Cheers to great beer, unique settings & friendly folks at Minnesota’s craft breweries

y introduction to beer stretches back decades. To my dad and uncles, who swigged bottles of Schell’s Deer Brand beer while playing cards at extended family gatherings or after a hot summer afternoon of baling hay. This was long before craft beer became a thing.

Back then the men were simply loyal to a regional beer business, family-owned August Schell Brewing Company in nearby New Ulm. That 163-year-old brewery became the first to develop craft beers in Minnesota beginning in the 1980s. Beer has come a long ways in Minnesota with craft breweries popping up everywhere.

Schell’s has a second one, Starkeller, specializing in sour beers served in a dark German hall style taproom on the west side of New Ulm. The sours are aged in on-site 1936 cypress wood lagering tanks. I stopped once during my travels to the southwestern part of the state and enjoyed both the sours and the unique atmosphere.

Setting, for me, is part of the draw to a craft brewery. With so many breweries competing for customers, these brewers need to create not only great beer, but also a distinguishable experience. Brau Brothers Brewing Company in Marshall (originally located in Lucan, population 220, six miles from my childhood farm), for example, centers its taproom around a 1956 vintage fire truck. Beer flows from taps on the truck. Grab a meal, grab a beer and relax in this brewery which honors its rural roots with beer names like Thresher, Cultivate, Sheephead (the Brau family’s favorite card game), Ring Neck

MBraun Ale and more. My favorite early on, when I was introduced to craft beer, was Brau Brothers Strawberry Wheat, an American pale wheat. I’ve advanced to hoppier beers, favoring IPAs now.

Some 60 miles east of Marshall is another memorable small town brewery, this one housed in the former historic PIX Theater. Sleepy Eye Brewing Company, along US Highway 14 routing through the heart of this Brown County community, serves beer flights in movie reels. Not only is that a visual delight, but so is the taproom with exposed brick walls and partial original tile and wood floors. The whole place feels welcoming and more upscale than you might think possible in the middle of farm country. The brewery shares the space with Sleepy Eye Coffee Company, serving specialty coffee, pastries, sandwiches and salads.

In the more densely-populated southeastern region of Minnesota where I live, there are a whole lot of craft breweries I’ve visited at least once: Mankato Brewery; Mineral Springs Brewery in Owatonna; Chapel Brewing in Dundas; Imminent Brewing in Northfield (where I once read an original beer-themed poem); Tanzenwald Brewing Company in Northfield; Montgomery Brewing; Giesenbrau Bier Company in New Prague; Reads Landing Brewing Company; and Lake Monster in St. Paul.

When I’m up in the Brainerd lakes area, my go-to brewery is 14 Lakes Craft Brewing Company in Crosslake, where a regular holding up one end of the bar advises other beer drinkers to “just call me Norm.” As in Norm on the hit TV sitcom “Cheers.” That’s part of the craft experience, too. Chatting it up with locals or other patrons while sipping and sampling good Minnesota-made craft beers. Cheers. 

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