The Minnesota Craft Brewer’s Guild allowed me to sit in on their meeting at Schell’s on Saturday afternoon. I’d like to think that MNBeer holds a lot of the same core beliefs as the Guild, so it seemed only natural for me to want to check out their meeting. I’d like to have MNBeer more involved in reporting Minnesota beer-related politics so that we can all be more aware of what’s going on and can be mobilized to act whenever necessary. The Guild is obviously a great resource for this sort of thing.

Unfortunately, I have no real secrets, rumors or dirt from the meeting to share with you. No one present knew anything about the brewery that is going to be part of the Clyde Iron Works revitalization project in Duluth. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if the “brewery” was actually a brewpub ended up being a Granite City, but like I said, no one seems to know yet.

After the meeting, Dave (Berg) took us on the detailed tour of the brewery, including many places that you don’t get to see on the official tour. Schell’s is such a cool place to visit to begin with, so visiting with a guide who actually makes the beer was even cooler. You won’t see the bottling line, pasteurizer, cellars or even the main brew kettle on their regular tour (and my wife Dawn argues that that’s perfectly fine…) so this visit was a treat. Apologies in advanced for forgetting to take some photos… I was too busy walking around slack-jawed, looking at the second-oldest continuously-run family-owned brewery in the US. Definitely cool.