This past weekend I took a little weekend excursion with the family to see Duluth, MN. There’s lots of cool things up in Duluth and they’d never seen a great lake before. But let’s be honest, there were breweries up there and I needed to try root beer. Friday night dinner destination was Fitger’s Brewhouse. Fitger’s Brewing Company was at one point the oldest continuous operating brewery in the state of Minnesota, having been founded in 1859. However, in 1972, it fell victim to post war consolidation, and shuttered its doors. In 1995, the historic brewery building was converted into a mall with various shops and restaurants and Fitger’s Brewhouse, a small brewpub. In addition to a line of their own beers, they also make Driftwood Root Beer.
The Body is sweet and creamy and a bit minty. It has a classic sassafras flavor but not a lot of additional flavors. The Bite is mild. There’s not a lot of spice or fizz. It is nice and smooth though, which is good. There really isn’t much Head at all, despite their best efforts to get me some. The Aftertaste is light with some bitter hints.
It’s a decent brew, nothing special though. It could really use a lot more in every department, but it’s still good enough to go with the meal. The food there, however, was rather disappointing. I had an Elk burger and my wife got their smoked trout wrap, and neither of them were particularly great. Maybe it was a bad night, or we picked the wrong thing, but yeah, I came away feeling the whole thing was rather overpriced for the quality. Maybe just get the root beer if you must and eat somewhere else.
The Fitger’s Brewery Complex
The view from my table. I do like being surrounded by brew vats.
Half an elk burger and half a smoked trout wrap. It wasn’t bad, but like the root beer, not anything special.
Last Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity to meet one of the world’s leading collector’s of root beer paraphernalia, Vince. He was up in Minneapolis for some reason and I had empty bottles to get to him for his collection. I told him to meet me at Indeed Brewing Company, cause I knew they had a brew that I needed to try. To be honest I don’t know much about this brewery, other than one of my coworkers told me they have root beer. It’s a rather larger brewery by some railroad tracks about half an hour from my house. They don’t have any food in their taproom, owing to those pesky Minnesota laws, but not even the popcorn or peanuts that are quite common in others. I met Vince and his friends and got down to business. 
Last week I was in Toronto for work, doing the things I do when I go off to travel for work. I’d been there in the summer, for less than a day, and had been frustrated that the Mill Street Brewery pub in the airport was in a different terminal than the one I flew out of, so I couldn’t get any root beer. This time I had many a evening free, but I was determined to get it my first night, just in case. Though Mill Street Brewery has expanded to several locations, their original, in the Distillery District, is where I went. The whole district is in a 19th century whiskey distillery, and it all arts and crafty now, the sort of place you’d hope to find a craft brewery with their own root beer. 
