Minnesota Hockey Road Trip

Both Dark Horse and New Bohemia are within walking distance of the Xcel and are worth checking out. Happy Gnome is St Paul's best beer bar IMO, and is just over a mile from the arena. There's a new brewery called Barrel Theory that will open soon in downtown St. Paul but probably not by March. If it somehow is you would want to go. That's going to be St. Paul's most exciting new beer destination.

In Minneapolis, definitely check out Surly. Huge space, really cool layout, and a ton of beer and food options. No takeaway beer though sadly. In Minneapolis Town Hall and Dangerous Man are worth checking out as well.

If you're driving back from Winnipeg, I would *highly* recommend stopping at Junkyard in Moorhead and Disgruntled in Perham (both making great beers, but sadly far from the Twin Cities). Both are basically on the way back from Winnipeg. As an aside, you can pick up a crowler or 2 from one or both of those for me, ha! In all seriousness, you should do this. Get some for yourself too of course.

There are many others but with such a short amount of time those are some that I would recommend. Have a great time!

Oh and for bottle shops lowertown wine and spirits would be your best bet near the Xcel (under a mile I believe). Ale jail is another good spot in St Paul. Both of these are small however. If you're in Minneapolis, Zipps, France 44, South Lyndale Liquors are all great. If you're looking for Surly cans they're basically everywhere. No Sunday sales in MN, at least not yet, so liquor stores will be closed all day Sunday. You *can* however, buy 750s, growlers, and crowlers at MN breweries 7 days a week

 

Oh, and the Xcel is in St. Paul, *not* in Minneapolis. Please do not make this mistake again, as we are thin-skinned about that stuff east of the river

 

Bemidji Brewing Company is going to be your best bet for good beer in Bemidji. I haven't tried any of their beers, but the concensus in this forum is that they are making really good stuff.

 

Just make sure to talk about how the public schools, the green spaces, the friendliness of its inhabitants, and the overall character of the neighborhoods in St Paul are all vastly superior to Minneapolis. If you do that you'll be golden.

And of course, we have The Wild

 

You have to be thin-skinned about that. The Xcel Center is really the only draw you have in Saint Paul.

 

I did some of the trip your talking about on bicycle. Don't miss Surly, it's worth a trip.

When I went through Bemidji, the brewery was closed...I stopped at Bar 209 which was OK and ate lunch and they did have one of the Bemidji brews on tap.

This first pic...don't miss this, ya gotta get your picture taken here in Bemidji:










Did I mention that Surly is huge??

 

What kind of weather will he encounter on this trip? Mapquest says 8 hours from Canada back to Minneapolis/St. Paul in good weather. March in Missouri is starting to look real nice, but that far north? The weather would really be on my mind.

 

Bemidji is definitely a good stop. Very solid, well done beers. Not much for beer bars in the area though. On your way to Bemidji you could go through Brainerd and hit one of many options....Jack Pine (solid), Roundhouse (much improved last time I was there). Big Axe (also really improving) and Gull Dam (nice facility, mediocre beer). Out of all those I think Bemidji is the best and then Jack Pine, Roundhouse and Big Axe are all pretty close now. Jack Pine was ahead of the other two but Roundhouse and Jack Pine have upped their quality in the last half year or so

 

Weather could be a huge issue if a snowstorm passes through. We get snow into April most years (snow in May isn't unheard of). Once you get really far north those two lane country roads aren't as well plowed as they are closer to the cities.

Cross your fingers for good weather for sure.

 

Lots of good suggestions on here so far, I'd also add the Bad Weather taproom which is just a mile down West 7th Street from the X.

 

I'm guessing on the drive from Bemidji to Winnipeg you might be driving through Grand Forks, ND. Check out Rhombus Guys Brewery. They've been open a little over a year, beer is decent and improving. They also have really good food, and a really nice looking spot downtown.

 

I'll give you a few pointers on Winnipeg, since that hasn't been covered yet.

Craft beer scene is small, but getting better. Half Pints is the mainstay and they're out by the airport, which is northwest of where you'll come into Winnipeg from. They're the longest running craft brewery and for a while, they were the only one. They only have in house bottles of it right now, but if you're a stout guy, Le Temps Noir is one of the more highly sought after stouts in Canada. Torque is probably within about a 5 minute drive of Half Pints and they've got a really nice taproom, however their tap selection varies and they don't really have anything that *wows* me, however they're at least relatively consistent.

Downtown you have PEG Beer, which is putting out my favorite beers recently, however they're pretty inconsistent with what they have on tap. Dazzle Ship and Life Coach are both good hoppy beers if they're available but I wouldn't say there's any guarantee they would be. Little Brown Jug is downtown also, but they have ONE beer (that's their business plan somehow) and I personally wouldn't cross the street to get it, never mind the city. On the outskirts of downtown is Barn Hammer and while they have a consistently *alright* DIPA, I wouldn't be running out of the way to get there for it either.

All in all, I know it sounds like I'm fairly critical of the local beer scene here. There's some good stuff, but we're probably about 5 years behind the curve in Canada and Canada is probably 2-3 years behind the curve of the US.

Two more things about Winnipeg. The liquor stores are all government operated OR operated as beer vendors that can run hand in hand with hotels. The BEST liquor store in the city is the Quality Inn Beer Store, which is on Pembina Highway, which is the highway you'll enter Winnipeg on. You won't find anything different than what our government owned liquor stores find, but they have a decent local growler selection and generally a more consistent stock than any random Liquor Mart (that's the government owned branding) that you'll pass by. Lastly - taprooms all close at 11 PM by law here.

(if you want to set up an IP trade, I'd be happy to put together the best of what you can get your hands on here in exchange for some VA beers - you can PM me if you want)

Cheers

 

That would be the best way to go from Bemidji but another option would be to just go to Fargo and up to Winnipeg. If you went that way you could take highway 10 (a little longer than 94) and could stop at Disgruntled in Perham and stay over night in Moorhead or Fargo and hit Junkyard. They next day you'd jut zip up 29 north to the border. You'd have divided highway the entire way this way. Going to the Bemidji route you'll be on undivided highway between Brainerd/Motley (depending on which way you go) all the way to Bemidji. Not a lot of traffic but as others have pointed out of roads are icy or snowy it's not a desired route.