The Brewery Adventure

2025: The Year In Beer

• Courtney

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We’re taking a look back at our favorite beer and brewery highlights of 2025! From  festivals and standout events to the moments that had us raising an extra glass, we’re recapping the pours, places, and people that made this year memorable.

We also dig into the state of the craft beer industry, sharing observations, trends, and what caught our attention along the way. Plus, we have updates on Porterfest, and Courtney's new favorite game, Heroes of Barcadia.

Grab a pint and join us as we toast the highs, reflect on the year that was, and look ahead to what’s next. Cheers to 2025! 🍺✨


EPISODE BEERS (from St. Paul Brewing):
Both: Chocolate Chip Cookie Porter

LINKS:

Visit our website at https://thebreweryadventure.com or contact us by sending an email to courtney@thebreweryadventure.com.

Be sure to subscribe to our Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/thebreweryadventure!

SPEAKER_01:

Off to the races. I'm ready to talk and drink. Bop bop bop bop. That's my new that's your new opener right there.

SPEAKER_03:

I thought that was just your theme song. It is welcome to the brewery adventure. I'm Courtney.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Dan. We're here to dive into the world of your local brewery.

SPEAKER_03:

It's not just about the beer, it's about the vibe, the people, and the stories behind every tap room.

SPEAKER_01:

From small neighborhood spots to big bustling brew houses, we'll bring you along for the ride. So grab a beer.

SPEAKER_03:

Cheers! Yes. That's a great start. That's oh I shit. I forgot to bonk the table. I forgot to drink my beer in general.

SPEAKER_01:

There was a whole litany of things we did wrong there. That's okay. It's the end of 2025. We're shaking off the shaking off the rust just in time for the end of the year.

SPEAKER_03:

That's right. Dan, we are at St. Paul Brewing in St. Paul.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, it's the the gravitational pull to my palate to this this porter fest is darn near unavoidable. Except I did not come for last week when I when they had the pepper beer. Yeah. So that wasn't that wasn't for me. But this week, do you wanna do you wanna say what the what the beer we're drinking is?

SPEAKER_03:

This week, if you ask me the actual name of it, I'm gonna have to go look it up. But we are drinking, it was a the mystery porter this week. Yeah. And it is a chocolate chip, it's not on the card. I can't even look at it properly. Um it's a chocolate chip cookie porter.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, chocolate chip cookie porter. On their little Instagram reel, they were dumping chocolate chip cookies into the beer.

SPEAKER_03:

I was really hoping that they were just gonna have cookies on the counter.

SPEAKER_01:

Close circuit to St. Paul next time. Have cookies. I mean, you're already gonna be putting out cookies for Santa, so why not put out cookies for, you know, your patrons.

SPEAKER_03:

And honestly, it the the cookie dipped in the beer looked kind of good.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, well. I think there's maybe we could do a whole show on what can you and what can't you dip in a beer.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, Dan. That could be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And if you ever find my friend Tisha, ask her. There's a story there. It's it's too, too, too cold for podcasts, too hot for TV.

SPEAKER_03:

So it's so I did uh I did grab a crowler of the pepper beer from last week. And because I did, that was my five porters for Porter Fest, and I got this cool hat.

SPEAKER_01:

St. Paul brewing beanie. Achievement unlocked.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, that was so nice. Yeah. I feel accomplished.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna do that every time we get a cold blow of wind in here because my baguettes are freezing.

SPEAKER_03:

We are we are sitting very close to the automatic door to outside, and there are actually people out there by a fire.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I believe the medical term for them is psychopaths.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. It's so cold.

SPEAKER_01:

Interesting juxtaposition, though. So you've got the cold wind blowing in, and you've got the nice warm glow of the Christmas trees. Yeah. It's just very festive in here. And then you get a what is that? A ficus, the palm tree over there. Everything. Nature is a bloom here at St. Paul Bering. Yeah, so we've got how many more weeks of Porter Fest do we have?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, there we go.

SPEAKER_01:

We've got the puka, the gingerbread, and the salted caramel. Salted caramel. So three weeks left.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So you could theoretically come in this week, get a growler from last week, and still get your five stamps to get the beanie. It's a nice beanie.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I wasn't quite sure what it was going to look like, but it's nice. It's got um it's got a nice little what do you call a thing on the top?

SPEAKER_03:

It's a tassel.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a tassel. Right?

SPEAKER_03:

A tassel? Yeah. A poof, a palm?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Is it a palm, a poof, or a tassel?

SPEAKER_03:

It's got a thingy. Thingy is my word of the day.

SPEAKER_01:

Leave your answer in the comments. Yeah, it's a it's a quality thing. Sometimes, you know, you you get a not not necessarily I was I use air quotes when I say free giveaway because you had to buy five beers to get it. Yeah. Which I guess I'll be really mad if they have that exact hat in the merch store for 25 bucks. Because we could have just got that.

SPEAKER_03:

But you wouldn't have had the experience of all the delicious porters.

SPEAKER_01:

There is that. It was it was a nice feat of accomplishment. Yeah. Are you a Seinfeld person?

SPEAKER_03:

I I do like Seinfeld.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Are we getting into some feats of strength?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh we well, it's not December 23rd yet, but we we could on that day. But I think you'd kick my butt.

SPEAKER_03:

I've been practicing all year.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's right. That's right. Try to sweep the leg of a John Lovitz look-alike. Eat fresh. This is good. I like this. Where do you where do you think you rank the chocolate chip cookie porter in the with uh you know with all the other ones?

SPEAKER_03:

Okay. I these might be mostly in order of when I had them. I really liked the hazelnut porter, then the s'mores, then this one, and then like if you drop several more slots, it's gonna be that cheesecake one.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you just really didn't like that one.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't it just it I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

It's interesting because I uh this is good. I like this one a lot. It's not as good as the s'mores. I would say it probably ties for me with the hazelnut, and maybe just a hair below was the cherry cheesecake. Because I I really liked it. I like the cheesecake one.

SPEAKER_03:

I have high hopes for the gingerbread.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I have high hopes for that, and I'm hoping that my memory, that the that the the taste of the puka, the Irish cream one, lives up to my memory of that beer because that that beer I remember it being very solid and very, very enjoyable. But also I had it around St. Patrick's Day. So I think sometimes when you have something in the season, it's better. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03:

There's a little something different in the air.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, for that night it was leprechauns and green.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, there's still there's still green. Yeah, there is.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Except these Christmas trees are not green. We have a snow coated Christmas trees. They got a snow coated, yeah, but they're pretty. I like them.

SPEAKER_03:

I have another update for you, Dan. Yes. On our last episode, we talked about gifts.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, we did.

SPEAKER_03:

We talked, I got really excited about a game. You did call the Heroes of Arcadia. I I was so excited about this that I ran off and bought it. Because that's what I do. I I wanted the game, I went and bought the game. Well, it it turns out that maybe some other people bought the game for me as well. So you bought me the game and Grant from Trove also bought me the game. So now Heroes of Arcadia for everyone.

SPEAKER_01:

A bunch of copies of Heroes of Arcadia.

SPEAKER_03:

Which I'm really excited about.

SPEAKER_01:

Did the one did the one that you bought and the one that Grant brought bought have the extra booster pack in it?

SPEAKER_03:

The one I got had the booster pack. I think it's the same one. Um but the other one I I don't think it did. But I just like thank you again. Thank you, Grant. I it baffles me that you guys went out and got this. Like, I don't understand.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, uh my selfish reason was I didn't want you to keep talking about it on every show. No, I was just kidding.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, now you're gonna have to listen to me talk about it more.

SPEAKER_01:

But we'll have to do a show where we play it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we'll have to do that.

SPEAKER_03:

So I I did play it on Sunday.

SPEAKER_01:

And how is it?

SPEAKER_03:

It is so much fun, Dan.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

We ended up having there were some people from our Dungeons and Dragons group at Drome on Sunday. So we had we had a full table of people to play this game, and we had the best time. It was so much fun. I would not recommend playing it with people who are going to be very sensitive about like you personally attacking them or causing them to take a drink. Or, you know, some people get funny when they play games, and that's not true.

SPEAKER_01:

21 years of teaching in a junior high has made my skin very thick, and I'm not sensitive at all to being attacked verbally or physically. I was there was one time where I became uh TikTok famous for a while because I w I was like caught in the middle of a of a girl fight in the hallway, and I got pummeled on the shoulder by some crazy crazy young uh teen who had a lot of rage issues.

SPEAKER_03:

Wow. I mean that it it didn't come down to that at our game table, but we did have an awful lot of fun, and I I'm really excited to play it with you because I think you're really gonna like it too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it looked it looks fun. I like any how long did it take?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, it took it took some time because there were six of us.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, sure. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

We used all the we used all the things, and we were kind of learning as we were going.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, yeah. Yeah, the first time you do a game, it always does kind of like there's a little bit of a learning curve. But then once you get it down, yeah. Like once you get it down, if there's like four players, how long would it take?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, it would take less time, and it is also one of those games that could be a quick game, or it could go on for a while, depending on how well you roll the dice.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, that's like Monopoly. Monopoly could go for hours, or it could go, it could be as short as 25 minutes. I once won a game of Monopoly in 25 minutes. What? It was amazing.

SPEAKER_03:

How does that happen?

SPEAKER_01:

I'll tell you. I started off my strategy for Monopoly is I buy everything, no questions asked.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I got around and I the first trip around, I got park place. I bought park place. I think the next roll was like a seven. So I passed go and landed on chance. Advanced token to boardwalk.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01:

I bought that. I mortgaged everything I had and put as many houses as I could on there, which I think I had two or three houses. I think it was two houses, and the other person I was playing against had the same strategy. They were buying everything and then they landed on boardwalk.

SPEAKER_03:

Bye. Game over.

SPEAKER_01:

It was awesome.

SPEAKER_03:

What I'm learning from this is be careful playing Monopoly with Dan.

SPEAKER_01:

Nikki Osgood. Sorry. Had to do it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, we we will play Heroes of Arcadia, and I I know you're gonna love it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it'll be fun. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03:

It'll be a good time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because that's also the nice thing, like when you you want to play a game and you give it to somebody, you get that chance. Yeah. Because they're like, oh, oh, come play this game with me.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, you're gonna get that chance a lot, Dan, because I feel like I'm gonna be hauling it with me wherever I go.

SPEAKER_01:

Get ready. I went to the tax preparation office and there was no room because some lady had sprawled out this Heroes of Barcadia game. I'm excited. Yeah, that'll be good. I can't I can't wait to play it. We'll have to we'll have to do that sooner than later. Yeah, we'll take the We'll have to play it first before we do the recording. Or should we do the recording just like the dry run? Okay, yeah. All right, maybe that'll be our next show. Who knows?

SPEAKER_03:

This is our this is our last show of the year.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. It is. Yeah, because 2025 is gonna be over soon.

SPEAKER_03:

Really soon.

SPEAKER_01:

Good riddance 2025. What a year. Oh what a year.

SPEAKER_03:

We are gonna get into a a year review, but we do have a couple more things that happened since our last episode. I mean, mostly, mostly it's one one thing that took up a whole weekend. We went to not one, but two Krampus events.

SPEAKER_01:

Friday and Saturday night. Yeah. Last Friday. Went to Torg on Friday, and uh that was that was fun. I liked it. I've been to Torg one other time. It was in the spring. The it's it's cool. It's kind of like I don't know how would you describe it? I think it's a it's an odd, not odd. Odd is the wrong word. It's a non-traditional uh brewery experience because it feels like you're walking into like you know what it reminds me of? Walking into the building that falling knife is in. Because you walk through and there's like some office space, I don't know, and you have to go up a set of stairs and kind of wind around to get to the Torg tap room. But the tap room is really cool.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And you can go to the one side of the tap room and look down and see the brewing equipment, which is on the ground level. They have a game room. There's a bunch of arcade style games, there's dartboards, there's all sorts of things. It's very compartmentalized as far as the space. Yes. And you said go check out that other room, and I was like, oh, it looks like just kind of like a little kind of afterthought. But it was huge, it was very big in there. And they had quite a few beers on tap. I think they had 12. Quite the variety of different styles. Everything from a Saison to a Heve Weitzen to a West Coast IPA. They had an Irish Red, a stout. What else did they have? They had an English dark mild, and the the special version of that for the for the evening for the Krampish Knocked. What was that called? Krampish Curiosity. Conflicted Krampus. Conflicted Krampus.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And so if you're listening and you're like, what's Krampus? It's not just something you get when you're aggressively playing hopscotch. It's actually a German uh kind of folklore. Krampus is St. Nicholas's right hand man, his assistant, and uh on Krampusnacht, Krampus Knight for the lay person, uh the night before St. Nicholas Day, which is St. Nicholas Day, is December 6th. And the night before that, Krampus goes around with Saint Nick, and if they find somebody who's been naughty, Krampus grabs him, throws him in a sack, and hits him with a stick, which I've wanted to do that for years to a lot of people, both in the classroom and outside the classroom. But it's kind of a funny little legend, and it's like there's a lot of different like holiday myths and things that if you go and you know study around the world, there there's a lot of different kind of traditional stories like that. But Krampus is like this like kind of goat-headed demonic furry, you know, to for lack of a better, for lack of a better description. And so there's the Minnesota Krampus Association, they do all sorts of stuff. That morning they were on 93X. Uh, they do all they they were doing, I overheard them talking, they were they were doing a bunch of school visits and things like that. So for me, I absolutely love the holidays. I mean, I love any reason to go out and celebrate something and have a beer and you know, hang out with friends and and and have some interesting people watching, because let's be honest, that's what it's all about. And then the the Krampus folks, when they show up, they had a pretty awesome merch table too. Yeah. You were eyeing that Krampus mask. I thought you were gonna buy it and I really wanted to. That was gonna become your new persona, Krampus I'd wear it everywhere. Of the brewery adventure. That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I mean the masks are really, really cool. They're they're kind of scary.

SPEAKER_01:

They're very different, they're ornate. Yeah. The first time I went to Krampus Knockt was three or four years ago at Waldman Brewery, and they had like ten different ones, and they were everywhere. And the the weird thing, I don't know if they do do this in Germany, but they all have bells on their posteriors. There was some twerking. There was a lot of twerking, a lot of furry twerking, which you know, that's maybe this will loop in a whole nother brand of listeners once they you should use that furry twerking as your hashtag, and that'll bring in a whole lot of folks. Um, so that'll it was fun. It was and that was good. Like we had good beers, festive atmosphere.

SPEAKER_03:

And they had someone dressed up as St. Nick, and they would all kind of walk around in the brewery. And I think there there was a couple. There were a couple that came up behind me and went naughty.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, there were there was the one with the paddle. He wanted to give you a spanking, so that's kind of fun. The holidays brings out all sorts of appetites for whether for your dessert porters or a little bit of discipline. Who knows? Um, that was really fun. And then the fun didn't stop there because the next night, December 6th, which is the official St. Nicholas Day, we went to Waldman Brewery.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And it was that was an outdoor event. Oh, we bit chili.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm really glad that it didn't occur to me that it was an outdoor event until very shortly before we went.

SPEAKER_01:

I swear to god, I told you, but okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Maybe, maybe you did, and I did a really good job of just blocking that part out. But I will say, for an outdoor event, they had heaters lined up outside.

SPEAKER_01:

Lots of heaters and lots of bonfires.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, so it wasn't it wasn't awful.

SPEAKER_01:

And you got some glutevine, didn't you?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Glutevine is like a it's like a heated mold wine.

SPEAKER_03:

It was so good. I've been crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

I had a sip of yours and it was tasty.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't remember it being that good the first time I tried it. But when I thought do you have like in your mind, do you have a connection or like when you hear glutevine, what's the first thing that comes to your mind?

SPEAKER_03:

First of all, I've never heard it called glutevine before.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

If you say mold wine, I'll be like, yeah, I want that. I like that. But now I'm gonna be fancy about it and always call it glutevine instead.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, so one of my favorite office episodes, the Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas episode, where Dwight Schroot, this could be another podcast too, but every year I watch the Christmas episodes of certain sitcoms because they're really good. I'm kind of going through them now. So we're right now we're watching, we just started the Parks and Wreck ones, we just finished the Modern Family ones. We will watch the Office ones because those are some of the best. The Brooklyn 9-9 holiday episodes are pretty funny. Yeah. Every year on The Office, they they do a different like holiday celebration. One year they do Morocco, one year they do like an Indian version, and then they then they're Dwight is obsessed with Belschnickel, who is like this character who from Germany. So like when they do the Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas, Dwight dresses up as Belshnickel and makes Glutevine, and then they have this they wrestle for the pig maw. It's like this pig job bone thing, it's like a wishbone. It's one of the best. I th I think it in my mind, it's easily a top five office episode of all of them. Not just holiday episodes, but just of all of them. But it's so funny. So check it out. It's on whatever you're streaming. They do oftentimes they'll curate them. I think on Peacock they're organized by show, but it's like it's really I'm gonna go find that one. It's really good. It's really good. Um, so that that's what I think of at every time I hear glutevine, I think of Dwight Truth as Belschnickel.

SPEAKER_03:

And uh I mean that's not a bad correlation.

SPEAKER_01:

It's just so funny.

SPEAKER_03:

The the glutevine at Walmart.

SPEAKER_01:

I guess you had a tone. Yeah, very nice. Well, especially when it what was it? The temperature was cool. Yeah, it was it was like was it single digits? It felt like single digits.

SPEAKER_03:

It easily could have been. Because when we we left there and walked down the street and I started losing feeling in my legs because it was cold.

SPEAKER_01:

We easily could have driven over there too. Um, yeah, it was it was fun. That was a good night. And then we went to Mancini's That was fun too. Yeah, Waldman was cool. They had they had a dark check logger that I really enjoyed. Of course, everything that Waldman does, I really enjoy. But that was a really festive atmosphere too. And with the just like we ran into a couple other friends there too. My friends Todd and Fallon were there, and then we ran into Marcus in the alley. Yeah. When we kidnapped him, he was trying to go home like a like a goofball at like 7 30 on a on a yeah, exactly. Like a hooligan. He was trying to go home at 7 30. We're like, no, you're turn around, you're coming with us. So that was fun. It was a good time.

SPEAKER_03:

That was a great time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I that's that's a fun thing. I like I'm a big Christmas person. I like not necessarily the religious aspect of it, but I I love like the decorations and the festive. I like giving gifts. I like getting together and just celebrating. And I feel like St. Nicholas is a nice kind of little a moose boosh of holiday fun. So I'm I'm really thankful that there are breweries that like have events like that. Because I think it's really it definitely got me into the Christmas spirit because I I just have fun with it. And I just I mean, beer is such a great vehicle for celebration. And if you can bring people together, I think that's I mean, there's there's a lot of good reasons to do that. Especially in Minnesota when it's cold out, get outside, that fresh air. If you're you know bundled up, staying by a fire with a bunch of friends, it doesn't feel so cold. It's not a good thing. And if you have Underberg, it'll warm you right up.

SPEAKER_03:

So I am not a Christmas person.

SPEAKER_01:

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_03:

These Krampus events. Yeah. I I really see. Maybe you're a Krampus person. I'm a Krampus person.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe you're a maybe you wanna be somebody who runs around, grabs naughty kids, throw them in a sack, and hit 'em with a stick. Nothing wrong with that. It's twenty fun twenty twenty five.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I be what you want to be. I did go watch the Krampus movie.

SPEAKER_01:

How was that? It was amazing. Actually scary or like not really.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, I don't I can't think of a a movie that I would call scary where there's some delightfully gory parts of it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So it was more like kind of along the lines of like Halloween.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean it it's a horror movie.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Yeah. But I mean there's horror movies that are actually scary.

SPEAKER_03:

Are there, Dan?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I I think so. I don't know. But I'm a wimp. I that I admittedly, I'm not that's not my genre of choice. Although I love Halloween. I just don't like really like I want to be scared by like a ghost jumping on.

SPEAKER_03:

I do not need Are you not a gory, like violent?

SPEAKER_01:

Not a gory, violent. Yeah. That just doesn't do it. Or like anything psychological. Like a movie Salem's Lot. Nope. Nope. I'll stick with the Muppet movies. That's uh oh, that's also the Muppet Muppet uh Christmas Carol. That's that's one of the ones I need to watch. So yeah, Krampus was fun. That was a good, that was a fun weekend.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't know anything about Krampus before this. This was like this was amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

It was quite the quite the education. I'm a big fan. Yeah, yeah, that was that was good. The thing I did before before I met up with you, I went to Wandering Leaf.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I had they had that oatmeal, oatmeal porter. No, oatmeal stout. That was good. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

You sent me a message that said, oh wow, this is so tasty. And I was completely skimming that message. And I I just saw the ASTY and thought it was nasty and almost fell out of my chair.

SPEAKER_01:

No, it wasn't nasty. It was nasty how good it was. Nasty in like the cool way.

SPEAKER_03:

In the cool way.

SPEAKER_01:

Like the nasty boys. The late 80s uh Cincinnati Reds bullpen. That was their nickname because they had like flamethrowers coming out of there. Rob Dibble, Norm Charlton, I mean the whole crew. Yeah. And then they won the World Series in 1990, beat the Oakland Athletics. I believe it was a three-to-one, or maybe they swept them. That was a great team. But this isn't a baseball podcast. This is a beer podcast. This is the brewery adventure, not the baseball adventure.

SPEAKER_03:

This is the brewery adventure.

SPEAKER_01:

So uh what else? What else? Uh what's what's next on the docket here?

SPEAKER_03:

We have an entire year to review, Dan.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's get in the time machine. I don't know if I have a time machine.

unknown:

I mean, that worked.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, the time machine's not working. So we'll just have to. The 2025 was a good year for beer.

SPEAKER_03:

This a I think this was just a good year in general.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Mostly because of beer.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, we needed beer to get us through some of the other stuff, which wasn't so great. But uh yeah, I mean, so you know, I like to look back. I think it's fun to kind of like catalog your memories and like think about what were some of the favorite things that happened in the year. Where should we start? How do you wanna how do you wanna do this?

SPEAKER_03:

I think we should just we should just dive in. I think the very first thing both of us had come up with had to do with beer festivals.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. That was the first yeah, that was the first time we like technically well, I guess the first time we hung out was like by chance.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And then I think I mentioned to you when we met in early February that I was going to the winter beer dabbler and you should go too. But I don't know. Now I'm not I miss I don't know, I'm not remembering. Did we plan to meet up?

SPEAKER_03:

I don't know that we planned to meet up. You told me you were gonna be there and I should come find you. And I thought, how am I gonna come find you? That's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_01:

Because I was wearing my neon orange. Was I wearing my neon orange uh snow pants? No. Oh, okay. Oh yeah, because it was kind of on the warmer side.

SPEAKER_03:

You say it was on the warmer side. I still remember being quite cold. But I do know, and I don't know if I I I think maybe I told you this at some point. I saw you because I had been sending you, we we weren't even like friends enough that I had your phone number. So we were sending messages back and forth to carrier pigeons to crank. At one point I saw you and Charles go over to like a big row of outhouse things. And so I'm like, well, I can't just like stand here and awkwardly wait for you guys to come out of the bathroom and hey.

SPEAKER_01:

Ah, my porta potty groupies are back. Hello. That's very awkward for me. Well, yeah, yeah, we yeah, we eventually and we hung out for a while. Yeah. That was good. Yeah. Good times.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So I had beer festivals just kind of for me, every beer festival this year was a first for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And they were that's exciting.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's really fun. I think back to that was my 2010.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, ABR, I think Winter Beer Dabbler, St. Paul Summer Beer Fest. All pines wasn't a thing yet, I don't think. And then, you know, rinse and repeat.

SPEAKER_03:

I don't think I'd ever heard of these things happening before.

SPEAKER_01:

Like it they were very which is kind of crazy because they have really tamed down the number of beer fests. There was a point where it seemed like there were multiple beer fests like every single weekend. It was like a beer festival overload. And I think that it's kind of coming back. I think now there's more of a desire for beer festival, but there were a lot more of them. And then the pandemic kind of squashed that a l a bit. But I also think there were just too many. You know, it was like, I mean, if you wanted to, you could go find a beer festival happening somewhere every wink, every weekend of the summer, which is like okay. So they're not all they're not all equal. Yeah. I mean, some are better than others. That's not breaking news to anybody. But yeah, so the winter beer dabbler, they have a ton of regional breweries. Like Sam Adams is there, like Dogfish Head is there. There's a lot of other ones, and the Minnesota Craft Brewers ones, those are just ABR. Yep. And they used to do Winterfest, but they don't anymore because they just they claim it doesn't make money, and I guess it doesn't, but it was so fun, and I want them to bring it back.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean that's that's the thing. I remember I remember. Oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Like you'd get dressed to the nines and go like I would wear like oh like a sport coat and a tie.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my goodness. So I I can't just show up in jeans and a sweatshirt.

SPEAKER_01:

You could, that's the beauty of it. But I like You chose not to. I it was like a reason to get dressed up. I mean, you know. But yeah, I think the last one they had was 2019. It was at the US Bank Stadium in the Polaris Club, and then there was like a blizzard that night. And I remember trudging out of there with two crowlers from Giesenbroy in my sporting coat and trying to jump like wade through the snow was it was ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03:

But yeah, so winter beer dabbler and then Yeah, I was just gonna say, like, the thing that I have liked most about everything this year is just kind of the beer, the beer community. And I I feel like that started at Winter Beer Dabbler. Yeah. I left there that day just being so excited and so jazzed about everything beer. And it it was beer, it was the people who were there, it was the whole experience of walking around, sampling all the different beers, talking to all these different people. That was such a high, and that just kind of continued through everything else, and it got better at 8 p.m. And then it happened again at Autumn Brew Review.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, Alpines was really fun because I missed it last year, and sometimes they say distance makes the heart grow fonder. And I think that was like being away from it made me really appreciate being there this year. That was fun. It was also fun to hang out with you because it was your first time. We kind of like caravanned up together and stopped at 320. So that was just fun. It's it's just and it was fun to hang out with people. We just had a great time. If you want to hear our recap, go to onepine stand.com and hear the whole the whole shebang.

SPEAKER_03:

Well, do a Patreon and then listen if you want to hear the whole shebang.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we by the way, there's a I'm running a special on Patreon right now. I think it's 75% off your first month.

SPEAKER_03:

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's like I'm paying you to have fun and listen. So it's uh yeah, if you're looking for, you know, you want more beer, local beer podcast in your world, and you want the exclusive stuff. And I just dropped a Patreon only episode that nobody without a Patreon is ever gonna hear about Arbiter. So, you know, that's a good reason to go do that. But yeah, we you could hear our you could hear our whole story about all pints and Courtney's. Was it an emergency? It was a it was a medical situation.

SPEAKER_03:

It was a medical situation. We'll just call it that. A medical situation.

SPEAKER_01:

What else did you have, event-wise?

SPEAKER_03:

Event-wise, I also included our awesome beer and cheese events that we have done over. Oh, that's a good idea. Boom Island with the greater good and the lovely folks at Boom. Those have just been so much fun and such a different experience.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I've never I've I have done a beer and cheese tasting before. But it was it's fun to do them again because they're all they're always so different. And I love cheese on its own. I I mean, and pairing beer with cheese is really cool because beer is a very versatile beverage to pair with things because there's so many different textures and flavors, and the greater good does such a great job of Christina's amazing of awesome, like just running the class, really making all that information accessible, which I think is that's hard to do. Yeah, I mean, that's really hard to do. Where you're you I mean, she's she'll dive into some. There's some heady stuff with all the process and just like the flavors, and she does it really nicely. And I think you know, Boom Island has good beers, they have a nice variety of things to pick and choose from. So that's also nice because it's not always the same beers that you'll you'll find. So there's probably what do they do those classes every couple months? Is there another one coming up?

SPEAKER_03:

Like every two months. I think the next one will be in January or February.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, yeah. So that's that's fun. Yeah, those were good. I had all pints. I had I even wrote stuff down.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I was gonna say you were making notes way before I was.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah, so I had a so I did my first on a one-pint stand, I did my first live show last at the end of March last year, and I was really excited and really nervous, and I was worried nobody was gonna show up. And I had two local authors and somebody who works for RARBSG came on the show, and it was so fun. It was just a great time.

SPEAKER_03:

Where was that one at?

SPEAKER_01:

That was at Forgotten Star. Yeah. And shout out to Ben at Forgotten Star, he's their events manager. He just asked me, he's like, hey, would you like to do a live show here sometime? And I was like, uh I don't know. Do you think anybody would like what's the what's the draw of watching somebody record a podcast? I don't know. And I was like, okay, this is he's like, well, I think it'd be good because you have a uh following locally, and I was like, okay, I gotta come up with something really good. So I talked to Doug Hoverson, who's written several books. Probably the most famous one is the The Land of Amber Waters. It was a historical, just great resource, like a coffee table book. It's beautiful. Coffee table book about the history of beer in Minnesota. And I also talked to a former classmate of mine and uh professor at the U of M, Bill Lindicky, who wrote Closing Time, this great book about dive bars. And like, I mean, he wrote he wrote about Pigseye, like the first, the first place to go in Minnesota. He wrote about Waldmans in there. And I went to, I mean, I was in Cub Scouts with Bill back in the day. And so, like, and he writes for Min Posts, he's always got great stuff, but the book is great. I have that, and I'm like, let's get two authors, and then I'm like, maybe I get somebody from RAR BSG. So Chris German came and um joined us on the on the panel. It was great. I was blown away by the number of people that actually showed up, and there were quite a few. Doug made the comment. This is this is like what gives me uh such joy because um when people in the industry come out to something like that, that means a heck of a lot to me. I think it was because we had some great panelists, you know, Doug, Bill, and Chris, a lot of people knew those people, but I mean there were a lot of head brewers, a lot of brewery owners in the audience, and Doug even commented, you've got some heavy hitters in the room, and I was like, That's so exciting! I really hope this goes well. So it was super fun, and that was just we had a great time doing it, and since then I've done two more live shows. I did a live show at Spiral Brewery for their seventh anniversary, and then just recently, last month, I did one at Heavy Rotation for the beer that I brewed, uh Minnesota Hug that's still on tech. Still pouring, still tasting good. And then I'm gonna be doing another live show on Friday, February 27th, up at Lupulin Brewing Company. It's kind of like a preview of their big beer week. So stay tuned. There'll be more information. We'll have more episodes between now and then, so I can come up with some there'll be some more details there. But I think it's kind of becoming a fun thing to do. And you know, people come out and it's always, you know, if at the heavy rotation one, somebody was like, Oh, this was really good. I didn't even know what was happening today. So I'm like, Oh, great, good. So it's kind of a a neat, neat way to kind of connect with people.

SPEAKER_03:

Heavy rotation was the first one that I was able to go to. And you did, you so there were some people that didn't know it was happening and just kind of happened upon the brewery that day and sat down and listened.

SPEAKER_01:

But you were like, hey, you're the guy from the poster in the men's room. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

That would be me. But you also had a lot of people who went there specifically to hear you and the other panelists talk. Yeah, we had a great panel.

SPEAKER_01:

We had Mahad and Cable and then Josh, the head brewer at Heavy Rotation. So it's it's kind of fun. It's it's uh I've always thought that like just doing a show in front of people and trying to entertain is is kind of kind of fun. So that was good. And the third thing I had was also an interview. It was uh the interview I did with Bree Smith from the head brewer at Modest at the Minnesota State Fair in their brood in Minnesota display area. And that was the the first fr the first Saturday of the state fair, which was and it was perfect weather that day. And we just it was great. So those were those are my three beer event highlights.

SPEAKER_03:

Those are good ones.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was just kind of like what stuck out. And I you know, I could have mentioned the the beer and cheese class. We did that together. ABR was fun. I mean, there's there's so many, but it's it's fun to like look back and yeah, you know, there's a lot of a lot of cool beer stuff that happened. Yeah, we lots of fun, as it should be every year, you know, because you know, work sometimes isn't that fun, so it's nice to unwind and relax.

SPEAKER_03:

Have other fun things to do and do other fun things, right?

SPEAKER_01:

What else you got?

SPEAKER_03:

I had other events like there were there were many like brewery anniversary parties that were.

SPEAKER_01:

Or something uh was what were some noteworthy ones uh under that umbrella?

SPEAKER_03:

So I went to the one at Lucalin where again it felt like maybe I was stalking you because I got there and I got in line for my beer and you were right in front of me. Oh god, do I say something?

SPEAKER_01:

There was Courtney. You again.

SPEAKER_03:

You again.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_03:

But you were very nice and you invited me to come sit with with all your people because I was there about the yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we had we had a crazy crew that day. Well, I invited Matt and Jen, two of the four owners from Wandering Leaf. Yeah. Because they're grew up in St. Cloud, and I'm like, well, come to Lupulin for their anniversary party with us. I'm like, okay, because you know, when you own a brewery, you really just spend all your time at that brewery. And he was saying, we don't get out and do that much other brewery visits. So I'm like, well, come up and hang out. And Marcus was there. I uh Ben and Ben and Maria Powers, my former co-workers came out, so it was kind of a Josh and uh Jesse were there, not with us, but they coincidentally were there. Yeah, it was fun.

SPEAKER_03:

It was just really nice, and it it was again an unexpected thing because I went up there, I had my Kindle with me, like I was just gonna sit in the middle of this anniversary party and chill by myself. But you were like, Oh, come over.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it was well. I think beer is beer the the great thing about beer is it has this amazing power to bring people together. So that's that's why I like it.

SPEAKER_03:

It was really, really cool.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that was a and and they had a hot dog eating contest too. So that anytime you can we get a stage of people trying to chow down on some dogs. You can't go wrong with that. Good times.

SPEAKER_03:

And I also had on my list, of course, I I cannot fail to mention anytime Grunge Unplugged is playing.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

They play at breweries, you should go see them because it's always just a super fun.

SPEAKER_01:

They're at the Twin Cities Oktoberfest this year. Yeah. That was fun. Yeah, yeah, a lot of good stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

They've got a couple of events coming up um for Grunge Miss.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, they've got one at Heavy Rotation, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Uh they're doing heavy rotation again, and I think Udipils.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

So cool. Lots of opportunities to see them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I like it because it's like unplugged and acoustic, which is like the perfect thing for a brewery.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What about some noteworthy things that happened in the brewery sphere? Like newsworthy stuff.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, there's a lot.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I what the the one thing that I had was Dangerous Man, the Dangerous Man brand coming back under new ownership. Gentleman by the name of Jeremy Coons, I believe I'm pronouncing that. K-U-H K-U-H-N-S. I met him. They did a tap takeover at Malcolm Yards back in November, and I went to that. I got to meet him. He's a super nice guy. Very excited. I was super pumped to see that their brand was coming back. I love their beers. And I know that they they are looking for a tap room space. So that was like that made me happy too. At first, I'd heard that they were looking in the very suburban south area like Lakeville. And then I talked to him and he's like, nope, it has to be in Northeast. Yeah. And so I and I agree. I think it I don't know that that brand would translate as well down there. Um, nor at nor I don't know if they'd be embraced as well. You know, they're they're they're cranking out beers again. So I had peanut butter porter on tap, and it was delicious as always. So that that coming back, that was a big, a big one. Just like last week over the weekend, as a matter of fact. Fair State closed their tap room for good. They're still making beer. They're still making beer, but they don't have a tap room. And they in the in the last year they ditched the cooperative thing. So they're no longer a co-op, which I think that went away when they filed for bankruptcy, and there's a lot of that's a you know, I think about that place, and they were so important to the the infancy of the what I call the revival of the Minnesota craft beer scene. Because the Minnesota craft beer scene has had ebbs and flows, but the taproom era, the era that started in 2011, I mean Fair State was foundational of that developing and dangerous man as well, and watching Dangerous Man, you know, go away and then thank goodness it's coming, it came back. But the Fair State Taproom is a very interesting phenomenon. There's so many people that just got behind the banner of their co-op.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I know quite a few people that I think they've forged really powerful friendships there. The staff was always great, beer was always great. And I don't know, I think it's like, you know, it's hard to be it's hard to grow and become large and still keep the ethos of what you were when you started. Yes. And I think it's very tough for breweries to do that. I think that they're being honest with themselves. They probably I mean, there were some missteps along the way, business-wise, for sure. It was just sad to see it close. You know, their beer is still around, they're still making beer. You just don't get to have those fun times in the tap room anymore. But that was a, I mean, for many, many years, that was a real hub of community in the craft beer industry in Minnesota. So and and regionally. Like, I have a friend who lives in Hell's Kitchen in New York. He would go to a little bodeg and they had Fair State on tap there. So like they had a global reef. They sent beer to Asia. There were there was a market for their hazy IPAs in Asia, which which is kind of crazy to me. But then, I mean, there the other thing, there were not a lot of brewery openings in 2025, other than what comes to mind is Haggard Barrel.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And their their brand started earlier, but their tap room opened in 2025. Very small. Oh, teeny tiny, yeah. It's like a like a like a brewery version of a galley kitchen.

SPEAKER_03:

But it's in a really cool area with a couple of distilleries.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, there's two distilleries nearby. There's, I mean, there are stones throw from Steeltoe. Yeah. Arguably one of the most consistent breweries in the state of Minnesota. You know, so you can go to Haggard Barrel if you're in St. Louis Park. You can go to Steeltoe. Two great breweries, not far from each other. And, you know, in between, you can have a couple cocktails at Dampwork and Copperwing. It's good. It's great. And I I've only been to the tap room once, but really good beer, really good stuff. And then the pen name fermentation project, also out of there. Matt Waddell, the former, the brains behind the good beers at Wild Mines until he left and then they tried to sue him for IP and they lost that lawsuit. And now he was at Black Stack for a while. Now he's at uh doing his own thing. Pen Name Fermentation Project. So I'm gonna sit down with him sooner than later and chat about. All that, so I'm excited.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

But yeah, Hager Barrel opened, and then I've got wooden ship is expanding their tap room.

SPEAKER_03:

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah, they're I think they're taking out, I don't have the particulars, but I believe that they found a different site to produce their beer. And so that area that is brew house now is going to become tap room space. Oh. That's from my understanding. So that'll be that'll be good because it's very small. In the wintertime, it's there's not many seats.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's a very popular place, it's a very neighborhood spot, very community uh gathering spot. And their beers are excellent. So that's cool. And then the last one I've got is brewery closures. We had a we had quite a few breweries close. They're all brewery closures are interesting because I think everybody starts talking about doom and gloom. It's like they always say, like, oh, is the is the bubble bursting?

SPEAKER_03:

It's like, well, that's I don't I don't think that's accurate, and it drives me crazy when I see headlines like that. I think they all close for different reasons. Right. Some of them aren't entirely closing. Again, like Fair State is closing their tap room. They're still making beer. Shram House is closing their tap room, and they're gonna be serving beer out of their winery. They're still making beer. Like they're not gone, gone.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's like, I mean, there were some breweries, just like restaurants. Yeah. It's very hard.

SPEAKER_03:

It's a volatile kind of industry. Nothing lasts forever. It's not, I think it's good on you if you do last forever.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Well, I mean, really, the only place that's lasted almost forever as far as like Minnesota's history is like Shell's. Yeah. You know, they're 165 years old. Other than that, I don't know, the next oldest brewery in Minnesota is probably Summit, because they're gonna be turning 40 this year. Wow. They started in 1986. And then Town Hall opened in 97. Surlee opened in 2006. Probably some others that I'm forgetting, but you know, it's yeah, it's hard to make a go of it. I mean, if you get to five years, that's pretty good. Yeah. You know, Lupulin just they're gonna be 10 years old. So it's like they they just celebrated the yeah, they celebrated their was it their 10th anniversary? Yeah, it was their 10th anniversary. So it's like that's a major feat.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I just I I think that also there there was like it's a lot of breweries out there, and people's drinking habits are changing and the economy isn't very good. So I think the first thing that people decide to not do is go out.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. So and there are definitely a lot of breweries in just even in the metro area here. There's a lot of them. But there are also many of them just feel like your neighborhood pub that you go to.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. Well, and a lot of breweries have transitioned over to the brew pub model.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh that's what Forgotten Star did, Omni did. You know, that's probably maybe that's the bigger story, is like that's a that's seen as more of a viable way you're serving food, and then you have the options for cocktails and wine to just try to get more people under your umbrella, yeah, you know, who want different things, which I'm all for. But yeah, it's it's interesting. I think it's a scary time. I think uh we we talked a lot about this on your on your on our last show with the THC potentially going away. Now I did see that I can't I don't I can't remember which Congress people are planning on introducing a bill that will kind of maybe reverse that or make it different or something. So I think with a year to work something out, I think it'll be fine. But that's a concern. I mean, if THC goes away, that will be That's been a lifeline for a lot of these that will be a doom and gloom thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't think we're there yet. I I think it's like you know, things are different. What am I forgetting, brewery-wise?

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, the my closure list was Fair State, Shram, Invictus, Lin Lake, Chan Hassan, Major. Well, and Alloy.

SPEAKER_01:

Invictus just like sold. They're like their that real estate was worth a lot. Yep. They they cashed in. So that's yeah, you know, that's they're right. That's your if you're a business owner and somebody offers you a lot of money for your brewery, you're gonna do it. And yeah, I just think like I think we're finding out that some some communities can really only support one brewery. Yeah. And in this day and age, if you're a brewery, your quality needs to be really good and consistent. I think some of the ones that closed, they either weren't as relevant or they they weren't consistent. Yeah. So that that's not a bad thing. That's like, you know, if you have a plant, you have to prune some branches sometimes to keep it growing. And I think the the higher across the board level of beer being poured at a lot of places is a good thing, but that also means that some of the breweries that have been around a while are going to become less relevant just by the nature of how things work. Yes. And so if you're a brewery and you want to survive, you need to figure out how to get people into your tap room and you have to make sure your beers are consistently good and delicious. Yeah. So, which brings us to things to note about the last year. That was a very dramatic pause. It was. Uh, one of the things I think that I'm really excited about is it seems like the appetite for classic styles and variety is back. Gone are the days when breweries only have pastry stouts, hazy IPAs, and acid reflux inducing kettle sours. There's a lot of good stuff on tap everywhere, and I'm so happy for that. One interesting thing, and I don't know if it's it's probably gonna take a while to get here because beer trends start on the coasts and work their way inward. When I went to Boise, Idaho this summer, which is a pretty big hot spot for beer, I would say of the I think I counted it, I think we went to 16 or 17 breweries, about 90% of them had a Japanese rice lager on.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh.

SPEAKER_01:

And I thought that was interesting because obviously that's a good style. There's a couple of those available around town. The one that always jumps out to me is modest super deluxe. That's so tasty. That's one of their flagships available in a 12-pack. That style of beer, very simple, very no-frills, but it probably is really difficult to make because it's always so crisp and clean and so yummy, you want to have it all the time. So I think lagers are for sure back, and so are I've seen more amber ales, brown ales, a lot of pub ales on tap. Although I missed the ESB last weekend at Torg by like 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03:

So that was the look on your face, Dan, was so sad.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that was a bummer. But I think I think people are the pendulum is swinging back to more variety, which I think bodes well for the craft beer industry because this will be a chance to get a whole new group of people psyched up about craft beer.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And I wonder if that's going to lead to maybe a kind of a renaissance in homebrewing. I don't know. Because that used to be very popular. And I think if you don't have homebrewers, you're not gonna have brewers.

SPEAKER_04:

Like that's true.

SPEAKER_01:

Because you know, it has to start somewhere. So I wonder if I wonder if that's going to be a thing. I wonder if homebrewing is going to become more popular and maybe we'll see some more brick and mortar places. So that's one thing I had. I also thought, and this caught my mind or this caught my eye the other day. I think breweries are gonna need to get creative when it comes to getting people to hang out. Yeah. Because whether you're drinking alcohol or something else, breweries need butts in the seats. Yeah. And so Little Thistle Brewing just unveiled their 2026 passport. And this is kind of interesting. 2026 Pint Passport, Little Thistle Brewing in Rochester, Minnesota. For$100, if you buy the 2026 pint passport, you get one free beverage a week for an entire year. Now, what's interesting about that is I think the cost is really good. And a free pint. It does not say a free beer. So Little Thistle, they've got beer. Their beer is wonderful. You know, you can go there and get Little Thistle beer, and you can also get the double elbow beers that are phenomenal. They also have beer slushies, they've got seltzers, mocktails, THC. So it's good. They have NA beers. So they're really, I think they're this, and and maybe breweries in other states are doing this, but they're the first one in Minnesota that I've seen to really stumble upon what I think is a genius idea. So leave it to Steve and Don to come up with something that makes a lot of sense. And I think the whole idea is like just come hang out. If you drink beer, if you don't drink beer, just come be part of this community that we've created. And Steve grew up in Scotland, so the pub culture is in his DNA, and I think this is just wonderful. I'm really excited. I think it'll be good for them. And I hope, I mean, there's a lot of competition down in Rochester. There's Forager Brewery, there's LTS, there's Thesis Beer Project, you know. So I think trying to get people to come in there, and I think that will be really a good thing for the for the area. So that'll that that's really fun. That's really exciting.

SPEAKER_03:

Here's what I really liked about their because I saw their video announcement of it. And it was the two of them just very casually sitting in a couple chairs. I think they just had socks on. Like it was, they were so laid back and casual.

SPEAKER_01:

They're wearing other clothes too, not just socks. Yeah, they weren't just sitting there in their socks.

SPEAKER_03:

They just looked very casual and very approachable. I want to go have a beer with them.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and also sincere and genuine.

SPEAKER_03:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Because that's who they are.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

They're they they're not putting on a show. This is not a gimmick. They truly believe in hospitality. And this is this is I think it's brilliant. If I lived closer, in their video. Yeah. It was great. So I think it and that's what it, you know, if you want to be successful, obviously you have to have good ideas, but you have to have a welcoming spirit. Yeah. And that's what they have down there. So I think that's interesting. I wonder if other breweries will follow suit. It'll be interesting to see. Um, because if I was sitting there, like, you know,$100 for a year to that's a great Christmas present for someone. It's a great Christmas present, you know. If you know somebody who lives in the Rochester area, get them that 2026 Pint Passport. It is on their website. You can buy it virtually. The last thing I have is, and this is this is more of a question, this is just like a talk. How do we harness the mindful and conscientious spending power of Gen Z, despite the fact that they are not drinking as much?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Because that's a tricky thing. But I think if you can get people to kind of adopt that idea that breweries can be your third space and that you can bust out a game of heroes of Arcadia or play Yahtzee or do whatever, and you don't have to drink. A lot of the a lot of breweries have NA options. Yes, they have craft sodas and different things like that, or mocktails. So I think it's just like getting people in the doors. I know I can't remember if we talked about it on this show, but I read an article that said Gen Z is the loneliest generation. Like people ages seven through 22, they make up Gen Z. They report being lonely. And I think what a great way to kind of meet other people. Then, like, here, we're not at a bar. It's not noisy, we're not being hit on. It's not yeah, this is I mean, every time I'm here I see people sitting down having a really great time. So I think that might be the the balm for this like drop in drinking. Yeah. If you get more people in, that will allow these businesses to stay open and create community, which is what craft beer is all about.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's that's what always that's what I look for every time I walk in the door at a brewery is the community feel that you get. And it's either there or it's not.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right. And sometimes they, you know, you can't just manufacture that. No, it has to happen organically.

SPEAKER_03:

And I think that's so my I I have two places I go to frequently Boom Island and Trove.

SPEAKER_04:

Yep.

SPEAKER_03:

Um Trove a couple of weeks ago did their Friendsmas event. Oh yeah. So they kind of like last minute invited all of their regulars and said, hey, we're gonna do this thing. I think it was a Wednesday night. So middle of the week, we're gonna do this Friendsmas. Wear your ugly holiday sweater or whatever. We're gonna do a white elephant thing. It's gonna be a potluck to bring something to pass around.

SPEAKER_04:

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03:

I I was not prepared for what was happening down there. There were so many people down. There were easily 40 plus people that came to this thing, like just community people for drove that randomly heard about this. It wasn't published anywhere. It wasn't like a big email blast went out about it.

SPEAKER_01:

See, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03:

They they just knew it was happening. They came. The food that they brought with them was incredible. Yeah. The white elephant gift exchange thing was absolutely hilarious. Yeah. And it was just like it was such a it was such a fun, cozy night of community. And Jeff was there, who we had on the show a little while ago. And I just I I really hope he was able to kind of take a moment and look around the room and really be like, those people are all there because of something he created. Yeah. Like he has this brewery, but he's made this really welcoming, open community space for people to come hang out in.

SPEAKER_01:

And I think it's it's easy to just get lost in the grind of it all, like the numbers and stuff. It's like, how do we gonna do? But yeah, it is nice because breweries are special. Yeah. I think and and the and especially for people who frequent and have that kind of like regular feel, you know. If you're regular at a brewery, it's because it like means something to you.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Not just because like it's not, you're just not going to a you could have beer at home. You could have, you know, you you could have beer anywhere. You can't have community anywhere. And I think that's the big draw. And for places who do that, and you know, I think we're we're we're similar in the ways that we gravitate towards places where we feel welcome. Yes. And we feel like, you know, like we know people and I just think it's possible and safe here. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So I think that's the that's the key. How many how are places going to tap into that? Um, because uh for a while I think, I mean, yes, it always has to be about the beer, but it also needs to be about the place. And yeah, people need to realize when you sometimes uh people ask me, well, how come you never go to this brewery? And this brewery is like far away from my house.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

That's not to say I mean, I travel all over the place. For God's sake, I drove up to Grand Rapids, Minnesota this summer and had a great time. If a if there's a brewery in like a fourth ring suburb and they're I haven't heard that their beer is tremendous, or I haven't heard that they've got a cool community, for me to go from my house in St. Paul to their brewery, I have to drive by like 15 places that I go all the time. Why would I do that? Like, that just doesn't make sense. So, like, I want to support the places that I know in my community because I feel like that's important to me. And so people are like, how come you haven't been to every brewery in the state? I'm like, well, it's not about that.

SPEAKER_03:

Like, yeah, I'm not just checking them off a list.

SPEAKER_01:

I would like to, but I also value like quality time at quality places, and I'm not just gonna go to some place just because they're popular or like used to be when a brewery opened, I could get to every brewery opening, and that's just not the case anymore. So I think I'm look when I go for a brewery, I I look for community, I look for like, are people having a good time? How do the I mean the first time I went to Lupulin, I sat at the bar and talked to a guy named Ranger Rick. He gave me the whole spiel, he told me all the cool events that they did. Aaron was still wrapping some stuff up in the brew house and Jeff wasn't there yet. And when they showed up, I'm like, I got I got all the information I need for this guy. And it was just like bring people into the fold. When you've got your regulars basically doing a like a commercial for your brewery, you've tapped into something. Yes, that's important. So yeah, I think it's really cool. So it'll be interesting how that unfolds in the next year. And I wonder how many other places are going to maybe switch their model or switch their thing. I think the juice and the orange of production and distribution is getting low. So I wouldn't be surprised to see people, okay, we're gonna stop distro, we're gonna pull back. Although I did just see warrior brewing in Duluth signed with a distributor. I'm like, that doesn't make any sense to me. I don't know. I'm sorry, it's just you're not you're not even like I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

I so someone someone recently asked me what what beer I get when I go to a liquor store. And I had I had to stop for a second because I don't I think when I buy beer now, I'm buying it at breweries. I'm not buying it at the liquor store anymore.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, my my uh alcohol spending habits have changed big time. I don't I I used to buy a lot of beer. I'm I don't anymore.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm I wind up drinking most of it at the tap room.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I don't really want to have it at home and just be drinking beer at home all the time. I'd rather I want the experience of going someplace and having a drink and talking with some people and then go home.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I just said that and I just uh I just put a sixteen gallon keg of Great Lakes Christmas sale in my keg rator, but but that's from party home. Yeah, no, I I and also I just like I want to drink and enjoy it at the place.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Fresh, out of the out of the tap. So, but yeah, I used to I used to be like, if it was like Oktoberfest season, I'd go to the liquor store, grab like six, eight different six packs of different brands, both local and regional, and always have like a variety, but like I don't do that anymore. Also, I don't have people over as often. And I think that's a result of the pandemic, and I wonder if that's ever gonna come back. But like, I don't know, we see people we're such creatures of habit, you know. Once we once we have a habit, it's like tough to like break out of that. So I don't know, maybe we have a big heroes of barcadia session at my house, I'll bust out, I'll have to go to the liquor store and buy some beer.

SPEAKER_03:

But see, when I talk about playing heroes of bracadia, I'm talking about it in terms of going to a brewery and bringing the game with.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, so this is a logistical question. I know it comes with glasses. Did they wash them or do you have to bring them home and wash them?

SPEAKER_03:

Okay, so they I they're plastic, they're plastic glasses. Yeah. And your pint glass is your game piece. And if you take damage, you have to, you know, drink the hit points out of your glass. It's all marked. The people at Trove were very lovely and washed them before we started playing, and then washed them again after. That's nice.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's tricky.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, otherwise, yes, you would be like taking them into the bathroom and rinsing them out or something, and then washing for real when you got home.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Well, I'm I'm really excited. A little bit of logistics to go on. Oh, we will. Maybe Arbiter.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That sounds like a lovely.

SPEAKER_01:

Without Zom Lube. If that sentence intrigues you, you should sign up for my Patreon. If I got a podcast for you, if I got a podcast for you, what now? What kind of lube?

SPEAKER_03:

I think too, so going back to community, one of the most memorable experiences of my year at breweries was at Bad Habit with a couple who sat next to me with their brewery journal, where they were putting it everywhere they went, they put in the sticker for that brewery. And then they were having people yearbook style. If it was a beer tender or someone they sat and talked to next to them, and people were signing their brewery journal with whatever they wanted to put in there. And I think that that just has stuck with me ever since that day. It's it's about community, it's about the people you're meeting. Those are the meaningful moments that would make you go back to a place or make you continue going to different breweries.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I think that's such a perfect like example of of who of the power of this beverage. You know, like people can get really get excited about it, but then it's like it's a vehicle for other things too. It's a vehicle to meet somebody new in the tap room. I mean, a lot of the times I'm in a tap room by myself. So I'm sitting at the bar and I've met people sitting at the bar and had great conversations with.

SPEAKER_03:

You get great stories out of people.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, on my trips, my God. I could. I mean, someday I will write a book about my brewery travels, but it's just so much there's so much going on. And you know, so you don't need a group. If you go to a brewery, you're gonna meet people, and the the people that go to breweries are the same people that know where the good coffee shops are, they know where the good indie bookstores are, the record stores are, the restaurants. Like, that's a great place. If you're traveling in a new city, go to the brewery and talk to people. Where else do I need to go? You'd be surprised how much pride people take in their towns.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And they want you, they do not want you to have a bad experience. Because they're not gonna send you to Applebee's, they're gonna be like, no, go to this place, you know, and I think that's really cool.

SPEAKER_03:

That is really cool.

SPEAKER_01:

So well, I one other thing we should talk about is 2025 was the year you started your podcast.

SPEAKER_03:

It was the year of the brewery adventure.

SPEAKER_01:

The year of the brewery adventure. As you as you look back on that, what what do you what do you think about?

SPEAKER_03:

I think it's it's crazy to me. We so the first episode I think came out in January with Tim. And then in the summer we had a couple episodes with Craig, and then you very graciously, and I'm still I I'm so surprised that you agreed to do this. I'm so grateful you agreed to do this, but I'm still so surprised that you were like, Yeah, okay, let's go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, this may shock you, Courtney, but you don't have to really have to twist my arm to be like, hey, let's go talk and have fun and drink beer together. That that very becomes very second nature to me. So yeah. So you because you started the middle of February, right? Your first episode.

SPEAKER_03:

I'd have to go back and look at the date. I should have been more prepared for.

SPEAKER_01:

That because I think we figured it out last time we ran we met each other at Wandering Leaf. It was like the 11th of February.

SPEAKER_03:

That sounds about right.

SPEAKER_01:

So you were getting beer for your first episode.

SPEAKER_03:

Uh no, that wasn't the first episode though.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, it wasn't? Nope. No, sir. So when was your first?

SPEAKER_03:

Well, we had like an intro episode, and then that's right.

SPEAKER_01:

That was that was pretty short though. That was just kind of like a little like a teaser almost.

SPEAKER_03:

And then there was an episode on Waconia Brewery.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's right.

SPEAKER_03:

Waconia Brewing.

SPEAKER_01:

Brewing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Um, then Insight, then LTD, then Bobby and Bobber, and then Wandering Leaf. That was episode six.

SPEAKER_01:

So when did it start?

SPEAKER_03:

It started in January.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, okay. Yeah. So coming up coming upon one year.

SPEAKER_03:

There's gonna be there's gonna be a brewery adventure anniversary happening.

SPEAKER_01:

That's exciting. That's very exciting. Well, it's fun. I like it. It's a good listen. I like, I mean, even before I like before we started hanging out on purpose, I would listen to it.

SPEAKER_03:

When I wasn't just randomly showing up at things and tapping you on the shoulder like hi Dan.

SPEAKER_01:

It's always nice to meet a fan. No. What I meant to say was like, you know, there's always when you meet somebody and there's like that, it's not awkward, but it's like, okay, so you start we're seeing each other in a lot of these common spaces. At what how do you cross the threshold of like how do we move from hanging out on accident to hanging out on purpose? Yeah. And I think it's like we were messaging each other on Instagram, and then they're you're like, Do you just want my phone number? It'll be easier to do that. I don't get notifications from Instagram. I also think like, you know, as it's harder, I don't know, as a 46-year-old, it's harder to like make friends. How do you how do you like how do we become friends? How do you become friends?

SPEAKER_03:

Somebody should do a TED talk about that, but well, we became friends very quickly because of of beer and because we both get excited for this stuff, like legitimately excited. So you will see us at festivals now, off in our own little corner, of being like super excited about what's over there and what's over there. And ooh, let's go get this.

SPEAKER_01:

Like a bunch of coked up chickens.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It's great. It's been good. Well, yeah, so January will be the one-year anniversary. Do you know the date? Yeah, we gotta hire some sort of mariachi band or something. Get get something.

SPEAKER_03:

Is that is that the move? I don't know. So the the short little intro came out on January 5th, and then the first main episode was on the 7th.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So first week of January coming out of the gate.

SPEAKER_03:

That's what's happening.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, that's exciting. Fun, fun, fun.

SPEAKER_03:

And it's changed, like it's obviously changed a lot since the beginning. Your your comments number three dance.

SPEAKER_01:

Hope I'll last longer than no, that's it.

SPEAKER_02:

There's three three and done. That's it.

SPEAKER_01:

Sometimes it takes the right. Yeah, I mean, things change. But yeah, I hope to stick around a while. I'll be Well, you better. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. I like it. Yeah, that's great. Well, I would think back when I first started doing episodes of a one-pint stand. I just did it by myself. We did a couple episodes with co-hosts, and I'm like, nah, this is not.

SPEAKER_03:

Like, I don't need that.

SPEAKER_01:

This is not. You just uh as the kids say, you don't have the Riz. You don't have the you don't have enough Riz to be co-host of the podcast.

SPEAKER_03:

What made you start a podcast?

SPEAKER_01:

I listened to a lot of podcasts, and I was like, nobody's really doing a beer podcast. I mean, there were a couple people, but like there wasn't like not the way that I wanted. So I guess I guess I felt like there were there was like the MN beer cast, and that was like an hour long on the radio. So they're beholden to like commercial breaks and they can't really go off the rails like I like to do. Um you know, it was like a 15-minute segment. I'm a long, I want to have a conversation.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And the other person who used to work, my not long-lived co-host, was like, you need to shorten these episodes. I've done research that like the average viewer will only listen to something for half an hour. I'm like, well, I think you're wrong and bug off. Like, I will do it myself. It'll be better this way. And clearly that was the right choice. But I think it's like if you're not limited to a time thing, you can really delve into some cool stories. Yeah. I want to hear about how people got into beer, and there just wasn't a lot of that locally. There was a lot regionally. I mean, the show that I really liked was a show called Brewski Reviewski out of Denver, Colorado. And they they don't do it anymore. But I I don't know. I just thought it was kind of a fun thing, and people were like, you should do a podcast. I'm like, I don't know. But it was at the Minnesota, it was like the Minnesota bloggers conference that still happens. That people are like, you should you should do it. So I was like, fine. We had our little after party at Urban Grouse. One guy was talking to me, he's like, you need to do this, you just need to do it. So I got bought like one of those little snowball microphones and I started playing around with it. And you know, look where you are now. Here we are. We're sitting next to a lovely Christmas tree on another podcast. So I'm involved with two podcasts now. That's great. It is great. Just wait till I start my cheese one called Cheese Louise, and that'll be my third podcast. So yeah, no, it's I like it. I like storytelling, I like hanging out, and it's just a fun, creative outlet. You know, when you when you teach, it's like you don't have I don't get to interact with adults very often at my job, and I think that's part of it too. I want to sit down and have a conversation.

SPEAKER_03:

I think that's been a big part of it for me. Like it it has been a reason for me to leave my house, which I don't always really need to do. It's been a reason for me to leave the house and go put myself in spaces where I can talk to other people or have to talk to other people. I'm not sure which it is. Yeah, it could be both.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. No, I I I think and I think that's fun. Well, then yeah, here's too here's to a 2025. It was a good 2025.

SPEAKER_03:

I mean, for for us in the beer, maybe some other stuff that happened in the world is not the greatest.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean the doge thing kind of was kind of a flop. That was uh how would we that?

SPEAKER_03:

What are your plans for 2026? What are your what are your beer goals for next year, Dan?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh my beer goals for 2026 are to keep doing my podcast and this podcast. So keep podcasting. That's a good start. Try to grow the listenership and do I've got some I'd love to sit down with Mark Stutrood, the founder of Summit, talk to him about, you know, it's gonna be Summit's 40th birthday this year. Got a fun, I've got some cool episodes coming up. Gonna be interviewing the new owner of Dangerous Man, Jeremy. Uh I'm gonna sit down with Matt Waddell from Pen Name Fermentation Project. I'm gonna be talking to the crew at Crowbar. Like lots of so I've got some some more fun content coming out. And I've still got some content that's that I recorded last year, so it's kind of fun. I'm gonna try to do some more live shows. Like I mentioned, I've got the Lupulin one. I wanna do thought about like a one-pint stand storytellers where I know some people that I've met over the years that have some great stories and just do a storytelling show, like more of a not necessarily beer focused, but like focus on storytelling, could be like a ticketed event. So we've got some ideas, got some maybe another beer collab. I know I I talked with Emmett down at uh Boathouse Brew Boathouse Brothers Brewing. We want to do a collab, so there's there's some other fun things in the pipeline, but just like continue to get out and enjoy and you know make some new beer friends.

SPEAKER_03:

Beer friends are the best friends, is what somebody told me. I love that hashtag.

SPEAKER_01:

So that person must have been a genius. Genius. Genius. Yeah. How about you? What are your 2026 goals?

SPEAKER_03:

My 2026 goals are to keep exploring different breweries because there are still like I have been trying to get to places that I have never been before. Yeah. It's a little bit more daunting now in the winter because I don't necessarily want to be slipping and sliding around on icy roads.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's that's part of the tricky part. Yeah, tricky part of it.

SPEAKER_03:

But I think there's still some within the metro that I haven't been to that I would like to get to and experience, and that stuff is fun.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. Well, I think it's fun being on another podcast. Thanks for having me. This is a good thing.

SPEAKER_03:

Like really, thank you. Thank you for being here and thank you for your friendship this entire year. This is just it's been the best time, Dan.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it it is it is fun. It's it's it's your friends are the best friends. Yeah, that's all you gotta say.

SPEAKER_03:

That's gonna be like the hashtag for every year.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, I like it. Where can people find you, Courtney?

SPEAKER_03:

Oh my, well, you usually you go first. Why am I going first? Oh, I don't know. I can't handle this. You can find me at the brewery adventure on Instagram, the brewery adventure. Don't just do brewery adventure or even Minnesota Brewery Adventure because those are different things. Yeah. Our website is the breweryadventure.com, and you can email me, Courtney, at the breweryadventure.com.

SPEAKER_01:

Awesome. You can find me, just search up a one pint stand on Instagram, Facebook, Mastodon, Blue Sky, TikTok, and on Patreon. Yeah. From now until the end of December, you can get your first month 75% off. So if you go in at the kegstander level, that's like you only have to pay like a dollar something for the first month. And you get access to all the episodes. I think that's the fun part. You could just try it out for a month. If you don't like it, you don't there, you know, but just like try it. That's an easy way to try it. And I think what you'll find is you'll really like it. You want to keep doing it. So so and then website a onepine stand.com for the written work. And you can look forward to my favorite brewery list of 2025 coming out at the beginning of January. That's uh that's usually a pretty pretty big deal.

SPEAKER_03:

I'm excited for that. Yeah. I think I'm gonna I'm gonna break a list that guesses at what your your top breweries are gonna be.

SPEAKER_01:

You'd you'd probably be pretty pretty accurate with your guessing game.

SPEAKER_03:

You know me pretty well.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

All right, that's gonna wrap it up here at St. Paul Brewing for the Brewery Adventure. We will see you in 2026.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right.

SPEAKER_03:

Woo! All right, until then, go visit your local craft brewery. I think that should be everybody's project while we're on a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit.

SPEAKER_01:

Support your places because if you don't, they might not be around in 2026. So go out and get them. Go out and get them. Support your support your people. Cheers. Cheers! They took my glass, so I can't.

SPEAKER_03:

I know I can't. Oh, it's not the same.

SPEAKER_01:

It's not the same. Cheers.

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