Friday Night Beer

MN Craft Beer Weeks Bicycle Pub Crawl and Trivia Contest

Stuart Raymond — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:21:47 +0000

I get the honor of planning the first ever bicycle pub crawl for MN Craft Beer Week. Of course I couldn’t do this completely on my own so I’ve acquired the assistance of fellow beer blogger and bike enthusiest Beckel from the blog Legal Beer. This weekend we’ll be riding the planned route to see how it work. The ride is on May 21st and starts at 10 am at Cafe 28 where Surly’s own Todd Haug will have a special beer for us while his wife, who owns the place, will have breakfast. From there we will travel to Busters on 28 then up to the Nomad World Pub on the West Bank, from there we will go north across the Stone Arch Bridge and on to Pracna on Main where lunch will be had and finally the last stop will Stanley’s where the fine folks there have sectioned off their parking lot and made it a bike corral for us and all the bikers in town who will be enjoying the Schell’s beer tent and Art-A-Whirl which is happening the same day. During the ride there will be trivia questions at each stop with a prize for the winner which is unfortunately still in the works but I hope to get that out as soon as I can. To participate in the trivia contest you need to purchase a MN Craft Beer Week Passport but if you just want to ride and drink great beer you are welcome to tag along but I do encourage everyone to get a passport. I can’t guarantee that there will be anymore passports to purchase on the day of the ride so you should purchase them ahead of time here. Other than that it should be a fun ride and hope you cyclists and craft beer lovers can come along.

Here are some helpful links
MN Craft Beer Weeks Website
MN Craft Beer Week Facebook Page
Pub Crawl Facebook Page
MPLS Bike Love’s Forum Thread about the Pub Crawl

Win a Beginning Home Brewing DVD

Stuart Raymond — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:22:51 +0000

Interested in home brewing but nervous about how to begin? I know when I started I had all the equipment and a few books but I still wish I had some visual tutorial. Well look no further than this DVD. This DVD specializes in extract brewing which most every beginner starts with. It’s a great video to start with and a great reference. Personally I am the kind of person who prefers to visualize and I sure wish I had this when I started but that being said I still found some useful tips inside. Right now I have an opportunity to give away a DVD of this for free. All you need to do to enter is be the first person to send me a picture of your unused kit and the DVD will be shipped to your house.

Send pictures to dirtyspeed@yahoo.com

Check out their website.

Great Lakes Conway Irish

Stuart Raymond — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 22:52:41 +0000

Now this a smooth beer. Since my 3 week detox the only beer I’ve been drinking are hop bombs. Probably because those are the beers I gravitate towards the most but I’m always pleasantly surprised by the more tame beers. Makes me wonder when I’ll switch styles. Hop bombs, though tasty, are growing old. This Conway Irish has a very nice and welcoming malt finish. The nose is subtle and the mouth is clean. The ABV is 6.5 so it’s no slouch yet it’s still very refreshing. Go for it.

18 days later…

Stuart Raymond — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:43:57 +0000

Took a little break from beer recently, made it 18 days. Always wanted to but never really found the right time. Then I decided to pick a time and just go for it. And lucky me, right at the start of Surly Brewery’s 5th Anniversary month. Crap. Well followed through, mostly, planned on till after the baby was born but when you love beer like I do it’s hard to stay completely away. You could have told me I could have hard liquor or wine or heck, Bud Light and I would have passed but to stay away from craft beer is no fun. But that being said this is my catalyst to cut down my intake so there should be some good coming out of it. Anyways I recommended it to people. It’s could to step away and flush the system but take it from me, 2 weeks minimum, 3 weeks maximum

Bigfoot 2011

Stuart Raymond — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:01:26 +0000

This is fresh, really fresh. The hops are really strong with the barley wine characteristics coming up after the hop burn subsides. Sierra Nevada’s Bigfoot is a national treasure. When I went into the liquor store I had no idea this was in. I’m sure everyone has their “no duh” beers. When you are out picking up beer these are the one’s that make your beer shopping quick. You see it, you buy it, you stop looking for other beers. Mission accomplished. I saw Bigfoot and I was on my home. It’s Bigfoot, duh. So here it is again, pretty much the same as last year but I’m not very good at remembering what I drank a year ago. I believe it’s a bit more hoppy but I could be wrong. So I don’t need to really say anything more. You know what this is.

Hop Slam, my old friend.

Stuart Raymond — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:50:10 +0000

What can I say about the beer that introduced me to “the limit.” I was well into craft beer before I first had this but for some reason this was different. And even 4 years later it’s still special. Every year I still buy too much of it, regret when I drink too much of it and always come back for more. And truth be told, I still don’t see anything too unique about it. It’s a double IPA. Brewed with honey of course which does add to it’s flavor but as I have told countless people, Laguanitas Hop Stoopid is the poor man’s Hop Slam. But still this is an excellent beer. It does the job and then some. Let’s just say this beer works overtime whether you like it or not.

Well, alright then.

Stuart Raymond — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 03:21:50 +0000

I think I just solved a major flaw in my blogging. That flaw being lack of blogging. Then low and behold there’s an Android app. This changes everthing.

I took the liberty in fixing this picture to be more accurate.

La Crosse, Wisconsin

Stuart Raymond — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:30:10 +0000

Recently my wife and I went on a little trip to La Crosse, Wisconsin. A small city in southern Wisconsin that sits on the banks of three rivers, most notably the Mississippi it boasts the record for most bars per capita. I am sure the tourism beaurau would prefer something else but this little tid bit of information seems to be most popular with the college crowd. La Crosse also was the home of the famed G. Heileman Brewing company which produced such gems as Old Style and Special Export, the later being a big hit with a lot of my friends. Why? I can only guess because of the novelty and the price. Towards the end went the way like a lot of other breweries but this one went down much later than the rest, 1996 when it was bought out by Stroh’s and when they were done the Old Style and Special Export name and brewing went to Pabst who is of course owned by Miller. Today the old facility is owned and run by City Brewing who also were part of the Latrobe Brewing Company buy out or whatever that was and all the shit that went along with that. Researching this is really facinating but messy, breweries being bought by these guys but the brews going to those guys and buys outs and closures, it all gets jumbled. Check out the Wiki pages here and here to get a better understanding.

Used to have the Old Style logos, now it's LaCrosse Lager

Unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to tour the brewery so I got nothing to show you inside but it’s an old school brewery and now it mainly used for a few beers, City beers obviously plus a few other “gems” but they also make energy drinks and Arizona Tea. All and all being that it’s still operational and is massive in size I get a feel that it’s used mainly for output and you won’t be seeing anything worth screaming about, unless you love Game Day Ice or Pit Bull Malt Liquor.

But if you are ever in La Crosse and you can only got to one place you better make that place Bodega’s. A beautiful pub that sits on the corner of 4th and Pearl Street this is a beer lovers haven in La Crosse. I mentioned earlier on how La Crosse is dubbed most bars per capita, though I don’t know if that is official or not but right across the street from our parking spot was a full block of bars, 4 bars all in a row, so I don’t doubt the legend is true. But from the feeling I get that most of them don’t have anything close to what Bodega’s has and that being said a lot of bars in any town don’t come close. 400 beers available and 15 on tap. They have this awesome cooler that is copper plated and all the beers are numbered and rotates inside it. So you give them the number and they spin it around to find it. It’s a very cozy place and something I will definatly go back to if I am ever in La Crosse again.

My poor pregnant wife. No beer for you

The infamous cooler.

Bodega's at night.

La Crosse also boasts a new brewery called Pearl Street which I did not get a chance to check out because it was getting late and we couldn’t find it. So if I do go back I will have to check that out as well. Anyways La Crosse is a fun town. I would love to go back after Kelly gives birth to our next baby girl so we can have a silly time. There are some beautiful scenery spots like Granddads Bluff and the river fronts. Some great restaurants like Pickerings, Buzzard Billy’s and Big Al’s Pizza. And of course, bars bars bars. I can see having a great time at night in the summer there.

Surly Fest 2010

Stuart Raymond — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 14:05:21 +0000

First time ever to this event. And what a perfect day we had. Not too hot, not too cold and the sun was shining, birds were singing and the beer was flowing. I decided to do the right thing and bike there, and good thing I did because I could barely bike out of the parking lot, luckily I had my wife pick me up. 35 bucks got you the mug and 4 beer tokens and trust me, 4 was enough. You got you choice of many Surly flavors but the only sad thing was that there wasn’t anything “special” so to say. But that didn’t matter, they were all good. The Hell tasted especially good that day. Here are some more photos of the event. Cheers!

Title Town Brew Pub and Shipwrecked Brew Pub

Stuart Raymond — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 11:58:22 +0000

Here is a quick picture post on my trip to Door County, Wisconsin. Title Town Brew Pub is located in, obviously, Green Bay. It’s pretty much right on the way to Door County. Door County by the way is the “thumb” of Wisconsin the jots out into Lake Michigan. I really like this brew pub, even with all the Packer crap. It is located right near the bottom Green Bay, the bay not the city so it is really located on the north end of the city. The building is an old train station and the trains still cross right next to it, or at least a train did when were eating. The beers were nice, nothing too far out there but they were brewed well. I had an IPA and I believe a Red which were both very nice. I even got a cool glass that I cannot drink out of because, well, its got green and gold on it but a cool football etch on the bottom. Some Packer fan will get this soon. There is another brew pub across the street but unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to stop there. I recommend stopping here if you are ever in Green Bay. Don’t forget to wear your purple

When we were staying in Door County we were very lucky to be next to the only brew pub in Door County, Shipwrecked. If you ever go to Door County you will find a lack of craft beer with this being an exception. Not saying that this is everywhere but they do sell them in 6 packs so that was nice to see. The brew pub itself is OK though. The beer selection was very thin with only 4 choices, a copper ale, an amber, a porter and a cherry wheat, the cherry wheat being very nice being that Door County is known for it’s cherries, any cherry flavored beer you get in the upper midwest is probably made with Door County Cherries. I was really hoping for something special here but then I am used to Town Hall and Fitgers so my expectations are always high, but still the selections were nothing to write home about even though I am writing about it, they really could use something bolder. But no matter what it is still nice to have a brew pub to go to when you are on vacation. So if you are in Door County stop on by, you really have no other choice.