La Doña Oktubrefest • Photo via La Doña Cerveceria

Welcome to Beer Dabbler’s Freshies, our weekly rundown on the newest beers hitting the store shelves and taproom coolers in Minnesota from your favorite local and national breweries.

How many ways can you spell Oktoberfest? Let us count them below… For the most part, local beers stick to tradition when brewing the classic harvest fest beers, but many put their own twist in the names, ranging from nods to heritage at La Doña and Copper Trail to modern cut-the-vowels at Wooden Hill.

And while the malt-forward lagers are seemingly on tap everywhere, other fall seasonals are appearing as well, from Urban Growler’s Vanilla Latte to Boom Island’s Punkin’ Pie, plus more s’mores beers and even a couple of imperial pastry stouts. From the Twins’ September call-ups to the encroaching NFL kickoff, it’s the time of year for a bit of everything.

 

 

Each week, the Beer Dabbler team highlights five of the most tantalizing new beers that we’re most excited to try.

Badger Hill Brewing Company Double Agent J – Double dry-hopped IPA featuring Evergreen hops, brewed in collaboration with Imminent in Northfield and on tap at both breweries (separate batches).

Earth Rider Brewery Festbier – The star of the show at upcoming Earth Rider Fest on Sept. 11, this Munich-style golden lager with bready malt flavors and subdued floral notes is on tap now, the brewery says.

Junkyard Brewing Co. Midnight Spider – “Conditioned with rich cocoa nibs, toasted walnuts, and hit with sweet marshmallow for a deliciously indulgent blend! Take a sip of Midnight Spider and lose yourself in luscious flavors reminiscent of Rocky Road Ice Cream,” Junkyard says of this 11.2% ABV imperial stout.

Lupulin Brewing Company Star Damage: Passion Fruit & Galaxy – A Scribbled Lines Galaxy dry-hopped golden sour fruited with passion fruit. A taproom only release today, this 5.2% ABV offering is a blend of 2+ year old barrel-aged golden sour beer. The barrels were selected because of their tart and bright fruitiness…Expect pineapple on the nose, and bright passion fruit notes as you sip on this dry and effervescent sour,” Lupulin says.

Modist Brewing Co. Forbidden Islands – This new New England-style double dry-hopped double IPA was made with oats, rye, flaked wheat, and a cocktail of Talus, Citra, El Dorado Cryo, Ekuanot Cryo, and Sabro hops. On tap this Saturday and in liquor stores next week.

New beers available this week

22 Northmen Brewing Company

  • Cold IPA – The Alexandria area brewery recently tapped it’s first cold-style IPA.

608 Brewing Company

  • 608 Premium Lager – A 5% ABV Helles-style crisp and light-body lager available on draft and in cans.
  • Kitchen Sink – “An incredibly soft beer, with notes of orange marmalade and Dole fruit cup,” the brewery says of this 6.6% ABV hazy IPA. Available on draft and in cans.

608 Brewing Company’s Kitchen Sink IPA • Photo via 608 Brewing Company

Alloy Brewing Company

  • The Purple & The Gold – Featuring Styrian Wolf and Ekuanot hops, a new football-themed 5.9% ABV, 36 IBU hazy IPA.

Bad Weather Brewing Company

  • Raspberry Anomaly – A fruited kettle sour, on tap now and in liquor stores soon.

Badger Hill Brewing Company

  • Double Agent J – Top Flight selection
  • Oktoberfest Marzen

Boom Island Brewing Company

  • Punkin’ Pie – A pumpkin spice ale for the fall, this amber ale with added spice and vanilla is available in liquor stores now and will tap at the brewery for its Sept.18 Harvest Festival.

Boom Island’s Punkin’ Pie • Photo via Boom Island Brewing Company

Copper Trail Brewing  Co.

  • Weekend Glamper – This hazy IPA, made with Kveik yeast, has notes of peach, stone fruit, and tangerine. It tapped at the brewery last week, was available at Summer Beer Dabbler, and is a collaboration with Fergus Brewing, who also brewed another batch at their own brewery.
  • Oletoberfest – A Märzen-style lager available in 6-packs now.
  • Quantum Leap – A raspberry and blackberry kettle sour.
  • North Country – A crisp and refreshing, light-bodied Czech-style Pilsner. 4.5% ABV, 12 IBU.

Drekker Brewing

  • Braaaaaaaains – The latest edition of this smoothie-style beer is made with pineapple, guava, and passion fruit, sea salt, lactose, and vanilla. 7.3% ABV.
  • Chonk – A “Peach Melba Sundae Sour” made with peach, raspberry, coconut, lactose, and vanilla. 7.7% ABV.
  • PLOP – “Imagine the drippiest, most decadent PB&J sandwich you can,” Drekker says. Then imagine it as a hard seltzer smoothie with added black currant, plum, raspberry, blueberry,strawberry, boysenberry, banana, and peanut butter. 6% ABV.

Earth Rider Brewery

  • Festbier – Top Flight selection

Fergus Brewing

  • Weekend Glamper – A collaboration with Copper Trail, listed above, this hazy Kveik IPA tapped last week. 7.2% ABV.

Hoops Brewing

  • No. 9341 Bamburg Lager – “A friendly easy drinker with the barest hint of smoke,” the brewery says. 5.2% ABV.

Imminent Brewing

  • Double Agent J – On tap in Northfield now, this double dry-hopped IPA was a collaboration with Badger Hill, who are also pouring their own version in Shakopee.

Jack Pine Brewery

  • Bonfire S’mores Stout – “A sweet stout with a definite marshmallow aroma with hints of milk chocolate, a graham cracker finish and just enough bitterness to balance it out,” the brewery says of this creamy-body milk stout, now on tap at the brewery and coming in 4-packs of cans to the rest of the state soon. 5.5% ABV.

Jack Pine’s Bonfire S’mores Stout • Photo via Jack Pine Brewery

Junkyard Brewing Co.

  • Midnight Spider – Top Flight selection
  • She’s Got The Look – Blueberry and cherry lead the fruit-forward flavors of She’s Got The Look, which also includes peach and plum for extra sweetness. 5.0% ABV.
  • Theodore – A barrel-aged mixed fermentation sour with guava.

Kinney Creek Brewery

  • Conundrum – A newly available India pale ale.
  • Tangerine Grapefruit – A new hard seltzer flavor in the Med City lineup. On tap now.

Klockow Brewing Company

  • Crosswind Kolsch – Back on tap now.

La Doña Cervecería

  • Oktubrefest

Lift Bridge Brewing Co.

  • Honeycrisp Apple Pie – A light-body amber ale brewed with local honeycrisp apples, plus cinnamon, vanilla, and “pie crust flavors.” Available at Cub liquor stores.
  • Oktoberfest – Available now, on draft and in cans, this is described as a lighter, traditional Marzen-style lager.

LocAle Brewing Company

  • Guava Globetrekker – Flavors of melon, citrus, and tropical fruits are complemented by pink guava puree in this 5.5% ABV hazy and pink IPA.
  • Sibling – “A new 6% ABV dry-hopped mixed culture saison that is a blend of a young saison with one wine barrel of one of our mixed culture sour beers,” LocAle says, adding. “This is the ‘sibling’ of our other saison 1st Born.” Sold in bottles and on draft.

Lupulin Brewing Company

  • Star Damage: Passion Fruit & Galaxy – Top Flight selection

Modist Brewing Co.

  • Forbidden Islands – Top Flight seletion
  • Lonely – A Belgian-inspired table beer taps this Saturday at Modist, coming to liquor stores next week.
  • Fresh Loafs – On tap in limited supply this week, a vintage keg of this imperial banana bread stout.
  • Peaches & Cream Milkshake IPA – A collaboration with Dangerous Man that was previously exclusive to the Minnesota State Fair but taps on Saturday at the brewery too.
  • Tropical Smoothie Sour – Another Minnesota State Fair beer that hits the brewery on Saturday.

New Glarus Brewery

  • Pear 21 – “Luscious notes of pear totter between sweet decadence and bright orchard tartness. The perfect balance of five pear varieties traveled from the Pacific Northwest to ferment in our Wild Fruit Cave,” the Wisconsin-exclusive brewery says.
  • Strawberry Rhubarb ‘21 – Also now available.

Oliphant Brewing

  • James and the Giant Beech – An imperial sour ale with oranges, pineapple, coconut, molasses, lactose, and vanilla. 8% ABV.
  • Zozo Gungun – A 10% ABV imperial hazy-style IPA made with both Cryo Mosaic and Wakatu hops.

Pryes Brewing Co.

  • Lime Hard Seltzer – On tap at the brewery as of last weekend.

Tin Whiskers Brewing Company

  • Look How Long My Arms Are – A new hazy IPA, available today. The artwork looks familiar somehow.

Toppling Goliath Brewing Co.

  • Fresh Batch: S’mores – A pastry stout with notes of toasted marshmallow, milk chocolate, and graham crackers.
  • Pseudo Seltzer – A line of 4.5% ABV, 90 calorie hard seltzers, available in mango and strawberry flavors.

Urban Growler Brewing Company

  • Vanilla Latte Blonde Ale – A fall seasonal blonde ale infused with vanilla and espresso with subtle sweetness. 5.6% ABV, 15 IBU.

Waldmann Brewery

  • Dunkel

Wild Mind Ales

  • Fruit Soup: Blackberry Raspberry Peach – A fruited smoothie sour with a 6% ABV Berliner base.
  • Ideal – Served from a side pull faucet, this German-style Pils is back on tap now. 5% ABV.
  • Obscura: Blackberry – A foeder-aged sour age with blackberry, plums, sea salt, buckwheat and honey. 7.9% ABV.

Wooden Hill Brewing Company

  • OKTBRFest – The 5.9% ABV festbier is a lager brewed with dark Munich malt with bready and caramel flavors.

 

Have a new beer we should know about? Send the details to newbeer@beerdabbler.com for inclusion in Freshies.