3 Growlers Craft Beer Show: Third Street Jack'd Up Autumn Ale

Saint Paul Summer Beer Fest - A Whole Lotta Beer!

The Saint Paul Summer Beer Fest was a great event. There were tons of brews, actually over 100 breweries and over 400 beers! Out of all of them, the best one as voted for by fans was Dangerous Man Brewing Company out of Nordeast Mpls. Good job Dangerous Man! They seem to be winning a lot of awards lately, and having had a lot of their beers it makes total sense. Unfortunately, as often happens at this large of an event, I never got to their booth. But, I did have a lot of other great beers. So, let’s get to it!

(Crowd Around Dangerous Man)

Let’s start with one of my favorite breweries, Bent Brewstillery. Last year at this event was where Bent made its debut and gave Dark Fatha to the world. This year Bent brought Dark Fatha that had been aged in rye whiskey barrels. WOW! This beer was awesome! Dark Fatha is a very smooth approachable beer. Barrel aging this beer added depth to it while maintaining the smoothness. There was no boozy bite like lots of barrel aged imperial stouts. But, if you want a bit of a bite they had ghost peppers that you could toss into your glass to spice things up. Bent Brewstillery is doing awesome things. It has been fun to watch them grow and to have seen how their beer has evolved from the beginning till now. Expect more greatness to come from these guys!



(Bent Brewstillery Pourin' The Good Stuff!)

Next up we have one of the newest breweries on the block, Tin Whiskers BrewingCompany. This brewery just recently opened in St. Paul, so I wanted to see what they are doing. I tried the Wheatstone Bridge. This beer is an American style wheat beer made with chamomile and honey. It has an almost chai tea flavor to it. It has ginger and floral notes along with a nice sweetness. It is a refreshing beer with an awesome original flavor. Although I am not sure I could sit down and drink a whole 6 pack of it, it shows how creative brewers can be with beer and makes me think we are going to see some awesome creations from Tin Whiskers going forward.

(Third Street Out Back)

ThirdStreet Brewhouse never fails to bring something tasty to these parties and they didn’t let us down at this fest with Hunny Do. This beer is a wheat beer with honey dew melon. The smell of this beer had a nice melony scent along with a hint of a cinnamon toast crunch, although only the melon flavor stuck around when the beer hits your tongue. It’s crisp, refreshing, and fruity. Thanks for never letting us down, Third Street!

Now let’s hit a couple “unbeers”. First up is Angry Orchard. They brought a hard cider with elderflower. We tried this purely because earlier we were talking with our Norwegian friend about elderflower. And then, BAM, an elderflower cider.... It was meant to be! This cider was sweet, slightly floral, fruity, and light. It was a good drinkable cider and was a great departure from a typical “just apple” hard cider. I know this is a beer blog, but Angry Orchard deserved a little cred for this one for sure!

(Great Music At The Beer Fest)

Our last beer of the day is a shout out to Vicky who writes our blog series Confessions of a Sober Cab; Lift Bridge Brewing Company’s Root Beer. Vicky said it was sweet but not overly sweet nor bitey and was a good mellow root beer. Thanks for bringing something hand crafted for our sober cab, Lift Bridge!  

(Three Marks Means Trouble!)

All in all I had a great time at the Saint Paul Summer Beer Fest. There was more beer than I could ever imagine, the rain stopped right before pulling into the parking lot, and the crowd was fun and festive. Chop Liver knows how to throw a great beer party!

(My Crew And I Havin' Fun!)

Take Me Out to the Beer Game

 

 

 

I will just come out and admit it… I am not a baseball guy. It just isn’t my sport. I need a sport that has violent collisions on a regular basis, like football, hockey, heck even NASCAR. I probably catch a combined total of one inning of baseball a year.

 

That said, recently I had a chance to go to Target Field to see the MN Twins try to play baseball for a work outing… Let’s see; sit at my office all afternoon or go drink some beer on a sunny afternoon at the ol’ ball park…. Easy decision!

 

Baseball aside, I was actually really excited to go. I had heard great things about the ballpark; the beer, the food, the views, and it didn’t disappoint.

 

Target Field itself is a beautiful ball park! It’s new, clean, and easily accessible. Even though we had the cheap seats the view of the field was great, and we didn’t need a Sherpa to get to them!

 

 

 

 

Blah, blah, baseball, ballpark… Whatever, lets get to the beer side of things! This place is a beer drinker’s paradise. It was great to finally go to a stadium and have options other than beers that start with the word Miller or end with the word Light.

 

My first stop was right inside the gate I entered, Twin’s Pub. Just a normal average looking hot dog, nachos, and beer type stand that is at every stadium I have ever been to except this one had tasty beers! I went for a bomber of Summit Extra Pale Ale. Nothing too adventurous obviously, but I have always liked this beer and never have ordered a bomber of it, so why not?

 

 

 

 

I walked through the concourses searching out other fun beer stuff and found Hrbek’s. Hrbek’s is a full service sports bar inside the ballpark named after former Twin’s first baseman Kent Hrbek… He played back when the Twins were good. Anybody remember that? I didn’t get a drink there because I was still working on my Summit, but the place looked nice and at least had leinie’s on tap.
 

 

After watching a couple innings of baseball with my coworkers I headed back out for another beer. I came across a small beer counter the size of a large walk in closet built into the wall called Twin’s Brews, Beers of Twin’s Territory. This little place was awesome! They had countless local craft beers. It was a cool touch to see the hometown team promoting hometown beers. We need more of that type of stuff if you ask me. I had a Lost Trout by Third Street Brewhouse. It was a little on the chilly side that day, so a good brown ale went down great!
 

 

The Twins lost, but I was really impressed with the wide selection of craft beer available at Target Field. The beer combined with some great food stands, like Foods of the State Fair and a variety of sausage vendors among other things, makes for a great fan experience, even if you are not a fan in the first place.
 

On a quick side note, Beerploma was nominated for Best Beer Blog in the Growler’s Kind-of-a-Big-Deal awards. Thanks to those who nominated us! If you like what you read here, please take a second to go to www.growlermag.com/vote and vote for beerploma.blogspot.com for best beer blog (category number 18).