Breweries Opening/Closing in Minnesota 2018

Word is that the event center plan in Nordeast Minneapolis from the Red Cow / Red Rabbit owner discussed here will have a brewing component. It's not clear to me whether the plan is for a brewery or a brewpub.

 

Uncommon Loon in Chisago City opens 12-19-18:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=593826604384214

 

This plan sounds very far-fetched

On the other hand, it's Minnesota and it’s Luke Shimp, so it will probably work out just fine.

 

I'm really tired of the same people opening up a million different places. This market is being overrun by these mini chains who claim to be small and cute and home-towny while charging $8 for a beer and $15 for a hamburger....er sorry gourmet hamburger. And of course everyone runs out to these places, stands in line for two hours and then says it's the best "whatever" they have ever had haha.

 

A preview (linked) of the soon-to-open Pantown Brewing Company in St. Cloud

 

According to their Facebook page, they are now open. I'll run there after work and give you all the lowdown, hopefully.

 

Home now from Pantown, and here's my thoughts on it.

Coming in to the place they have a mural of the old Pan cars which is quite cool. The rest rooms are also by the entrance. You walk into the main bar area. There's a decent amount of seating at the main bar, and there's also a decent amount of seating at the tables. They also have seating upstairs where they have tables and couches to sit at. They also have board games up there for the kiddos.

They are using the old O'Hara's/Lupine brewing equipment. The copper kettles look quite good, and they worked hard getting them shined up.

Now to the beer. They had 5 beers on tap starting out. 4 of the 5 are their core beers, that will always be on tap. The beers are as follows (and I'll enter them into the system when the place is in the system), and in order on my flight:

Flat Iron Amber
The Classic Cream Ale
Drop Forge Milk Stout
1917 IPA
Raspberry Dream

My thoughts on the beer, and I will do full reviews once it's in the system.

Flat Iron Amber:
By far the weakest of the brews. I am not the biggest amber fan, but this beer just seemed not quite right to me. I have a hard time describing them, but it just wasn't very good in my book.

The Classic Cream Ale:
Ok the aroma was a bit funny. Just almost skunky. However the flavor was good. It was slightly sweet, and it was decent bodied. So I would say it's passable. Just the aroma was off.

Drop Forge Milk Stout:
This was good. Nice sweetness to it. A hint of coffee, hints of chocolate. Maybe slightly watery, but it tasted good.

1917 IPA.
This is a "pine" IPA. The pine is strong in the nose, and the flavor. Not extremely sticky, but did taste good.

Raspberry Dream:
They added raspberries to the Cream Ale, and holy cow, did that give it a flavor kick. The nose was very full of the raspberries, and so was the flavor. This would be a very good beer on a hot, sunny summer day.

So there it is. I must say, for a first day in operation, they're starting out quite strong. Can they improve? Yes, of course, but I am happy so far, and will be there a lot, since it is good, and now is the closest brewery to my Waite Park home.

 

Was this the short lived NE spot for Town Hall?

 

Well of course. Judgement is on sun-up to sundown for most folks

 

It's not a brewery, but Royal Foundry Craft Spirits, "[a] Minneapolis distillery with British spirit" (and cocktail room) is now open in Minneapolis, right next to the surprisingly good La Doña Cervecería.

 

Bus Stop Burgers & Brewhouse in downtown Minneapolis (near U.S. Bank Stadium) is scheduled to open 12-30-18. Brewhouse, you say? "This will be Ingram's first forray into brewing, and his brewmaster has come up with five solid starter beers for the launch. 'You know, we'll have a lager and a peanut butter porter, and and IPA, but I'm also excited to do some special beer infusions...'" I vaguely remember reading something about this plan in this thread, but I couldn't find it in a search.

 

I recall that each plan had a distinct location, with the Town Hall plan being more Nordeast on the east side of the river, and the Luke Shimp plan being nearer to Pryes on the west side.

 

Nick Flies does brew a nice stout and IPA. He likes the classic C-hops you will find. Let's see if he can make it work at Pantown for the long term.

 

Any updates on El Loro reopening the Urban Lodge Brewery in Sauk Rapids?

 

Haven't heard anything. I drove by there a week or so ago, and it looked like not much was happening there.

 

Kulturwerks Brewing, formerly in planning for Roseville, from its social media appears to be targeting a location in Columbia Heights. It also seems to be considering alternate proprietorship arrangements.

The Shimp plan actually is indeed in the same location as the never-was Town Hall plan in Nordeast. See the article I posted at the top of this page. I'm hearing it's a $5-6 million development project in total (most of that money, presumably, going to aspects of the project aside from the brewery). It certainly is ambitious.

The latest I can find is this story (linked) from a week after the announcement of the sale. El Loro appears to have missed its early December opening target, but tardy is standard in these matters.

 

As we near the end of 2018, I'm wondering if anyone has some suggestions on a couple of new places that you'd recommend someone stopping at. Mainly interested in the beer quality. Pretty much any ambience will be fine short of it being up inside the men's room at U.S. Bank Stadium or something like that.

I'll probably only be able to hit a couple places on my trip down for the holidays so I'd be curious what everyone suggests. Thanks.

 

Venn technically opened in December 2017 but if not I would nominate it as the best new brewery of 2018. This thread used to have a running log of newly opened breweries but I'm not sure if that's been kept up to date.

 

Have you been to Unmapped? I like the taproom and the brews are good to very good. Its a little over a year old now.