BLECH!

B.E. Earl over at The Verdant Dude has been doing beer/brewery reviews for his blogger buddies based on the State they live in. Turns out Minnesota doesn't have Crap shit for local brewery's. I'm also thankful that he no longer ties Leinenkugel & Arcadia. Wisconsin and Michigan beers with Minnesota! Thanks BEE for all of your hard work!

Here's his review:

"Beer me, Earl!" Reviews - Part 3 of 4

Jun 23, 2009 by B.E. Earl

Note: Most of the information gathered in these regional beer profiles has been gleaned from the the wonderful users over at BeerAdvocate. Their reviews are a must for any serious brew-hound. Also, I decided to exclude brewpubs from these profiles and just stick with actual craft breweries. Generally a brewpub makes beer that is only sold in it's own establishment. I wanted to stay with breweries whose product you could actually find at your local store/distributor/bar. Hopefully. And I'm only going to highlight 2 or 3 per region. Also, feel free to nit-pick. I dig beer and all, but I'm certainly not the absolute last word on it. - Earl

This has been a lot of fun, and informative for me as well. I am finding a bunch of beers that I would like to try myself, and I am giving the list to Gia to see if she can get a hold of them thru work. Here goes part III:

Jennifer - "I'm from Minnesota. Beer me, Earl!"
When I first saw Jennifer's beer profile request I thought "Blech...Leinenkugel! I hate that stuff." Then I thought "Hmm...Arcadia. I love that stuff!" Then I realized that Leinenkugel is from Wisconsin and Arcadia is from Michigan. I'm afraid my East-Coast bias is rearing it's ugly head once again in these profiles. Sigh. So it was off to BeerAdvocate for me to see if I recognized anything at all from Minnesota.

Nope. Nada. Zilch. Nothing out of the 11 breweries and 15 brewpubs in the state. But I did find the worst reviewed brewery I have ever seen, and another that was pretty close. Both in Cold Springs. Wow. Anyway, I have decided that I am going to pick a couple of them based solely on my interest in their beers. And based solely on that, I would love to try a bunch of the beers from Surly Brewing Company in Brooklyn Center. Check out the names of THESE beers. CynicAle, Hell, Furious and Tea-Bagged Furious. Awesome! And they come in cans, which I love. Double the awesome! I can't really tell you exactly what kind of beers they are because they brew them specifically so that they can be easily categorized into one style. As their head brewer says ""Surly Brewing Company's beers are NOT brewed to fit into ANY beer style guidelines. So please spread the word!" So I'm doing it. It looks like they are only available in Chicago outside of Minnesota. Pity. I would love to give them a try.

Lift Bridge Brewery in Stillwater is probably the newest brewery in Minnesota. They only have 6 beers or so in their stable, but they all sound interesting and their website is simple and informative. One beer that they brew, in particular, tickles my fancy. It's called Biscotti and it is a Belgian-style ale inspired by the biscotti recipe of one of the brewer's grandmother. Grains of Paradise, Vanilla and anise notes are present in addition to the traditional hops, oats, honey, malt Belgian yeast. Sounds sooo tasty. Since it is so new, I would assume that it is only available local, but you never know. Check it out.

Now you'll have to excuse me. I'm off to go open up a nice tasty, frosty Bud Light!

Happy Hiccup Tuesday!
- Jennifer