stand