Breweries opening in Minnesota 2015/2016

Here's a snapshot from just under a month ago. The jockey box and sixtels tell me that they were getting ready to sample some pilot batches, but my best guess is that even a soft opening is at the very least another month away:



P.S. Bad Weather in St. Paul looks very, very close:

 

Bad Weather looks niiiice.

 

In related news:

The American Sky taproom in Hudson has closed.

P.S. Has anyone heard whether the Stone Tap brewpub plan is moving forward? That was a novel idea at the time.

 

And just to be sure that their webpage and Facebook page have a handy link on this thread.

 

Yeah, sometimes the links* become mangled, here.

I did receive a reply from their brewer, and they are getting ready to brew, so opening is not far off. As is the case with Birch's, I believe that the plan is for their beer to be ready in time for their restaurant opening.

*I was able to copy + paste from it, though. Press the control key and right click while hovering if you're into nerdy keyboard gymnastics -- doubtless that trick doesn't work on mobile platforms.

 

Talking Waters * (Montevideo) has started working on their taproom:



*That's a link to their Facebook page --there's no website, yet. They are on Twitter: https://twitter.com/twbrewingco

 

The Stone Saloon - St. Paul - opposition petition - final public hearing on the plan to turn the Stone Saloon into a microbrewery on Wednesday, Sept. 16, at 3:30 p.m. in Council Chambers.

 

I'm hoping that this plan works out, as it promises to be unique to the taproom category.

 

If I understand correct, Omni brewed their first ever beer on their new system Sept 5, and, almost 2 weeks later to the day they are opening? That sounds very aggressive. Does that mean they are rushing other beers too? I really hope they are not falling into that trap of "we have to push for an early opening to bring in revenue". 2 weeks might be ok for a brewery that has everything buttoned up, but no one EVER has things buttoned upon the opening brews, especially when they have zero commercial experience. I would hate to see Omni start out with bad product due to rushing things, that would be a shame and would be very hard to come back from. I am not saying they are rushing, just going off what is published by them.

Also - did Angry Inch fall off the map? They went from hashtagging every brewery in the state daily (seemed like it) to going silent. I am guessing they bit off a bit more than they realized and now are stuck with more costs than they budgeted for. I drove by the location this weekend - sure seemed like nothing was going on and that they had a LOT more to do (from what I could view through the glass). Didn't seem like any mechanical work was done and I saw no sign of glycol systems or needed mechanical plumbing. Guy walking by that works at a local establishment said they are having money problems, but that isn't confirmed. I guess they missed their summer opening.

At this stage, I would be surprised to see Angry Inch before 2016, if they do open at all.

 

I'm surprised that I'm such an Omni apologist, but I don't think two weeks is too crazy for a commercial brewery making 5% beers. They indicated they are starting with the lighter beers and I'm guessing this was how they were able to open sooner. With appropriate pitch rates, temp control, filtering, bright tanks, etc., I'd imagine this is a normal window.

I've done several homebrew batches that are great after 10 days. I highly doubt that they looked at a recipe that should take 4 weeks and decided to "rush" it down to 2 for the sake of opening sooner. That said, I'd be nervous as hell selling my "first try" beer for the opening crowds. It's not like they can just dump it and do full scale practice runs for a while though.

I'm going to try and make it down on Sunday - I'll report back.

 

They would not be the first such Craft Beer Era brewery to do so. To that point, Craft Beer fanatics are very forgiving.

 

I don't know about that. I still won't go back to Wabasha and I'm a mug club member. Even with financial incentive to go back, I still have a bad taste in my mouth from their poor first offerings.

I'm stubborn though so take it with a grain of salt. Wabasha is still in business so someone is drinking their beer...supposedly.

 

I have friends who love beer (all beer -- including off-style beer, oxidized beer, infected beer. . . ) and they absolutely LOVED the first offerings from Wabasha! So like I was saying, Craft Beer fanatics *can* be very forgiving.

They can also be obdurate in their affectations.

 

I'd probably take everything I said about Wabasha back after 3 or 4 pints. We're all forgiving, given certain circumstances.

 

They had a Kickstarter/crowdsourcing/fundstarter, whatever you want to call it, and they met their goal in late spring/early summer after an investor dropped out. By raising that money, they should have their finances in check unless they didn't ask for enough.

 

When they first opened, their beers were horrible. Some of them seemed way under-attenuated. We went back there recently. Their beers have improved - not great, but at least drinkable. I would still rate them near the bottom of the list.

 

Thanks for the update! I absolutely want them to succeed - they're the closest tap room to me. I just can't bring myself to drink their beer again with so many better options, until I hear they have improved.

 

I just went back to Wabasha for the first time since their opening week when I voiced that the best thing I could say about any of their beer was that the Porter smelled good. I was really disappointed since I had just moved into the neighborhood. I figured it had been 6 months so why not give them a 2nd try...and yes, their IPA does taste like an IPA now (if you tried their first batch you know what I'm talking about), the DIPA and Porter are decent and the Jalapeno Popper Ale was...intriguing. Its not my style but it was ok for a pepper beer and it did taste like a Jalapeno Popper. Probably would have done well at the State Fair this year.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement but it's nice to see that they've made some solid improvements. I'll go back and try them again in a little while.