Breweries opening in Minnesota 2015/2016

I think you've got it!

 

Lupine in Big Lake will begin selling growlers this Sun. (May 31st).

 

Correction: You must mean Lupulin in Big Lake (and, to be clear, they are selling growlers now on non-Sundays as well). Lupine is in St. Cloud and building a taproom in Delano. Two hop-themed breweries with very similar names that opened at about the same time northwest of the Twin Cities is indeed very confusing, to the point that I'm almost surprised this hasn't reached Northbound/NorthGate-style legal action.

 

Yes, that is correct. They should sue each other.

 

"Two hop-themed breweries enter, one hop-themed brewery leaves!"

Of course, they could always merge a la "Bent Decisions."

 

How about the, ahh, brewing battle between Lake Monster and Lakes and Legends? Especially confusing if one of the legends is about a lake monster.

 

A few more breweries with "Lake" in their name: Brainerd Lakes, North Lake, Rush Lake.

Which makes "10K Brewing" pretty clever (and I'm surprised nobody else thought of it sooner.)

 

I heard they ran out of food by the afternoon of Memorial Day...

 

Side note: I doubt that legislators envisioned breweries building taprooms miles away from their breweries when the law was passed. I'm sure everyone who has will be grandfathered in, but will the law change at some point?

 

They were out of some things when I was there Saturday afternoon Memorial Day weekend.

 

I could be wrong, but I thought the law already said a taproom must have brewing on site, not necessarily all brewing on site. Are there any taprooms without any brewing going on?

 

Subd. 6b.Brewer taproom license.
(a) A municipality, including a city with a municipal liquor store, may issue the holder of a brewer's license under subdivision 6, clause (c), (i), or (j), a brewer taproom license. A brewer taproom license authorizes on-sale of malt liquor produced by the brewer for consumption on the premises of or adjacent to one brewery location owned by the brewer...

I'd take that to mean it has to be in some way connected to one of your possible multiple brewing facilities.

 

I would too, but I keep hearing about taprooms away from the brewery. I can't explain it.

 

Where?

 

I stopped by today after work. The taproom still is not open, and there are no pint sales yet. One of the owners described it as several weeks away from opening at a minimum (which is the same story I've been hearing from Flat Earth for about a year). It will be in a different room from their current free-samples-and-growler-sales area.

Lucid is planning a Warehouse District taproom away from its main brewery in Minnetonka. Lupine is brewing now in St. Cloud but will be opening a larger brewery in Delano that will have a taproom (but the owners plan to continue also to brew in St. Cloud). I've read that Bad Weather will continue to do the majority of its brewing at Lucid's Minnetonka location even after Bad Weather's St. Paul location is completed, although I don't know if that's accurate information. Fulton always brewed the majority of its beer outside of its Warehouse District brewery where its taproom is located, first as a client brewer at Sand Creek and now in its new, taproom-free brewery in Nordeast. Surly's new Minneapolis brewery (with taproom) makes the majority of its beer by barrelage, but most unique beers (probably the majority of the volume sold on tap at the taproom) continue to be brewed at the Brooklyn Center location (now without taproom), as most of the Minneapolis production is devoted to Furious and Hell, from what I've read.

The key with all of these places is that the taproom sites include operating brewing equipment. As far as I know, those brewing operations could be extremely tiny, glorified homebrew systems for pilot batches, as long as the inspectors sign off on it. I happen to love this potential trend, as the ideal location for a brewery (a place with a lot of cheap space) rarely is the same as the ideal location for a taproom (a place with a lot of customer traffic). Is this what the legislators had in mind when they passed the Surly Bill? Probably not, but these are some rare unintended consequences of legislation that are beneficial, at least to breweries and consumers (although perhaps not to competing bars). I'd like to see the law changed to allow at least two separate taprooms per brewing company (I hope Andrew Schmitt of Minnesota Beer Activists is reading this) to allow for even more of this practice as well as enable the more traditional taproom experience for the breweries that choose to locate their taprooms strategically.

 

Details of said visit please.

 

Anyone hear about the head brewer at Mankato leaving and starting his own place in Minneapolis? Not sure if this is true.......

And slightly related. Wasn't Mankato Original one of those limited edition beers that Summit had? And the brewer left and was able to take the recipe with him?

 

South Fork report:

I stopped by today. Rode out from the metro with one friend, met up with a local Delanite, and a couple we knew from Loretto joined us. Nice ride, a bit over 20 miles from the Luce Line trailhead on vicksburg, about 3/4 on the LL and the rest on easily bikable country roads.

Four beers on tap (cream, amber, ipa, and kolsch) with two more coming soon (red, and "i forget"). The cream was infused with blueberry and pomegranate (albeit fairly subtle on both) so they dropped a small handful of blueberries in as well. So you could drink your blueberry infused beer, and then eat your beer infused blueberries. Flights are pretty cheap ($4) so a good way to check things out. I thought the beers were fine, my favorite was the Nerdy Girl Amber, I thought it had a little more flavor than a lot of ambers. There was something about the IPA I didn't like, but I can't put my finger on it, and I'm not a big IPA drinker so my opinion probably doesn't count for much. No porters/stouts yet , but they claim they are coming. We were out on the patio, but they have a chunk of indoor seating. Accommodations are a little spartan but nothing to complain about. We got there around opening (2PM), were the first ones there but by the time we left around 5 there were a couple of families with kids there.

My friends from Loretto were at SF yesterday too, apparently was pretty busy at night. (The brewer, Brett, told me they were going to close at 10 but there were so many people that wanted beer that they kept pouring till 1). The husband of the couple signed up for the membership deal, $400/year and you get (I think) 2 growlers/month + all the beer you can drink in the taproom. Not a bad deal if you're local and thirsty.

No bike racks . Modest collection of games. (We didn't have any kids there, but one set of kids was playing Jenga and another Monopoly, anything to keep them busy and not annoying ) Oh, and there's an old piano in the tap room.
Lupine is basically a block away so when they open this summer one can easily hit both.

 

Summit Unchained #1 (Kölschbier style ale) was indeed Mike Miziorko's recipe, and he became an Mankato Brewery employee not too long afterward. He has been with Brewers Supply Group since 2014.

Mankato Original is much like Unchained #1. And as to whether he has a taproom plan for the MPLS? Maybe.