New brewery weekend! First, Lake Monster Brewing may not be new to the market, but they’ve built a brewery and are celebrating today with a ribbon-cutting event at 3:30pm. The taproom opens at 4pm with plenty of beer and food from Peeps Hot Box and Hot Indian Foods.
Lakes and Legends celebrates the holidays and their grand opening on Saturday. In celebration, they’ll be releasing their seasonal Winter Warmer Ale. And if you’re feeling the spirit of giving, bring an unwrapped toy or children’s book in to support the Children’s Hospital of Minnesota and you’ll receive a free 4 oz. pour from the brewery.
Round Table Hops has an interesting take on hop production. They’ve built up a model of a greenhouse-based hydroponic hopyard capable of year round harvests. Watch the video and see what you think. A few points that stuck out to me:
60% decreased water usage compared to traditional methods
98% reduction in land requirements compared to traditional methods
ZERO pesticide usage, compared to traditional methods
This could be very cool. They have four days to go in their Kickstarter campaign and are a little over half way there. Check it out.
Also, they’ll be holding a wrap party tonight at Republic in Minneapolis from 5-8pm. Beer. Food. Free stuff. Needless to say, you can chat up the folks behind Round Table Hops as well. Cheers!
Today (Nov. 10th), Acadia Cafe makes their monthly Beer and Beast event a bit more Surly than usual with a cask of Surly Darkness, one of only four made this year. Show up in a timely manner as this won’t last. The cask gets tapped at 5, followed by Beer & Beast at 6pm. This round they’re serving up smoked goat and sides to be paired with Surly Nein, an Imperial Smoked German-style Dunkel Weizen brewed to celebrate the brewery’s 9th anniversary. Celebrate!
The day is finally here. Our friends from the Minnesota brewpub, Barley John’s, are holding the grand opening of their New Richmond, Wisconsin brewery and tap room this Saturday, October 24th starting at 1pm. The flyer says it all, so look for beer specials, a pig roast, live music and more fun. Best of luck to Barley John’s.
Since the first Darkness Day back in 2007, the event has literally blown up into something bigger than any of us could have ever imagined. On Saturday you can join thousands of beer fans at Surly Brewing Co.’s Brooklyn Center brewery for your chance to get your mitts on bottles of this year’s Surly Darkness Russian Imperial Stout.
In 2007, hearty folks waited in line at the brewery starting around 6am. This year (and most other years, for that matter), beer nerds can begin lining up at dusk on Friday evening. The first 1,500 people in line will get a wristband that will allow said wristband-ee to purchase two different variations of Darkness – the original Russian Imperial Stout as well as a barrel-aged version. The wrist band will allow you to buy up to six bottles of “regular” Darkness and one bottle of Barrel-Aged Darkness (Further referred to as “Dorkness,” in this article.) Dorkness has been swimming in High West Rye Whiskey Barrels and is now ready to find its way to your cellar (or gullet). Dork.
Darkness day is from 11am to 5:30pm. When the gates of the brewery are opened, fan are welcome to join in on the festivities of the day with 13 Surly beers on tap, lots of metal, food and more.
If you can’t make it out to Darkness Day or simply aren’t into crowds, rest assured that Darkness bottles will be hitting the shelves in Minnesota starting next week and Dorkness bottles will follow in early December. And if you’re unfortunate enough to live in Iowa, Wisconsin or Chicago, you’ll still be able to find bottles of both versions of Darkness in early December.
