Month: February 2008

Winterfest 2008

By on February 11, 2008in breweries, brewpubs

Winterfest 2008

Another Winterfest has come and gone and another 400+ Minnesotans left Landmark center with a cool buzz (or perhaps happily drunk?) after being exposed to some of Minnesota’s best beers. Needless to say, I tried a lot of beers, spoke to a lot of people and came to the realization that I should read the camera’s instruction manual before shooting a bunch of throw-away shots. Regardless, there are photos for your enjoyment over at Flickr.

Town Hall’s Chocolate Raspberry Bourbon Stout took the Great Snowshoe award, though there were many, many standout beers. I have a few more ideas for homebrew projects thanks to a number of breweries.

Kudos to everyone who once again worked so hard to put on such a solid event. These events aren’t easy to put on and the Minnesota Craft Brewer’s Guild and Flings Event Design do a great job.

Think your homebrew is worthy?

By on February 8, 2008in homebrew

If so you might want to think about entering it in Samuel Adams 2008 American Homebrew Contest.

Here’s your chance to have your homebrew brewed, packaged and nationally distributed in the 2009 Samuel Adams LongShot package! It’s simple. Well, not really. You will have to brew a winning entry, send it in to face a panel of certified American Homebrew Association judges and beat out thousands of other entries. But no one ever said taking a shot at glory was easy!

Get yourself to samueladams.com to learn all the details including how much time you have to brew and ship it to us (less than you think!). You can even purchase homebrew supplies, watch the instructional “The Art of Homebrewing” video hosted by our own Jim Koch or become a member of the American Homebrewing Association. Here are some quick facts:

Submission Window: April 15 – May 1st, 2008

Prizes: Four finalists will be awarded a trip to attend the 2008 Great American Beer Festival® in Denver, CO where Samuel Adams will announce the winning recipe to be included in the 2009 LongShot six-pack.

Good luck!

Trippel Trouble on tap tomorrow at McCann’s

By on February 7, 2008in brewpubs

McCann’sI’ll be enjoying this one at Winterfest tomorrow evening, but for those of you who aren’t going, perhaps a visit to St. Cloud is in order?

Belgian Monastery breweries have been making the worlds most interesting beers for many years. Many of these beers are only available inside the monastery walls only for the monks enjoyment. Beers of high strength are brewed to sustain the monks during their fasts. Our Abbey style Trippel is one such beer. Trippel means that it’s three times the strength of a regular beer. Brewed with over 900 pounds of the highest quality Belgian malts and candi sugar. Belgian candi sugar looks like “rock candy” and contributes a “rummy” flavor to the beer. A Belgian monastery ale yeast gives this beer a fruity/spicy complexity while maintaining drinkability despite it’s strength. Hints of honey, carmel, apricot and a subtle spicyness are experienced in it’s flavor. This beer is served unfiltered and pours a tawny gold. A strong, wonderful beer for cold winter evenings.
1.082 O.G.

Happy Gnome Firkin Fest

By on February 7, 2008in bars/restaurants, beer events

TruthBrew wrote this and I’m too lazy to re-edit it and pretend I wrote is, so…

Fantastic news for lovers of quality beer and especially those who love cask/real ale. On Sunday March 16th, The Happy Gnome will be hosting their first annual Firkin Fest (name not final).

This fest will be outdoors in an enormous tent featuring over 26 breweries and 50 cask beers (as of writing), with both domestic craft and import beers featured. It will be the largest cask beer festival in the midwest since the fantastic and now defunct Real Ale Festival was held in Chicago.

Update: the event will start at noon and run until the casks are empty.

More information will be coming this weekend…. stay posted on Twin Cities Imbiber or MNBeer.com for more details.