12 Nights of specials from 6pm to close. Craft beer specials in bold…
Dec. 12th – grab bag night – $2 bottles until they run out
Dec. 13th – Schell’s Snowstorm – $2.25 pints, $9 pitchers
Dec. 14th – MGD light bottles – $2
Dec. 15th – PBR double wides – $10, Roller Girls
Dec 16th – Blue Moon $3 taps
Dec. 17th – $10 bottles of merlot and chard.
Dec. 18th – Summit Flight (sampler) night $5. They carry ALL of Summit’s beers
Dec. 19th – Merry Firkin Christmas – firkins from Summit, Surly, Schell’s, Bell’s & Big Sky
Dec. 20th – Big Sky Powderhound – $2.25 taps, $9 pitchers
Dec. 21st – Black Jack Night – $3 – the Tap’s very own creation… Rush River Bubblejack & Redhook Blackhook poured like a black & tan
Dec. 22nd – Leinie What’s your mix? $2 bottles (honey, original, berry, red, sunset)
Dec. 23rd – Delerium Noel – $6/bottle.
wow. firkins of what, i wonder….
Hope it’s not like the Surly event the hosted where Groveland required you buy a beer to get a glass of cask brew.
Cask Surly is a a pin of Oak Aged Bender.
HTH
Eric – I’m guessing they’ll put beer in them 😉
you hater fanboy. beer in a firkin—what will they think of next?
Wait a second…I need a firkin? What the hell, I work at a German brewery…we don’t have such things. Ok, if I’m on the spot, what should I bring…a Bayerisch anstich fass of Pils or Maifest….
My vote is for the PIls. But only if you don’t have any Alt….
*Cough* Alt *Cough*
Pils or Maifest sound good too. Will you be there Dave?
The Alt would be awesome!
Yeah, the alt would be awesome–except it all got packaged today! Something about a million cases or some such nonsense. Had I known what the hell was going on…
I hadn’t planned on being there, but plans change. I’ll drag my tired bones out of New Ulm. Hope it doesn’t snow…
Yeah, I suppose once all of the alt is packaged, that’s it. I didn’t really think about it that way. KARE-11 out of the Twin Cities had nice coverage of the alt packaging today. There was a line about going up against craft beer that sounded kind of sketchy, but overall it was a good piece..
I know for sure we are going to have the following firkins:
Summit Winter Ale
Surly Oak Aged Bender (as previously stated)
Big Sky’s Powderhound
Bell’s Double Cream Stout
and then what ever David Berg is going to bring (rumor has it it’s going to be the Pils)
“There was a line about going up against craft beer that sounded kind of sketchy”
I didn’t see the piece and the sound on the KARE-11 website doesn’t work!
The text says something to the effect of “and fought for recognition when craft brews became king.”
Not sure if this is what you’re talking about or not. Regardless, one has to take things in perspective. First, we’re a lager brewery. To most craft beer lovers, lagers=boring. So there is a lot of truth in the statement. Keep in mind it was back in 1986 when Ted first brewed the Pilsner and Hefe. That had to be pretty close to the first German style Pilsner and German Hefe brewed in the US, especially at a production level.
So, I guess I can see where the statement stems, but you have to look at it in the context of who we are rather than a 10 second sound-bite. If you’ve ever met Ted, you’d know that it was in no way a slight to craft brewers, even if it may have come across that way.
Damn. Wednesday sounds like the date to drop by. When do the firkins get tapped?
And although PBR is not exactly what one calls craft ale, drinking beers with the women of MNRG…well, it could be worse.
Dave-
Got it. My initial impression when I heard that line was that the writer had slighted Schell’s and inferred that the beer wasn’t on par with craft beer.
Isnt Schell’s considered a “craft” beer? There is an article in last months BA mag about defining “craft” beer. I guess I would consider Schell to be a craft brewery as well as a lager brewery.
“writer had slighted Schell’s and inferred that the beer wasn’t on par with craft beer.”
Oh, we get that all the time–even from consumers!
“Yessir, Schell sure sucks…if only it was a craft beer.”
Yeah, I can’t say that with a straight face. Which reminds me – the Groveland Tap Snowstorm special looks pretty good…
Groveland Tap should definitely be on the tap list. They carry plenty of Minnesota brews and have an awesome Cajun Juicy Lucy.
We’ve been talking and the Tap should be a part of the list soon.
I love Schell’s! FYI.
Good work Pat your stirring up some competition on me winning all of the prizes.
Can I reserve a table for Wednesday? And a cab ride home?
Will there be enough room on the bar for all the firkins and a sleeping spot for me?
just worry about getting here, no excuses. Mayor?
what time does firkin madness start tonight? 7ish im guessing?
Whoops, i should read. It says 6pm to close for all specials.
We showed up about 7 and thankfully nothing was gone by that point. I enjoyed a little Summit, Surly, Schell’s… repeat… lots of good folks out having beers tonight… far too many to talk to and just as many new faces. Good to see the usual suspects and meet new people… I put a few more names to faces, which is always good… somebody pointed out Ben near the end of the night, but I didn’t get a chance to say hello. As always, I suspect there will be another opportunity.
Good times!
Wish I had gotten more of the Summit. We expected great things of the Bell’s and the Surly – Bender is a favorite of ours and the Bell’s Double Cream Stout is normally phenomenal.
In both cases, we got flat pints. Not real ale-flat but flat-flat. No carbonation, no effervescence…a flat glass of cool beer. It was a little disappointing.
The Big Sky Winter was tremendous, though…good winter pint with a dry finish. Proper carbonation and very easy to sip.
My wife _did_ bring up the fact that cask ale was a new enough phenomenon in Minnesota that maybe they just didn’t know how to pour a proper pint.
I’m curious if anyone else had this experience.
Thanks to everyone for coming out last night. I had some trepidations bringing a kellerbier to a Winter beer tasting, but it went over better than I expected. Fun to see everyone I knew, and unlike Ryan, I met Ben! Now if I can figure out how to get my Fass back…
A big thanks to the folks at the Groveland Tap for including us in the event. The staff did a great job of getting the beer out for people to try.
Happy Holidays all!
David –
Did you get any sense that the Tap is looking to do cask ale on a more regular basis?
I sold your Fass for scrap. Thanks!
Oh, and I swear a host or waitress accidentally told me that the pils was a double-hopped something. Didn’t exactly sound like you.
“Did you get any sense that the Tap is looking to do cask ale on a more regular basis?”
I don’t know. Perhaps someone from there will chime in.
“pils was a double-hopped something”
Dry hopped maybe? Sorry, just guessing.
“In both cases, we got flat pints. Not real ale-flat but flat-flat. No carbonation, no effervescence…a flat glass of cool beer. It was a little disappointing.”
Surly had intended on bring there and bringing the pump from what I heard but something came up so it had to be served on gravity pour. Also sounded like the Bells guys tapped the Surly cask when they were there and it sat downstairs for a couple hours like that. I thought it was still tasty but yeah, a pump would have helped.
Yes, in the future we will be doing more of these, I don’t know about five at a time, but we will try it again. Thanks everyone for joining us, it was a blast! Special thanks to the floks from Hohenstein, Summit and Schell’s, your participation was incredible and severly needed!
“Also sounded like the Bells guys tapped the Surly cask when they were there and it sat downstairs for a couple hours like that.”
Ben, before you start lofting out accusations of someone else messing with someone else’s firkin please have your facts right. Nobody from Bell’s tapped the Surly firkin. Both breweries are promoting with the same goal in mind and that is to get everyone to enjoy craft beer. Messing with someone else’s beer would defeat that purpose. I especially am a huge fan of Surly and for you to make an accusation that we did anything to their firkin is idiotic. Get you facts straight before you post.
Corey
Thanks to Corey and other brewers for helping us out with the Surly cask. I was not able to make it that night. Any problems with the Surly cask was our issue, no one else’s.
Omar