Complex Numbers

Walking in Minneapolis

Yesterday, I managed to visit four breweries.

How, you might ask, can anyone survive four breweries in one afternoon?

Fair question, even though I totally just made it up.

I might have mentioned this before in here, but most breweries serve some variation on a tasting flight. This can take several forms depending on the brewery and whatever convoluted, Byzantine state laws govern the manufacture, serving, and drinking of fine fermented beverages. Whatever the details, the point is to be able to try small samples of a wide variety of craft beer selections. There's certainly a time for a pint or two (or three), but when I visit a brewery or brewpub for the first time, I like to get an idea of their diversity of offerings.

Now, it's also true that most breweries will let you taste a sip of a brew for free; I know I've noted before that taking advantage of this by drinking a bunch of samples and then not buying anything (or at the very least, tipping the bartender) is a dick move. While I'm not above dick moves from time to time, beer is too important to me to pull one at a brewery. At least not on purpose.

The point is, though, that it's not like I drink a whole lot of beer at any given brewery -- usually. I'll take a couple of sips of a 3 or 4 ounce sample. If I really like it, I'll finish the sample. Where this gets complicated, though, is at the rare place of libation that doesn't do some variation of the sampler flight. This lack has become more common, unfortunately, due to the pandemic -- which doesn't make a lot of sense to me as it's not like it increases the risk of exposure over the baseline for a brewery; perhaps it's because it's a bit more labor-intensive than just pouring pints.

So of the four breweries I tried yesterday, one of them didn't do flights. It was probably just as well, because half their menu was hard seltzer anyway. And that's fine; a lot of people like that, but I don't classify it as "beer." I'm old enough to remember Zima, as much as I'd like to have forgotten that crap.

Incidentally, walking around Minneapolis is a fairly pleasant experience. It's relatively flat, and as long as it's not winter or riot season, it's a nice place. And there's a river to look at from some vantage points.

After the whirlwind brewery tour, I got a chance to meet Elisa: Snowman Stik for dinner at a delicious pizza place. Well, I assume the pizza is delicious; I had spaghetti and a "small" Caesar salad that was about the size of the Colosseum. I just ordered Coke to drink there, though; I'd had about enough beer prior to that, and didn't want to be so drunk as to become the subject of one of her blog entries.

Sorry, no pictures this time.

Today perhaps I'll visit two or three more breweries, because that is, after all, one of my main reasons for traveling.