Mankato Brewery Tour

We toured Steel Toe Brewing on Friday the 27th and at noon the next day, we were touring Mankato Brewery, 75 miles away from each other. 

We headed down to Mankato for training camp for a certain football team which I'll discuss in a later post but before heading to practice, we went for beer.

Before the tour, we could have 3 samples, but they only have 2 beers right now, which are Mankato Original and Stickum.  

They've only been distributing beer for about 6 months so they are very new.  The tour was given by the co-owner of the brewery and the people in the tour consisted of roughly15 people including some volunteers were helping there for the day.  The tour was one of the more in-depth tours I've been on about beer.  

Steel Toe Brewing Tour

Our monthly brewery tour for July was Steel Toe Brewing located in St. Louis Park.  They have tours on Friday nights, no reservations required, 6 and 7 pm.  Our tour was on the 27th at 7 pm and there was a handful of people in the lobby from the 6 pm tour sampling beer when we arrived.  After they cleared out, there were only 5 people, including ourselves for the 7 pm tour.  We sampled our beers before the tour and then we went on what you could call a tour.  

The place is very small so there isn't much to see and the people on the tour were very knowledgeable about beer and the beer making process that it didn't leave much to talk about other than in depth conversations based on questions we had but the owner was very nice to talk to.

My favorite beer from them is called Rainmaker, a double red ale.  Have you heard of Steel Toe before?  Have you tried any of their beers?

A New Subscription

I've cancelled all the other monthly subscription boxes I used to get but I signed up for a different one.  I thought I'd try a 3 month trial and then decide from there whether or not I'll continue with it.

Have you heard of Conscious Box?  Directly from their website: 

It's not just makeup or just food, it's any type of product from organic to vegan to natural eco-friendly products.  I received my first Conscious Box in July.  At a price of $12 a box, it's a fantastic deal, however the shipping is $7 so the cost creeps up quite a bit.

I loved my first box.  There were mostly products I had never seen before but there was a protein powder in there that I already have.  I received teas, applesauce, bars, mints, vegan eye shadow, floor product, sweeteners, vitamins and coupons.  My very favorite product as a jar of sweet orange essential oil and a big package of aromatherapy cards.  

I'll continue to show you what I received in the next two months as my August box should probably be here in the next week or so.  Does this type of box appeal to you?

All Pints North

With only a few days advance notice, M and I decided to head up to Duluth and go to the First Annual All Pints North Beer Festival.  We had a heck of a time trying to find a hotel room but found the perfect one the day before we left.

We woke up early on Saturday, July 21st to thunder and rain coming down in sheets.  We packed up super quickly and lightly and headed up north.  We arrived to warm and sunny skies.  

Since it was so hot and since we had a couple of hours to kill before the beer fest, we went to the beach.  The sand burned our tootsies. 

We then checked into our hotel. We knew we were going to be lakeside but it just got better...they upgraded us to a king suite. Ok, we'll take it.  We enjoyed the view from our room and then we walked to Bayfront Park.  It was a lot further than I thought it would be. 

We got to the park with about 10 minutes before the opening.  Once opened, we grabbed our glass , headed into one of the tents and started tasting.

They had music while we were drinking as well as food.  You can't get better scenery than what we had.  A ship even came into the harbor while we were there. 

M and president of the MN Craft Brewer's Guild and Surly Brewing owner, Omar Ansari

We may have been feeling a little good here

M was SURE no one would have the same shirt as him

One of the highlights of the day was being able to try the new Surly Sÿx.  It was being offered at the festival before it was even released down in the cities.  At 15% ABV, it packs a punch but it's smooth at the same time.  Even I liked it!

Surly Sÿx

I knew my limits for the day and I didn't get too messed up but M went full speed ahead.  He was drunk by the end of the festival and refused to walk back to the hotel, mostly because he couldn't so we got a taxi. M passed out at 7:30 pm and I was left all by my lonesome.  I sat out on our balcony and watched the activity on the boardwalk and finally went out walking on my own to find something to eat.  M did wake up around 10:30 pm and sobered up a bit and ordering Pizza Luce also helped with that.  We watched one of the sad news specials about the movie theater shooting in Colorado.  Just a weird side note...one of my friend's friends got shot in the theater that night.  He was shot in the leg but will be fine.  

I woke up in the late 6 am hour on Sunday and went out to the balcony to see the sun and found a ship out there as well.

I went back to bed for a while and then got up and saw the ship was still there.  It was there all morning actually.  We went to breakfast in the hotel and then packed up, walked to Canal Park, Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, got in the car and went home.  We were in Duluth for exactly 24 hours but it was exactly what both of us needed...a short escape from reality and just getting away and relaxing.

Five Years Ago

I wrote this post a year after the 35W bridge collapsed.

http://januarybaby21.blogspot.com/2008/08/35w-bridge-collapse.html

I then did this post 13 months later documenting and recording driving over the bridge the first day it opened.

http://januarybaby21.blogspot.com/2008/09/bridge-is-open.html

And today, five years later, the bridge is active and healthy but we'll never forget that day as Minnesotans or the lives lost that day.