Michael Agnew

Minnesota Brewers Show Off At Winterfest 2010

You had to act fast if you wanted to attend this year’s Winterfest in St. Paul, Minnesota.  The event’s seven hundred tickets sold out in just eight minutes. Winterfest is an annual beer festival sponsored by the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild, a trade organization representing Minnesota breweries and brewpubs. It is a showcase for all things beer in the land of lakes. Participation is limited to Guild members, so you won’t find any out-of-state breweries there. What you will find is the best that Minnesota’s up-and-coming craft beer scene has to offer. This year’s three-hour event featured over seventy-five beers poured by brewers from seventeen breweries. As always, most of the breweries brought special brews or previewed upcoming releases.

This was the second year that the event was held at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. This is a beautiful space featuring marble colonnades and handsome wood-paneled halls with beer and food tables spread over multiple levels. Last year the brewery tables were concentrated in two narrow hallways, creating an unpleasant crush of people. This year they were spread throughout the space making for a better flow and more comfortable imbibing. The Brass Kings provided a bluegrass soundtrack from a centrally located stage. Three tables of food provided festival-goers with delicious refueling options right up to the end of the event.

Winterfest is a small-scale festival. Attendance is limited to seven hundred and the number of brewers and beers is manageable. It has a pleasant personal feel that lends itself to catching up with friends over a beer. One of the best things about an intimate festival like Winterfest is the presence of the brewers. Nearly every table is staffed by the brewers themselves, offering beer fans the opportunity to meet and question them directly about the beers. This is truly a festival about local beer appreciation, not a drunk-fest as some of the larger festivals can become.

But what about the beer? This year’s selection seemed less varied to me than previous years with fewer special releases and a large number of big stouts and big IPAs. However there were some standouts, both great and not so great. The Great Snowshoe Award, given every year to the beer voted “best-of-fest” by attendees, went to Flat Earth Brewing Company’s unique Grand Design Porter. The brewery calls this “a s’more infused porter.” Built on a base of their chocolaty Cygnus X-1 rye porter, it offers mouth-filling vanilla, cocoa, and graham cracker flavors that really do remind one of flaming marshmallows by the campfire. Surly Brewing Company previewed this year’s anniversary release Four, an iced imperial stout that for me took on unpleasant chalky and burnt notes as I drank it. Lift Bridge Brewery was offering beer floats made with their Belgian Biscotti, a beer inspired by a cookie recipe of owner/brewer Steven Michael Rinker’s grandmother. Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery had an extraordinarily varied and tasty collection of beers on offer including LSD, an ale made with lavender, honey and dates that sports an amazing floral aroma and flavor with honey/raisin sweetness coming mid-palate. The best-of-fest beer for me was Unoaked Rosie’s Reserve from Barley John’s Brewpub. Ordinarily this 15.5% old ale is aged in bourbon barrels. Last year they had a remainder that wouldn’t fit into the barrels. Served on cask, the lack of bourbon and vanilla flavors revealed a simpler beer that was in no way lacking depth.

Although not the largest of the Twin cities’ beer festivals, the intimate size, access to brewers and special releases make Winterfest one of the best.

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