Autumn beer trips!
While the leaves have hit their peak here in Minnesota, the weather is still mild enough to get out and explore. In fact, for those of you who love to venture out of state, there is now an interactive map that highlights peak leaf viewing areas throughout the United States.
Ask the Brewer
What are some good fall beer activities?
Living in the upper Midwest, we always advocate for getting outside, so long as the weather will cooperate. Autumn is a beautiful time of year to do a brewery tour and there are multiple ways to accomplish this including trolleys, biking, driving and hiking.
Not to toot our own horn, but we are easily accessible from the Green Line, as are many other breweries between Minneapolis and St. Paul, making a Light Rail Brewery Crawl a fun weekend activity. For those of you focused on leaf viewing, the Hoppy Trolley is still running one more leaf and brewery tour this coming weekend.
Fall is also a wonderful time to experiment with home brewing. If you have ever had a hankering to give it a try, cooler weather is optimal for brewing, especially when you consider the large volume of water that needs to boil for an extended time, as you make the beer. We got our start brewing on the stove, the burner of the grill, and then with a hurricane burner out in the garage (that happened after certain spouses said something about being tired of smelling grains and hops every weekend).
Autumn also brings out a whole new round of seasonal beers including Oktoberfest, Pumpkin, Cranberry and many other styles. Inviting friends and family over for a home beer tasting lets you try and share multiple beers side by side, without any going to waste.
Taproom Tidings
Tap selection for the weekend includes Pyro American Pale Ale, Roasted Coffee Ale, Fused Orange Blossom Honey Ale, Cranberry Shandy, Raj-Agni India Pale Ale and either Raspberry Infused Pyro or Grapefruit IPA, depending on when the kegs run out.
Food trucks for the weekend are Signature On Wheels on Friday (10/21), serving their unique take on classic American cuisine. Then on Saturday (10/22) we are joined by Patacones, featuring authentic Colombian Street Food.
Our cupcake this weekend is Ginger Cardamon Apple, which is a ginger cake with apple filling and cardamon cream cheese frosting.
As always, all food served at the taproom is gluten-free!
Final Thoughts
The end of October brings us two big beer festivals. The first is the Nordeast Big River Brew Fest happening from 1-4PM on Saturday (10/22) in Minneapolis. All proceeds benefit the programs of East Side Neighborhood Services.
The second event is the Grand MN Taste Together. This event is happening at the Grand Casino in Hinckley and will be sampling over 200 different local, regional, and national craft beers, as well as featuring music by Trampled by Turtles. We hope to see you at either event!
As always, if you have questions, drop us a note via Email, Facebook or Twitter.
Cheers!