Beer: Summit Brewery

A few weeks ago my best friend braved this land I like to refer to as an Ice Bucket of Doom, and visited me. We had a big ol' blizzard the weekend she was here, complete with a super fun white out (the text doesn't convey my heavy sarcasm, so this aside is necessary to point out said sarcasm)

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We usually spend a lot of time drinking wine and exploring wineries when we hang out.  I come from a group of friends that adores wine, wine culture, and .... drinking.  A lot of wine. But, it's not exactly wine season in Minnesota. This problem was addressed by a different solution; BEER. There is a sh*t ton of beer in this state. This reality makes up for the lack of wine.

And, spoiler alert.  It is good beer.

We headed down to St. Paul to indulge at the Summit Brewery.

Summit Brewery gives a fabulously short and sweet (free!) tour  with just enough history to make you go "Wow, cool" and they close with 4, 4oz beer samples. Which meant that we sampled the full spectrum of beers by sharing. My husband was our DD so we held some of his drink tokens hostage to get the full beer sampling experience.

Wall of Awesome Beers and Awards

While all beers were pretty gosh darn good, standout beers were the Maibock (a spring ale) for its easy drinking, and lightness. The second beer we loved was the winter beer the Frost Line Rye. Lastly, the Oatmeal Stout was worth the hype (our tour guides absolute fav.) and was pretty gosh darn good! I realize I just gave a range of beer varieties. It doesn't change the fact that they were all outstanding.

Oatmeal Stout

Beer tasting is a different experience than wine tasting.  I think that no matter where we go for a tasting, it will always remind me of the movie Drinking Buddies, because it just seems like those are the type of people who work at breweries: super cool hipsters who are passionate about beer. It also reminds me of Portlandia for some reason......

Happy Drinking!

Food: Blue Door Pub

After picking up my inlaws from the airport we drove to St Paul to explore a "Diners, Drive Ins and Dives" recommendation The Blue Door Pub.

We waited an hour to be seated, but with 2 dollar tap beers we were going nowhere and enjoying the selection of local MN Brew (Hamm's and Summit to name a couple.)

I ordered a Frenchy, a French dip styled burger with cartelized onions and ooey goey Swiss cheese to dip into a lovely broth. 

The only thing better than a juicy messy burger, is a juicy messy burger filled with CHEESE! And mushrooms of course.

Beer: Firestone Solace

GASP! She updates!

Blogging is hard. Especially when you work in front of a computer all day. I like to come home and zone out on pinterest or, you know, watch tv, or work out. Blogging requires you to be mentally engaged enough to be witty.

Hopefully you find me witty when I actually am trying!

It's been a long few weeks but this weekend we have friends from out of town [out of state] visiting and we are going to Paso Robles for the harvest festival weekend!

Right now I am zoning out with the help of Firestone Solace. This is my favorite beer. I am not sure why, Dos Equis is pretty good, and usually a staple in our house. I also enjoy Blue Moon or Shock Top.

I suppose it's because it's lightly sweet to me, a little wheatty, a little honey, not too bubbly, and a just... Smooth.

And it's fitting to start my weekend off with Solace because, [dun da da DUN] they are located in Paso!

And the pretty teal label helps make it eye catchy.

But really, Eureka burger introduced me to this beer, and I have enjoyed it ever since.

Cheers to the weekend, cheers to Paso, and cheers to wine and beer!