Weekend Round-Up: Celebrating Minnesota’s Craft Brewers

Seeing as last week was Craft Beer Week here in Minnesota, we took advantage of Saturday's gorgeous weather and hoisted a few of Minneapolis' finest craft brews.

Seeing as we'd already sampled our local craft beers at both Kinney Creek Brewery and Grand Rounds Brew Pub here in Rochester, we joined some friends and started our venture at the new Surly Brewery and Beer Hall in Minneapolis. Their new facility opened earlier this year, and it's quite the place! We enjoyed a couple of beverages, (Surley Furious is always a favorite) and had some lunch on their patio. (One should always build a base before enjoying too many beers...)

After Surly, we headed to Urban Growler Brewery in St. Paul. Their historic brick building is the same location where the city of St. Paul once stabled its horses for the St. Paul Police Department. We sampled a flight of their beers while enjoying the spring weather in their beer garden. Their coconut porter was our hands-down favorite.

 Bang Brewery is located right behind Urban Growler Brewery in St. Paul — literally– so we sampled some of their beers next. We finally wrapped up our tour at Burning Brothers Breweryin St. Paul, where their Fused Lime Shandy was certainly refreshing.

Luckily, a friend of ours was only having water, so he could drive us back to their house when we were done. All in all, it was a great way to enjoy a beautiful spring day-- and help support Minnesota's craft beer industry!