My Favorite Beers of 2013 & What’s Up in 2014

Happy New Year from Ninkasi’s Niece & Mr. NN!

I am a sucker for lists, any kind of list. Best-of / worst-of lists, grocery lists, to-do lists…. Not all of them make for good reading, but all can be considered helpful in some way. Around New Years, we are inundated with lists of the highlights and lowlights, the best and the worst, of the year that’s passed. I don’t always agree with the ranking of the items and sometimes I think things are put on certain lists that don’t deserve to be there and other things are left out. However much a person may agree or disagree with the contents of these many lists, a person’s reaction can be as illuminating as the list itself. Recently, Draft Magazine put out their list of the top 25 beers of 2013. My reactions were thus (in list form, of course):

• I haven’t heard of half of these breweries.
• Even of the breweries I have heard of, some of those specific beers were not seen in Minnesota.
• One of the entries is also on my list.
• Of the few that I have tried, I was underwhelmed by the majority.
•  My own list will look inadequate by comparison. ::sigh::

For those of you not in easy distance of Minnesota, I do apologize; many of my favorite beers of 2013 are not available outside of the state. As I see it, that is just balancing out Draft’s list, which features many brews unavailable here. One additional note about my list: Some of these beers may have been available in earlier years; however, I have tried to keep my list to beers that made their initial appearance in Minnesota in 2013, or thereabout. As 2014 is already losing its new-year smell, I shall waste no more time. In 2013, I enjoyed these beers the most:

• Amuste by Odell (CO): I do love hybrids and innovations. This 9.3% ABV Imperial porter is aged in wine barrels and contains juice from Tempranillo grapes (grown in Colorado, not Spain). It has a slightly sour tang in it, while not being a sour ale, and the dark malt goodness of a jacked up porter. Love.
• Imperial Wit with Lime by Blacklist (MN): This nomadic brewery makes a different beer each month. In 2013, we were lucky enough to get our hands on the Imperial Wit with Lime, which is no longer available. It was a perfect fusion of fruit and grain. Thankfully, Blacklist is now available in the MSP area.
• Black Ale  and Golden IPA by Bent Paddle (MN): Another northern brewery that made the trip south, to the delight of  Twin Citizens. The Black Ale (6.0%), a brew between a stout and a porter, marries the best of the two styles. Mr. NN, not a huge fan of standard stouts and porters (I married him anyway), likes this beer when he wants a dark malt beverage. The Golden IPA (6.2%) is a pleasantly floral IPA that reminds me of sunlight coming through the leaves. The price point for the cans is such that we could have these are our “go-to” beers, the ones you might bring to share at a party without breaking the bank or that you might always have on hand at home.
• Dublin Raid by HammerHeart (MN): Sorry, folks. As far as I can tell, you can only get this at the brewery taproom in Lino Lakes, MN. This peated Irish Red Ale (6.5%) is so much more than the sum of its parts. I may possibly have had a cask or barrel-aged version when I was there, but I can’t be sure. The peaty-ness comes through, as well as smoked malts and rye. It’s a riot in your mouth. HammerHeart seems to do a lot of smoked beers, and now some of those ales are available on tap. But not this one.
• Berliner Weisse by White Birch (NH), tied with Star of the North by Schells (MN): I previously declared the Berliner Weis (or Weisse) style to be the Style of the Summer. Maybe the year. Though this style has been around for quite a long time, it has only recently made an appearance (or resurgence) on the wider American craft beer scene. If you like effervescence but do not like fizzy pop, then you might like this.
  

  Something yummy from Schell’s

  If you like light-on-the-palate but you don’t like sweet, then you  might like this. Germans traditionally serve this (sometimes to kids!) with a syrup of woodruff or raspberry to cut the tartness. This two versions of the style don’t require any such modification, in my opinion.

• Rise of the Burghers and the Fall of the Feudal Lords by Olvalde Farm (MN).: This beer from the one-man brewery in Rollingstone, MN, only crossed my lips once, but I have been on the hunt for it ever since. It’s a riff on medieval German ales brewed with herbs and bittered with hops and horehound. I recall it having the finish of a subtle red wine or fruit leather, a hint of sourness. If you can find it, let me know. I need more!
• Cascara Quad by New Belgium (CO): This 10% ABV dark ale is brewed with dates and coffee cherries. It’s a quad that harkens to the leathery sweetness of cherry pipe tobacco. Plus it has llamas on the bottle. If you haven’t picked up on it yet, I love me some fruit leather-raisin-sour cherry-pipe tobacco aroma and flavor profiles.
• Bombay Berzerker by Clown Shoes (MA): Another big 10% beer. This one uses a chocolate stout as the base and adds ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, and vanilla. Worth going berserk over, indeed.
• My own homebrews! Both of recipes that I made from Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head turned out wonderfully. As I mentioned in my post, I tweaked the recipes a bit to use up ingredients that I had on hand and I also added candied ginger to the stout. “Eldritch Root” (the stout with candied ginger an licorice root) and “Bog Braggot” (a cranberry braggot) may just have to make appearances in homebrew competitions in 2014 — if we don’t drink it all first.

Looking forward, I think 2014 holds plenty of excitement for the world of craft beer, particularly in Minnesota. These are the breweries/brewpubs that are either scheduled to open this year or opened in 2013 but that I have not yet been able to visit:

1. Urban Growler. Opening in the spring in St. Paul. Read about my visit to their open house here.
2. Day Block Brewing. Opening this month! (Grand opening on the 27th.) This pizzeria / brewpub is in the space formerly occupied by Spill the Wine.
3. Wenonah Brewing. Just opened in Winona, MN.
4. Tin Whiskers Brewing. Opening in downtown St. Paul, maybe this spring.
5. Pryes Brewing. Still looking for funding for a Minneapolis location.
6. Burning Brothers Brewing. I can’t tell if they are actually open yet, but they are producing. It’s an entirely gluten-free brewery in St. Paul.
7. Kinney Creek Brewery. Already open in Rochester, MN. Finally something other than the hospital!
8. Enki Brewing. Already open in Victoria, MN.
9. Jack Pine Brewery. Already open in Baxter, MN.
10. Bang Brewing. Already open in St. Paul, MN.

There’s one other development on the craft scene: spirits. A lesser-known provision of the so-called Surly Law is that business people who went to start a micro-distillery can now pay a licensing fee of only $1000 – $3000, as opposed to the previously prohibitive $30,000 fee.

Now made entirely in Minnesota! (Minus the olive, of course)

Since that change, there have been at least 11 licenses issued. (Read more about it here.) In addition, a law was passed making it legal for the distillery to give out small samples of their products. Here are some of the craft spirit makers that we may find passing our lips this year:

1. Vikre Distillery. Open in Duluth.
2. Du Nord Craft Spirits. Minneapolis.
3. Norseman Distillery. Minneapolis.
4. Wander North Distillery. Minneapolis, not yet in operation.
5. 11 Wells Spirits. Not yet open in St. Paul.
6. Lost Falls Distillery. Minneapolis. Has Kickstarter campaign.
7. Panther Distillery. Osakis, MN.
8. Bent Brewstillery. Roseville, MN. Pour Decisions Brewing, which I have often panned but occasionally praised, has merged with a distillery to form this new company. The beer is different, the taproom will be improved, and spirits will also be poured!

Despite this amazing boom in small business in Minnesota, there are still some legal hoops to jump through. Distilleries cannot sell bottles of their product on premises, nor can they sell cocktails made with their spirits. I hope these laws can be changed, as it will help these small companies show their wares to best advantage and make the tours of the distilleries another fun outing. (The Old Sugar Distillery in Madison, Wisconsin, is a great place to stop in for a tasty cocktail.) Also on the legal docket: Sunday alcohol sales in Minnesota. Governor Dayton said he would sign such a bill, should it land on his desk, so let’s start calling our reps!