German in the Twin Cities: Minneapolis, MN

 When I left off last week, I was on the road from Chicago to Twin Cities by way of Wisconsin.  As the adjacent photos suggest, Wisconsin lives up to it's title as 'America's Dairyland.'  Wisconsin is basically like Nevada in that every building off the Interstate serves a duel purpose.  In Nevada every establishment is a Casino/ [insert building type here].  A casino/ hotel, a casino/ truck stop, a casino/ restaurant.  I think you get the idea.  Replace casino with cheese and you have the trans-Wisconsin experience.  I actually found a coffeeshop that sold cheese.  I have provided photographic evidence because, like Bigfoot, nobody is going to believe this story without a photo to back it up.  But I digress, time to keep heading West.

It's a little known fact outside this region of the United States, but the people of Minnesota and, indeed, Wisconsin love their beer.  They will have a beer.  In a big glass.  A quick search of Minneapolis/ St. Paul yielded an impressive assortment of local flavors to choose from.  Sadly, I'm short on time so I'll highlight one.

Once again, I am traveling with Jeff, the crazy old bastard from Kokomo, Indiana pictured here living out his Marilyn Monroe fantasies over a Minneapolis air vent.  I used his opinion at my stop in Chicago and I will add his reviews here because he has a very simple, yet profound style.  I imagine this is the way I sounded before I became pretentious and started describing beers as having "a citrus nose with lots of tropical fruit, nut, berry flavors... etc.

Today we visit:
Herkimer Brewing Company
 This brewery located in uptown Minneapolis specializes in German-style beers.   They brew several varieties of lagers including a couple of styles I had not run into yet.  For example:


Sky Pilot Kellerbier: Translated from German, this 'cellar beer' is an unfiltered light or amber ale.  It is a style that dates back to the middle ages.  It is so named because the beer kegs were stored with the bung unscrewed from the barrel so that the beer was exposed to air.  Consequently, the result was a beer with little to no carbonation.
So as far as the style goes, the beer was a pale, cloudy, straw-colored lager, so that's one-for-one so far.  Unfortunately, or (maybe fortunately?) the beer was carbonated.  No doubt if this beer had arrived flat, most people would send it back and get into a loud and sustained argument with the brewmaster.  The flavor was very light with just a little citrus and coriander spice with lingering hop flavor.

Jeff says:  It smells like banana!  It doesn't?  *Takes another whiff*  That's banana!!
(I don't know why he smelled banana, but he seemed so sure I didn't want to argue the point.)
Toolers Weiss:  While I was down in the cellar with the Sky Captain,  Jeff had himself a pint of the Toolers.  It was a pretty standard German wheat beer.  It was a deep yellow color with a good amount of head with the banana and tropical fruit flavors from the yeast.  I also picked up a little peach in the flavor.  It was a good beer, but nothing remarkable.

Jeff says: I don't know.  Maybe I should have another.  (Yes, yes you should.)

Dunkle Wiess: In the dark bar, this beer appeared pitch black.  The aroma was wonderful, the German wheat yeast combined with the roasted malts for a smell that can only be described as a chocolate covered banana.  The flavor was a little disappointing, it didn't hold any of the dark malts that were in the aroma.  It had a lot of fruit, but the malt was lacking.
Jeff says: Tastes like dirt.  (I think dark beers may be a lots cause on my friend from Indiana.)

Alt Bier: While Jeff continued with the Toolers, I moved on to the last beer they had on tap at the time.  This had a light aroma of date or raisin.  There was a touch of clove or coriander spice off the top of the flavor profile, but this beer was sadly lacking in flavor as well.  It seems to be a bit of a problem with this particular brewery.  It ends with a goodly amount of pine hops.

Jeff says: It... It... *spends a moment letting the beer sit on his palate* It sucks.  Yeah, that's it!

Sadly that's the last I will see of Jeff for a while.  I look forward to featuring him at a later date when we meet up.  As for me, I am still in the lazy days of summer.  I get a few more weeks to contemplate the meaning of Life, The Universe and Everything before I get back on the road.  I might do a feature here in Nebraska, but we will see.

On the outskirts of Chicago

Greetings from Chicago... Sort of. I'm working somewhere in the endless suburbs surrounding the city. I'm also traveling with a friend of mine. His name is Jeff and, as you will see, he has a way with words.
Together we explored Emmett's Tavern and Brewery located in Palintine Illinois. The place has a nice atmosphere with the feel of an old East Coast or English Pub. They have a nice selection of house beers. I started with the Victory Pale Ale and Jeff had a pint of their seasonal wheat.

Victory Pale Ale:
I thought this was pretty good, but too many hops for a pale. I'm convinced it was hitting IBUs that are usually reserved for IPAs. It tasted good with the spicy chicken wings I was eating at the time as the bitter hops helped to cool the fire. It had some slight malt off the top before mooing to cascade hops and it finished dry and the bitterness really lingered.

Jeff Says: Nothing. He took a sip, his face truly erupted into an impressive array of muscular spasms, then he slowly, but firmly, pushed the beer back to me.

Seasonal Wheat:
I didn't think I would like this one as much as I did. The aroma was all tropical fruit and bananas, flavors that I find can be really overpowering. This was not the case, the tropical fruit flavor was balanced with some pear and malt character and finished clean and slightly dry. This one easily made my #2 spot for this brewery and is the perfect beer for a warm summer evening.
Jeff Says: Just a damn good beer.


Double Barrel Stout:
I moves to this beef next and it easily was the best beer. It had a smokey and black liquorice aroma with a lot of chocolate and roasted malt flavors with bitter bite at the very end. I could easily drink this all night.

Jeff Says: It tastes like beer filtered through an old tire tube. (He wasn't as impressed as me)

Centennial Amber Ale:
This one had a nose of citrus hops with a hint of cherry. It had some malt and light fruit sweetness that was followed with pine and herbal hops. It finished surprisingly clean and didn't linger hardly at all.
Jeff Says:It tastes like beer poured down a pine plank, man.
Munich Lager:
Jeff finally stopped nursing his wheat beer long enough to try another. This one had s subtle sweetness of corn and light fruit. It is surprisingly smooth and finishes sweet making for a very drinkable beer.
Jeff Says: Smells like Captain Crunch.

I'm actually writing this on the road passing through Wisconsin on my way to my next destination, Minneapolis. I'll report from there.
Cheers!

Bar Crawl of Tulsa, Oklahoma

Back down in the Southwest this week, this time in Tulsa, Oklahoma.  The list of breweries in this part of the country is short, but distinguished.  Oklahoma City has a respectable brewing community, but that will have to wait for another day.  Today, we're in Tulsa and there is only one game in town; Marshall Brewing Company.

Now, I am used to and dearly love the quintessential American brewpubs that have sprung up in every town in this country.  This is not one of those.  If you go to the brewery at about 9:00pm at night, like I did you are simply going to find yourself in an industrial section of Tulsa in the middle of the night sitting outside an empty brewery.  If you go there during the day, I'm not sure it will be any different.  I couldn't find any information about tours or anything like that, so I imagine they would give you a list of the fine establishments that carry their beer before politely telling you to take a hike.

So where do you find the beer here?  The simple answer is, nearly everywhere in Tulsa.  After I had hit a dead end at the brewery, I retreated to a nearby Irish pub to have a pint and plan my next move.

Killkennys Irish Pub

Basic Irish theme bar located in downtown Tulsa.  The atmosphere is nice and quiet and the staff is really friendly  It was pretty packed while I was there, but they took what time they could.  It struck me a little pricey, two beers ran almost $12.

They have a pretty good beer selection including, to my surprise, Marshall's Atlas IPA on tap. It was a little like being an explorer looking for the Lost City of Gold, sitting down for a rest in the jungle and then getting up only to find that I had just put my butt on a block of solid gold.

The Atlas IPA:
A fairly average IPA in my opinion.  It had a lighter flavor than I typically like in and IPA.  It had a light, roasted malt flavor right off the top, then smoothed into herbal and pine hop flavors.  It was drinkable, but nothing I would run back to have again.

So that was one down, but Marshall's still had three more beers out there somewhere.  It could be said, in a very overly-dramatic fashion, that I had a mission.  It was getting increasingly late, however, so I had to find a short-cut.  Violating the Code of the Man, I asked the bartender for the best place to find the other three beers.  I had to hand over my Man Card, but I did manage to find this bar.

James E. McNellie's Public House.
This was the type of place I was looking for.  It is truly a beer-lovers bar in a place not typically known for having a lot of beer-lovers.  The atmosphere was nice and laid back.  The staff were good although not exceptionally knowledgeable, but they were very friendly and kept the beer glasses full.

They had a lot of Oklahoma beers available here, including the rest of the beers from Marshalls.



 
McNellie's Pub Ale:
I didn't actually make a connection between the name of the bar and this beer until I sat down a couple days later to write this, so I feel like my perceptive qualities are very much in question at the moment.  That being said, this was an okay beer.  It can probably be classified as a pale ale given the hop content.   Pretty simple beer, but it has a lingering aftertaste of the hops that I really didn't like.  I think this is the one beer that I wouldn't order again.



Pavillion Pilsner:
Nice light pilsner.  It had slight lemon flavor in the aroma and the flavor.  Like the rest of their beers they used herbal hops for this beer, and I think they added just a touch too much for the style.  There just wasn't enough malt in this to balance out the hops.

 Sundown Wheat:
I think this was my favorite of their offerings.  Like the rest of the beers by this brewery, it's all about simplicity and it really works for this beer.  The beer is such a pale yellow color that it borders on just being the color of cloudy water.  The aroma and flavor is almost exclusively citrus and lemon flavors.  Adding a lemon wedge to this beer would be redundant.  On a blazing hot weekend in Oklahoma this beer was blessedly refreshing and highly drinkable.


As it stands, I'm heading off to Chicago next week, and then I'll be spending some time in St. Paul.  I'll catch you all up then.
Jones out.