The Brewery Adventure Ep. 13 North 20 Brewing

 In this episode of The Brewery Adventure, Tim takes the lead as he and Courtney dive into the welcoming world of North 20 Brewing in Rosemount, Minnesota. With his seasoned palate and endless curiosity, Tim unpacks the brewery’s backstory, explores its family-first feel, and digs into the elements that make a taproom truly memorable. From first sips to final impressions, Tim shares standout beer picks, surprising details (yes, there’s a bathroom review), and why ambiance and service matter just as much as what’s in your glass. He also recaps his recent brewery tour through Morgantown, West Virginia, bringing fresh perspective and a few laughs. Plus, the duo gives a sneak peek at their next stop: Excelsior Brewing. If you care about good beer, good vibes, and the occasional unexpected detail, this one’s for you. 

You can contact us by going through our website at https://thebreweryadventure.com or by sending us an email at tim@thebreweryadventure.com or courtney@thebreweryadventure.com.

You can also take a quick visual look at the breweries we visit on our Youtube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@TheBreweryAdventure

Transcript

Timothy Larsen (00:01.068)
Welcome to the Brewery Adventure where we explore the vibrant world of local breweries and the incredible atmosphere they create. I'm Tim.

Courtney (00:07.525)
And I'm Courtney. If you've ever wondered what makes a brewery more than just a place to grab a drink, you're in for a treat.

Timothy Larsen (00:13.11)
In each episode, we'll cover the places making beer from the cozy corners of neighborhood taprooms to the bustling energy of larger brew houses.

Courtney (00:20.143)
We are not just talking about the beer. We are celebrating the ambiance, the culture, and the community that make each brewery a unique destination.

Timothy Larsen (00:27.182)
So whether you're a regular at your local brew pub or just curious about what's out there, join us as we uncover the magic behind the taps.

Courtney (00:34.425)
Let's embark on the brewery adventure together. Cheers!

Timothy Larsen (00:37.432)
Cheers. Hey Courtney, how are you? I'm doing well. We haven't seen each other much lately. And in fact, normally we attend these breweries kind of together right before we record a podcast about them. This time we've kind of revisited North 20 separately, which is great. It's just fine to do it that way. We have no trouble with that. Let me go back here.

Courtney (00:40.663)
I'm good, how are you?

Courtney (00:46.267)
This is true.

Courtney (00:58.149)
Yes.

Timothy Larsen (01:06.744)
You know, I'm clicking notes on different things and now I got to go back to the right note. Okay, now I think I'm in the right place now, finally. So we are going to talk this time about North 20 Brewing. It is in Rosemount, Minnesota, which for me always seems when I go down there, it seems like I'm driving forever.

Courtney (01:10.502)
Hahaha

Courtney (01:27.491)
It feels like it's on the other side of the planet.

Timothy Larsen (01:29.398)
And it really isn't. Rosemount is a southern suburb of the Twin Cities. And yes, it is on the edge of what would be considered the Twin Cities metro area. But certainly people live down there, work in the cities and drive up and make that commute all the time. I would not want to do it, but people do it.

Courtney (01:34.521)
Ha

Courtney (01:39.227)
Yes.

Courtney (01:46.487)
it's very close to another brewery that we did recently, Omni.

Timothy Larsen (01:50.263)
Yes, the southern location of Omni anyway. Yeah, very close to that. It's a brewery that we have both visited on numerous occasions because of the gaming that we do, geocaching and Munzee stuff. We have had those events down in that part of town and have attended this brewery afterwards.

Courtney (01:52.623)
Yes.

Courtney (02:09.185)
I those were my main visits there because I was already in the area for a Munzee or Geocaching event and then gone there. I think this last time that I went there was the first time that I went down there specifically for the brewery.

Timothy Larsen (02:15.862)
Yeah, right.

Timothy Larsen (02:22.19)
I think that's probably right for me too. My last visit there I think was the only time I specifically like I need to go there. It is a little bit out of the way for where we live in the Twin Cities and so that's fine. We always talk about it's weird to go to a brewery when you pass like a dozen other breweries on the way there. Yeah, it really is. But nonetheless, North 20 is a wonderful brewery to visit. So you should give it a try if you're in the Twin Cities. But first, let us open our beers.

Courtney (02:28.368)
Yes.

Courtney (02:38.767)
It's so hard.

Courtney (02:50.865)
We got pretty far into this episode before the bureau, but that was pretty good.

Timothy Larsen (02:52.846)
Yeah, we talked for like a minute and a half or two minutes. Yeah. I'm, we've, we've Wolf Got Beer from North 20 and I have picked up a crawler of Goin' to Town. And Goin' to Town is, is not one of the ones I had when I was there, at least not recently. It's a cream ale, 5.8 % alcohol by volume. And so this is why I bought this one, cause I didn't have it recently, so I wanted to try it too.

Courtney (03:05.592)
Nice.

Courtney (03:24.477)
that was good.

Timothy Larsen (03:24.893)
A little bit of beer on the computer, but that's okay. It's used to it by now.

Courtney (03:28.069)
A slight spray never hurt anybody.

Timothy Larsen (03:33.57)
Smells delicious. Mmm. yeah, I would drink this. In fact, I'm going to.

Courtney (03:39.769)
Hahaha

Timothy Larsen (03:42.028)
Which beer did you acquire for yourself?

Courtney (03:42.481)
I grabbed a... what did I get? I actually came home with three of them and this is just the last one standing. It is the Harvest Moon Blood Orange IPA, so it's a blood orange infused hazy IPA.

Timothy Larsen (03:52.558)
All right. Good planning, good planning.

Timothy Larsen (04:00.487)
okay, that is one of the ones I think that Josh might've tried when we were there the other day. I was there with...

Courtney (04:08.288)
I had this there and it was really, really good. So was for sure one I was going to bring home.

Timothy Larsen (04:10.924)
I was there with my wife Krista and also Joshua, the geocaching blogger whom you've heard on this podcast before. likes, in fact, he told me, he said, I'd like to hear my name on the podcast. So now he has been mentioned once again.

Courtney (04:26.243)
There we go.

Timothy Larsen (04:27.374)
But think he had that beer. is it good? Are you going to try it? You say it's good. You got to try it now.

Courtney (04:33.628)
that's spread all over the microphone.

Timothy Larsen (04:35.039)
Yeah.

Courtney (04:37.615)
hahahaha

Timothy Larsen (04:39.662)
You know the Billy Joel song, know, the microphone smells like a beer. I think our microphones are gonna start smelling like beers.

Courtney (04:43.887)
I'm just going to take a sip out of the can before I pour this because I'm making a huge mess.

Mm-hmm. it's so good. My hands are covered in beer.

Timothy Larsen (04:58.146)
How dark of a color is that blood orange one?

Courtney (05:01.061)
Well...

It's not a dark color at all. No.

Timothy Larsen (05:07.382)
It's not a dark color at all. See, I mean, I understand why they don't want to put in fake, you know, like artificial colors or whatever into beers. Why add something that doesn't need to be there? But when I think of a blood orange thing, I kind of want it to be like a dark color. Yeah, dark orange, reddish color. Courtney's wiping up the beer that she got all over the place. That's okay. We both have two.

Courtney (05:23.717)
like a darker orange color.

Courtney (05:28.401)
I mean, that would make a lot of sense. Yep, sorry.

Timothy Larsen (05:35.297)
good beers to try while we are talking about North 20 Brewing. North 20 Brewing started out, it says, I'm just going to read a short thing that I got right off of their website because they wrote it, so it'll be right. North 20 Brewing started out as a gift to one of its founders, David Schmitz. During the 2015 holiday season, the Schmitz household gifted David a home brew kit. It didn't take long for David and his two sons, Christian and Jordan, to realize how much they enjoyed this hobby.

The Schmitz family quickly developed the dream of one day opening a brewery, but realizing this would take more than simple home brew knowledge, both Christian and Jordan attended Dakota County Technical College's Brewing and Beer Steward Technology Program. That's pretty cool. They found something they liked and they got the proper training, know, which is always important. As for the name North 20 Brewing, this is a testament to a grandparent of the Schmitz family.

Courtney (06:20.421)
That is pretty cool.

Timothy Larsen (06:31.864)
who referred to the beautiful property where the brewery is located as the North 20. We are sentimental when remembering how grandpa enjoyed driving up the dirt road on his John Deere to mow the North 20. And the section of the road that the brewery is on is still dirt.

Courtney (06:47.461)
Yes.

Timothy Larsen (06:48.704)
It's still a dirt road. If you go just north, there's a neighborhood to the north and that's paved. And if you go south, just, I don't know, maybe a half a mile, it does turn into pavement. Maybe it's farther than that. Maybe it's a mile away, but it does turn into pavement as you get out the other way as well.

Courtney (07:04.41)
Part of me hopes that they always keep that section as a dirt road because I think it just, it matches so well with North 20.

Timothy Larsen (07:08.974)
Yeah, yeah, I hope, I hope in the, because they owned this property, this farming farmland and across the street, it is still just a cornfield. And I'm hoping that that's their cornfield so that they can control it. Because otherwise, you know, this is going to be another housing development or something there. And it'll take away a little bit of the charm of this place, I think. Yeah, because the charm is it kind of sits out in the country. It's very cool. I will get to what it looks like in a minute.

Courtney (07:22.918)
Yeah.

Courtney (07:31.567)
It would take away a lot of the charm.

Timothy Larsen (07:39.962)
They said that their goal is to provide a location where people can gather to socialize while enjoying a locally brewed beer. They believe that drinking craft beer is more than simply tasting a well-made drink to them. It's about the time you get to spend with the people around you. Well, gosh darn if that isn't what this podcast is about.

Courtney (07:57.873)
That's right.

Timothy Larsen (07:59.723)
It's not all about the beer. It is about the time and the people that you do it with. Yes. What do you have to say about about North 20 there as we move along?

Courtney (08:03.822)
Absolutely.

Courtney (08:11.377)
I like that it's a, if I hadn't read the stuff on their website, if I hadn't looked up the history of North 20, I would have guessed just by walking in the door and the feel that you get when you walk in the door that it was a family operation. It has a family vibe to it, but not the same kind of vibe like, again, Omni's pretty close. And we've talked about Omni and we've talked about the the family stuff that goes on at Omni is.

Timothy Larsen (08:17.432)
Yeah.

Courtney (08:37.329)
For me, a lot of children running around wild. North 20 has a really good family vibe, but it is a little more laid back and chill, and I have never seen children running around wild style at North 20. They are definitely welcome there. They're there, they're part of the scene, but not in the same way.

Timothy Larsen (08:40.15)
Yeah, yeah, right.

Timothy Larsen (08:53.61)
Yeah Absolutely, yep. Mm-hmm Yeah, it does have a homey Family feel to it. The but the building itself is designed like a barn. I'm sure I'm sure it's a brand new building It wasn't a barn, but they built it to look like a barn and it is pretty cool It's a lot of wood. There's wood everywhere. There's a lot of wood. It's what everywhere

Courtney (09:15.279)
It's a lot of wood.

Timothy Larsen (09:18.506)
and the ceilings are nice and high in there, so it feels really airy, even though the room isn't all that big. But it feels really open. There's glass windows along the one side leading to the back of the building, which goes downhill. there's woods kind of around the brewery, but right directly behind the brewery, it's mowed. It has been cleared and mowed going down the hill for quite a ways. And so it's kind of a nice view back there.

Courtney (09:25.349)
Yeah.

Courtney (09:45.617)
Apparently if you go there in the winter, that's the sledding hill. They do sledding out there in the winter. Yeah, I have it on my list. When it snows, I'm gonna be excited about it because I'm gonna go to North 20 and I'm gonna go sledding.

Timothy Larsen (09:48.494)
I didn't know that.

Timothy Larsen (09:52.876)
That would be perfect there.

Timothy Larsen (10:01.592)
I mean, because there's nothing less dangerous than slightly inebriated people sliding. Yeah.

Courtney (10:07.365)
Yeah, well, I was more concerned because of the kid aspect there. I was concerned, know, so adults and children are doing this, you know, what if you take out a kid when you're sledding down the hill? And they assured me that that doesn't happen. That just works itself out.

Timothy Larsen (10:11.275)
yeah.

Timothy Larsen (10:18.222)
I have, yeah.

I have taken out my own kid while sliding.

Courtney (10:27.375)
Well...

Timothy Larsen (10:28.994)
He survived, he's fine. He's an adult today. So everything's fine. I told them it was his fault for not paying attention. Anyway, yeah, so it does have a kind of a country or barn feel. Like I said, high ceilings, lots of wood. The brew tanks are right there in the brewery, which is something I always like about a brewery. I don't like it when they hide them away. When I go to the brewery, I want to be able to see the tanks. They had a whole rack or shelves full of games.

Courtney (10:32.792)
You could take him sledding again at North 20 and maybe he can be back for lunch.

Timothy Larsen (10:58.648)
to play. if you didn't bring your own game, you could play. We did not. didn't. You know, we concentrated on drinking the beers and talking, I guess, you know. So, you know, that's cool. And then one room off to the side, kind of a good size room. I don't even know how many people would fit in there, but we've sat in there the one time we were there. They have doors that you can close off. So they rent that room out if you need a space that's a little more private. You can rent that space.

Courtney (10:59.643)
Did you play any?

Courtney (11:08.721)
Hmm.

Courtney (11:20.593)
We did.

Timothy Larsen (11:28.514)
to sit. How's your beer tasting? Yeah, mine is. Mine is, mine is too. didn't like I said, didn't have this going to town while I was at the brewery, but it is it's pretty delicious.

Courtney (11:31.811)
It's so delicious. I'm really upset that I spilled so much on the floor.

Courtney (11:43.767)
No, I don't think I had... I don't think I had that one either.

Timothy Larsen (11:48.559)
I'm liking it. And I don't know for regular podcast listeners, I generally go to what I've called the podcast studios to record this podcast, which is basically an office in my workplace. But today I decided to try it from home because my son moved out. So there's a lot less noise around here.

Courtney (12:09.669)
Hahaha

Timothy Larsen (12:11.576)
So I think I can just do it from home. I think I can just pull it off doing it from home. But what this means is when I buy a crawler like this, I can drink the whole thing.

Courtney (12:21.732)
Instant improvement.

Timothy Larsen (12:22.786)
Yeah, because like some of these beers, when I'm like over at the office and I have to drive home the three, three and a half miles, I don't want to drink a whole crawler and then drive home immediately after. So yeah, this is a big improvement. I get to drink the whole thing. Yeah, this is great. What other beers do you have that you really liked at North 20?

Courtney (12:36.795)
excited for you.

Courtney (12:46.277)
They gave me a sampler of the pineapple pandemonium. Really, really good. The pineapple flavor in there is great.

Timothy Larsen (12:51.374)
yes. Yes, really good. I had a full pint of that when I was there the other day. And you know, a lot of times when a brewery says, this is a raspberry beer or a pineapple beer or whatever it is, right? Excuse me. There isn't a lot of that that comes through. But yeah, you get the sweetness, but isn't like, that's raspberry or whatever.

Courtney (13:13.733)
Like you get a general kind of sweetness, but not.

Timothy Larsen (13:19.32)
But this one, the pineapple, I mean, it did, it had a pineapple smell and I could taste it, which it was delicious. I'm sorry. We are doing a beer podcast and I'm burping while I'm doing it. You have to expect it. I'm not gonna mute every single one of them. It's just the way it is. Yeah, I had that beer and it was great. The other one I had that night was the Kolsch.

Courtney (13:23.163)
Yeah.

Courtney (13:27.409)
you

Courtney (13:31.171)
Expect beer burps, they're just part of life.

Timothy Larsen (13:48.015)
which was also delicious. That one is what's called Mama's Kolsch. It's a 5.2 % ABV. And that was a nice light, refreshing beer to drink. It was a nice evening. We sat out on the patio, which was the first time I'd done that at North 20. Because we'd been there in cooler weather and with larger groups and we needed a big table inside or whatever. But this time I sat on the table with Josh and Krista. And oh, we sat at a table for a while on the patio.

Courtney (14:10.673)
Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (14:17.708)
which was great. But then we noticed, just as we were finishing our last beers, that the Adirondack chairs out in the grass opened up. So we hustled down there and sat down there for a while. And that was really cool. It's kind of downhill just a little bit from the patio. And they've got probably four or five Adirondack chairs out there. And you can sit and you're kind of more in the grassy area than just overlooking down the hill. Very cool. Very fun.

Courtney (14:27.375)
Nice.

Courtney (14:45.584)
Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (14:46.946)
So we enjoyed that a lot. Krista, while we were there, had the two of them, because she liked it so much, the first one she had, she had two of the tin can coffee stout. I don't know if you've tried that one there enough.

Courtney (15:01.187)
I brought one of those home in a crawler and it was delicious.

Timothy Larsen (15:03.382)
and you drink it at home. Very good, very good. Yeah, that one, 5.9 % ABV. It's kind of a coffee infusion. I like a nice stout beer and a little coffee notes are good for me. it's heavy coffee, then I start to shy away from it. But Krista loves a heavy coffee flavored beer. So she really enjoyed that one. Yeah. I'm...

Courtney (15:25.179)
And theirs was good.

Timothy Larsen (15:29.92)
I haven't had any bad experiences with any of the beers at North 20. Not a single one. Yeah, and there's, know, most breweries, there's occasionally one where you're like, was, it was, it was drinkable. I drank it, it was fine. But all their beers were good. All have good flavors and wonderfully done, wonderfully done. And I also noticed when I was looking at their website, they also have wine available.

Courtney (15:35.481)
I don't think I have either. Everything's been great.

Courtney (15:42.947)
Hahaha

Courtney (15:56.635)
They do have wine.

Timothy Larsen (15:57.657)
They will serve wine. They don't make it themselves. It's from two local wineries, though, from Minnesota. So it's locally made stuff. Very cool. So if you don't like the beers, you can also get a glass of wine while you're there.

Courtney (16:11.611)
good to have variety.

Timothy Larsen (16:12.654)
Yeah. Well, one of the best things that I like about North 22 is the food.

Courtney (16:20.325)
Yes.

Timothy Larsen (16:22.836)
Here in Minnesota, most people listening to this podcast probably know most taprooms don't have food that they make because it's a separate license. It's a whole different thing. Most breweries don't want to deal with it. They just have a food truck that comes outside and that works great too. But this place must also decided, hey, we're going to make some of our own food and they do. And it was delicious. I had this last time I had the brat again.

Courtney (16:49.125)
So their meat comes from a local meat company called Gregg's Meats. I had never heard of Gregg's Meats, but I was sitting at the bar this last time and people were coming in looking at the menu trying to decide what they're gonna order. And multiple groups of people would have someone in the group be like, they have Gregg's Meats here. That's amazing.

Timothy Larsen (16:54.679)
Yes.

Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (17:01.826)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (17:10.87)
Yeah, must be very local to Rosemount.

Courtney (17:13.571)
It's in Hampton, so I think it's, I looked it up, it's a little bit south. It's a little bit south of there, but they're a big deal. They have 260 national and state champion sausages and smoked meats. That's a lot.

Timothy Larsen (17:17.838)
Okay, cool. Well, wherever...

Timothy Larsen (17:25.42)
Holy moly. Yeah, wherever it comes from, it's good. I've had to brought there on a few occasions and it's wonderful. They also have a, what I call a hot dog, they call it a wiener. I don't know, whatever you want to call it. They have that, they have a pulled pork sandwich, they have mozzarella sticks. They have a hot pretzel that they do, also very delicious. They also sell the regular kind of, you know, popcorn and.

Courtney (17:36.496)
haha

Courtney (17:51.259)
Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (17:51.823)
a cookie, a big cookie, you know, that big T-Rex cookie that you can get in lot of breweries, they have those. So yeah, they have a lot of food options, which, which I think is really great. And all you have to do is just go up to the same place you order your beer at the counter. And you can order your food and they give you a pager that lights up and buzzes when your food's ready and you go pick it up. Really easy and quick and delicious while you're having a nice beer. I had sauerkraut on my brat this time it was

Courtney (18:18.481)
Absolutely.

That's fancy.

Timothy Larsen (18:22.254)
Very good. Yeah, fancy. Very good. Let's see. Dogs, they don't allow them inside because of the food, but they are welcome outside on the patio. So bring your dog if you want to sit outside if it's nice out.

Timothy Larsen (18:41.71)
Let's see, was going to, we had on our notes membership club. Do they have one? I was not able to see it on their website.

Courtney (18:50.045)
I don't know that... I don't think so. I don't see anything about when they're...

Timothy Larsen (18:54.668)
Right, I didn't see it while I was there and I didn't see it on the website, so maybe this is one of the breweries that doesn't have one. That's okay, that's okay. We have so many breweries to go to. I have not joined any of these membership clubs.

Courtney (19:04.763)
I'm in two.

Timothy Larsen (19:06.798)
You're in the one at LTD, I know. And then you, Boom Island as well? that's great. That's great. Yeah, I have not joined any simply because I want to keep going to different breweries. So I'm not stopping at the same ones all the time. Although I do go to LTD a lot. So I probably could join that one. It'd probably be worth

Courtney (19:11.205)
Yep. I absolutely joined Boom Island.

Courtney (19:31.397)
I still have plenty of time for other breweries.

Timothy Larsen (19:33.815)
Yeah. So we have one more thing, main thing to talk about for this brewery and that's the bathroom review, which I checked out and they have great clean bathrooms, wonderful bathrooms, really well designed, except, except they have air dryers only, which, you know, I'm okay with if you want to have an air dryer rather than paper towels, I get

Courtney (19:52.537)
Except.

Timothy Larsen (20:01.39)
the decision to do that, it's fine. But if you're gonna do that, for sure, you have to have a way to get out of the bathroom without touching the door handle. And there's no way to get out of this bathroom without touching the door handle, because you gotta open the door. And they do not have one of those little toe pulls on the bottom of the

Courtney (20:19.429)
Maybe we should get them some toe poles and just gift them to North 20.

Timothy Larsen (20:23.724)
Yeah, we might have to go to a country themed store to get the ones that are properly styled for the barn. I don't know what that would be, but maybe they will hear this podcast because we're going to tag them on social media, of course. So maybe they will see, listen to this podcast and they will go, you know what? That is true. We need those. And they'll do it themselves, maybe.

Courtney (20:31.242)
yeah. I think we have a plan.

we can find something that would fit their aesthetic.

Courtney (20:50.555)
Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (20:53.496)
We'll see. But anyway, because of that, everything's great about their bathrooms, except for that one issue. And that's a big issue for me. So they get a five out of 10 for me.

Courtney (21:02.833)
That's a low score for you.

Timothy Larsen (21:06.614)
It's a low score, but they deserve it because I had to touch a handle. One funny story, though. So I'm there at the brewery with my wife, Krista, and with Joshua, the geocaching blogger, and he headed off to do the bathroom. He said, I gotta go to the bathroom so that I can do a bathroom review. So he heads off to the bathroom and he comes back with photos that he took while he was in there, which he was in there by himself. So, okay. But there was a tiara on the back of the...

Courtney (21:10.203)
You did.

Courtney (21:38.193)
Did he take it?

Timothy Larsen (21:39.105)
He did not know. I mean, you shouldn't touch things in bathrooms, right? Especially tiaras of unknown provenance. you, but I just thought it was funny because there's a tiara in there. He did not, he did not want to touch it. But I thought it was funny. I don't think it's part of their normal decoration. I'm thinking it was left by someone.

Courtney (21:51.397)
Did he take a selfie with it on?

Courtney (22:05.019)
That's kind of sad.

Timothy Larsen (22:06.006)
Yeah, none of those in the women's room though, from what Krista says, no tiaras. Yeah.

Courtney (22:12.933)
I wonder if it's still there.

Timothy Larsen (22:16.206)
No one's gonna pick it up, right?

Courtney (22:18.875)
I mean, if you grab some toilet paper, you could pick it up and not have to touch it, touch it. It's better than touching the door.

Timothy Larsen (22:22.702)
the cleaning crew can pick it up. Maybe you could use it to open the door. There you go. So anyway, our overall review of North 20 is a wonderful place to visit, family feel, country feel, relaxing. What else do have to say? It's cozy, yeah.

Courtney (22:28.561)
Yeah, maybe.

Courtney (22:45.017)
It's cozy and the people there are always just really friendly, easy to talk to.

Timothy Larsen (22:51.618)
Yeah, it's a great place to go. if you don't want to buy their food when you get there, you can, like most breweries, bring outside food in as well. They're OK with that. OK, so that's a really good wrap up of of North 20. And before we end this episode, though, I just wanted to rehash a little bit about the Morgantown, West Virginia breweries that I visited while I was at Geo Woodstock, because we on the last podcast we talked about, I was going.

Courtney (23:17.968)
Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (23:21.462)
and that I was probably going to visit a couple of breweries. I just wanted to mention them quickly. We ended up going to two different breweries, and I think there might have been a third, but we only made it to two. We were just very, very busy while we were there. The one, though, that we went to called Mountain State Brewing, there was two locations, and we did end up visiting both of them. But I do have to say, I think Mountain State Brewing is more of a restaurant that serves some of the beer they make.

rather than a brewery that might also have food. They are definitely food focused. The beer that I had from them was fine. It wasn't great. The location that was down on the river side, on the riverfront, was a cooler looking location than the other one. The other one was in a, an old Texas Roadhouse building.

Courtney (24:17.083)
Hahaha

Timothy Larsen (24:18.892)
Which you could tell immediately as soon as you got there. It's like, this is a Texas Roadhouse building. There still is a Texas Roadhouse in Morgantown, so they must have built a new one and moved. I don't know why they would do that. But anyway, that's where it was. And that location was fine. We had great food there, decent beers. Josh, while we were there, had a flight of margaritas that he said was really, really good. But we did end up at the other location down along the riverfront because of a Munzee event we were having right there. And...

That location also food focused. And it was really hard to just go in and order a beer because it's kind of set up as a restaurant where you come in and you check in with a hostess and you get a table and then you get service as opposed to being able to just walk up to the bar and buy a beer. Now they did have a bar and you could walk up and buy a beer, but there wasn't a spot to do it. know, like most breweries have, it's like a sign that says, order your beers here.

Courtney (25:03.2)
so you're not walking up to the bar and ordering.

Courtney (25:16.389)
It's more if you're expected to go get a table, sit down, and wait for a server.

Timothy Larsen (25:18.771)
Yes, and so if you wanted to get one at the bar, you're just fighting with people that are sitting at the bar to try to get the beer tenders attention and So it wasn't the greatest experience everything was fine. The food was good. They make great pizzas and The beer was fine, but just the it wasn't the True taproom slash brew house experience that I want out of it and what we talked about on this podcast so

Courtney (25:43.035)
Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (25:46.603)
If you're going to Morgantown and you want a brewery experience, I would suggest going to the second one that I went to called Short Story Brewing. Now, Short Story Brewing is actually in a small town outside of Morgantown where they make the beer. I don't think they were making the beer at the location that I went to. It's just a tap room that they have in the larger town, which is typical of what a lot of breweries do. Because sometimes renting the space to run a brewery is expensive, right? So if you go to a smaller town, you can probably have cheaper space.

to do that, and then you can focus the expensive space on serving customers. And so that's what they're kind of doing here. But this was a great brewery experience. Again, right on the river, you could walk right up to a nice place to order your beer. They had tables, they had a patio, they had rails where you could sit inside if the weather's not great, but still looking through these great big windows outside. And it was really a great experience, and their beer was really, really tasty.

Courtney (26:43.929)
At the start of this, was wondering which of these are you going to go back to if you had a chance? But I think I know the answer.

Timothy Larsen (26:47.916)
Yeah, I would go to short-storied brewing. I would go to short-storied brewing every time. Every time. Now, like I said, if you're looking for food, though, if you want dinner, try Mountain State Brewing out. They do make some good food in there. But it's not really a brewery thing. It's a restaurant that makes some of their own beer. And they only had like four. So, you know, take it or leave it. That's my experience.

Courtney (27:04.721)
Cough cough

Timothy Larsen (27:16.458)
in Morgantown, West Virginia. Otherwise, as a wrap up to that entire trip, I had a great time hanging out with some friends and doing some geocaching, going to Munzee events. The big event itself, geocaching, geowoodstock was wonderfully put on, well organized. And I would suggest that if you're into geocaching, that you make it to one of these events. The next one next year is going to be in Hutchinson, Kansas.

So it's kind of a little bit outside of Wichita on the state fairgrounds of the state of Kansas. Yeah, so it'll be a cool place. Anything else you want to say as we wrap up this episode, Courtney?

Courtney (27:57.475)
I I'm good on North 20. Except if I can give a tiny little shout out to the Courtney Beer Tender, who I spoke with the last time I was down there. We had some nice talks and she made the brewery experience very enjoyable. She was another Courtney. We bonded immediately. Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (28:00.152)
Good on North 20.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

Timothy Larsen (28:13.614)
Did you say, what was her name? She was in, oh, it was Courtney and Courtney. Okay, very cool, very cool. Well, she did a good job. They've all done a good job. Every time I've been there, they're so friendly and they get the beer line going. I mean, it does not slow down. They're quick about it, which I love, which I love. Okay, so next time on the Brewery Adventure, we are going to be going to one of my...

Courtney (28:28.005)
Yes.

Courtney (28:31.909)
Absolutely.

Timothy Larsen (28:40.908)
and Krista's favorite breweries in the entire Twin Cities.

Courtney (28:45.179)
Ta-da!

Timothy Larsen (28:45.986)
Ta-da-da! Excelsior Brewing! Guess what? Guess what city it's in.

Courtney (28:51.313)
Might it be Excelsior?

Timothy Larsen (28:54.254)
It's in Excelsior, Minnesota, which if you're not familiar with the Twin Cities metro area is out on Lake Minnetonka, a very large lake system that is just to the west of downtown Minneapolis and has a lot of really expensive homes on it. And a lot of the rich people live out there. But it also has a lot of great restaurants and this great brewery. And we'll be talking about Excelsior Brewing next time.

But until then, if someone wants to contact us, they can do that how, Courtney?

Courtney (29:23.163)
they can email us at Courtney at TheBrewieAdventure.com or Tim at TheBrewieAdventure.com. They can check us out on Instagram at TheBrewieAdventure or they can visit our website, TheBrewieAdventure.com or they can go to YouTube at TheBrewieAdventure.

Timothy Larsen (29:37.938)
So certainly if you just search the brewery adventure, put the the on there, put the brewery adventure, you will find us. You will find us. You'll find us. And we'd love to hear from you because we really would love to get other people's opinions on the breweries that we've already talked about and also on other breweries in Minnesota that we can visit or even even the western part of Wisconsin. So give us your opinions on those breweries. We'd love to hear them and which breweries we should go to next.

Courtney (29:44.283)
You'll find us. We're there.

Timothy Larsen (30:07.106)
But until then, until then everybody, get out and visit a taproom. They're wonderful places to visit and cheers everybody.

Courtney (30:15.985)
Cheers!