Photo presentation by Brianna Vitands of Murphy News Service
By Brianna Vitands/Murphy News Service
The Twin Cities first craft beer festival Saturday featured more than 150 hand-crafted brews from 75 or so breweries for consumers to sample.
Along with the local food trucks Hot India and Jake’s Street Grille, the event featured a guided tasting seminar by Jeremy Pryes, founder of Pryes Brewing.
The festival was organized by the Hand Crafted Tasting Company and takes place across the country in cities that avidly consume craft beers, such as New York, San Francisco, and San Jose.
Craft beer is increasingly popular around the country, reaching nearly $14.3 billion in sales in 2013 alone, an increase of 20 percent from the previous year. As microbreweries and craft beer are becoming more accessible and affordable, consumers are realizing you can’t beat the taste.
To be considered a craft beer, brewers typically produce less than 6 million barrels annually, are independently owned, and brew using traditional ingredients. Since beer does have a ‘best by’ date, beers that don’t travel as far to get to your fridge or koozie taste fresher.
Perhaps the most notable increase in craft breweries can be seen in Northeast Minneapolis, where the largest brewery in the area, Indeed Brewing, opened in 2012. There are at least six breweries within a mile of Central Avenue, along with the 43 craft breweries already in Minneapolis.
Insight Brewery, located on East Hennepin Avenue, was among those featured Saturday, and offered samples of their Yuzu Pale Ale and Curiosity IPA. Insight’s founder, Ilan Klages-Mundt, started his journey as a brewer in 2007 when he tried the number one rated beer in the world, brewed by Belgian monks.
“It totally changed my ideas of what beer is and what it could be, and so I wanted to learn about the world of beer and the history of beer, the culture,” Klages-Mundt said.
Since then, he has brewed commercially in England, Japan, Denmark, Belgium, and France, but ultimately decided to settle down in Minneapolis to start his own company.
“Minnesota is actually the fastest growing craft beer market in the country,” Klages-Mundt added as his inspiration for choosing Minneapolis. “This is a great place for beer.”
One estimate found that the craft beer industry adds nearly $742 million annually to Minnesota’s economy, which has been heightened by the 2011 “Surly Bill,” which added a provision to allow brewers to sell pints of beer at taprooms.
“We are also aware of keeping money here, you know, to help us,” Pryes cited as a reason so many Minnesotans are attracted to local beer.
With the emergence of a new craft beer market, some have begun to question the liquor laws that prohibit liquor stores from selling on Sundays. Craft breweries attempted to have the sale of 64-ounce “growlers” legalized on Sundays, although it died after debate in 2014.
Opponents of Sunday Sales have argued that by forcing small businesses with tight margins to open on Sundays, it will increase their overhead and eventually run them out of business.
“They were really unable to provide any new information besides testimonials about people not wanting to have their stores open, and they can choose to have it closed,” Aaron Konigsmark, an activist with the grassroots organization Legalize Sunday Sales of Alcohol in Minnesota said of opponents.
“Those testimonials, I feel for them, I really do, but nobody’s forcing them to be open, and that’s not a valid excuse to have a law like that not pass.”
Konigsmark had a computer available so that people could sign a petition encouraging Governor Dayton to reassess the state’s Sunday liquor laws, along with stickers for petitioners.
“There are a lot of studies out there from states that have passed this in the past 15 years, I believe there’s nine of them, and their tax revenue has increased four to seven percent,” Konigsmark added.
It is unlikely that the issue will go away anytime soon, since Minnesotans take their money to Wisconsin every Sunday to purchase beer and distilled spirits there.
For craft beer lovers in the Twin Cities, Saturday’s event was a success, and will likely be back next year with more local brews.
Reporter Brianna Vitands studies journalism and Spanish at the University of Minnesota.