Minnesota Breweries One by One #11: Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub, Minneapolis, with Snownami

When I started this up, I said that I would do one brewery a week. Well, that's not enough if I intend to get to all Minnesota breweries in the year 2016. So, I claimed that I would try to do 2 per week, or 8 in a month. 8 X 12 = 96, still not the full number of breweries in the state. But if that's the low end of my bar, well, I'm getting there, right? So, how's it worked out so far?

We will begin counting with the first full week of January, from sun.1/3 to sat, 1/9. Thursday, 1/7 was #1, my visit,( not the first, not the last) to Sisyphus Brewing. Week#2, Sunday, 1/10, and brewery #2 is Harriet Brewing Company. Week #3, Sunday, 1/17, LynLake Brewery, plus Surly, #4, on Wednesday, 1/20. Week #4, on Monday the 25 of January, #5, Fair State. And on Wednesday the 27th, #6, Day Block, still on week 4. We began week #5 on the 31st of January with #s 7-10.

So, 10 breweries in the first 5 weeks of the year. Still hitting 2 per week. The rest of the week, nothing. And I finally hit #11 on February 10th, on week 6, with a stop at Northbound Smokehouse & Brewpub, in south Minneapolis.

There are sixteen entries in the this blog tagged for Northbound, four of them from before I was employed there. Careful readers of this blog may remember that I spent 3 months and two weeks of my life, much less than I intended, working for this brewpub. It was the move I made to get out of my job of 15 and 1/2 years, Blue Nile Restaurant & Lounge. If I had the gift of foresight, and knew how things were to work out there, maybe I would have looked for some other job better suited to me, where the GM wasn't so insane. (She's gone now.) After that unpleasantness, this brewery was low on my radar for awhile.

Because of that, I haven't been hip to the new releases. Only recently, I heard that the third in the "snow series", after Snowpocalypse, and Snowmaggedon, the raspberry Imperial Stout called Snownami, had been released. Why not stop by and get some, then cross them off the list? So I took a bus to the transit station, got on a light rail from Lake and Hiawatha to the 38th St. Station and hoofed it down the road to 28th Avenue. Looked around a bit, and finally found a seat. Same regulars that I remember filling the stools. Exactly the same awesome bartenders working. Mostly the same incredible servers working the floor. The thing that made this place work had been the staff, and I am glad they are still happily at their tasks and providing great service.

I was informed by Krissy that there was not just Snownami, but also Espresso Snownami, and I got one just in time. The keg emptied just after I got mine. It was lovely stuff, rich coffee flavor, dark cherry and chocolate tones all over the raspberry imperial stout flavors just bursting out of the glass. Full-bodied, full-flavored, rich, roast-y, plump with coffee and utterly delicious. I didn't take notes, this is just popping out of my memory. I might have taken notes if I knew that I couldn't take home a 750 ml growleretterino of the regular Snownami, ...but I could, so I did.

Now, for those notes....Snownami, Double Chocolate Raspberry Stout, 8.2% ABV, 37 IBUs.

This is a 2018 edition Snownami on display.
I've omitted the inferior 2016 photograph.

Utter blackness. Cocoa-tinged head, starts huge, drifts down, leaving lace.

Raspberries pop out of the nose. A little sweet, a little tart. Nice and fruity. Chocolate flavors hang just below.

In the mouth: bigger, raspberry-er, sweet-er. Some tannin-y textures coming through on the palate. Rich and full-bodied, but not quite as complex as I'd like.
I find this listed as a milk/sweet stout on BeerAdvocate. The 8.5% had me pegging it as an Imperial Stout, but none of the depth of flavors we'd expect from one of those is here. Of course not, but it's what I keep wanting.
Here's what the website says: Our most anticipated beer. This won a silver medal in the World Beer Cup 2014 for a reason. A Double Chocolate Raspberry Stout that uses cocoa nibs, Belgian Chocolate, and raspberries to create a rich and robust stout with enough sweetness to make you savor every sip.

My thoughts on Northbound?
They're making good beers that the neighborhood loves. Getting some awards, and beer geek attention, too. Under the new regime, the menu looks better, (though I didn't eat this time), and I like the new website, too. (No more Amy lying about having been manager at Stub & Herb's.)
As long as the locals love it in the numbers that they do, this place will be a good spot for good beer for quite a while.  Every neighborhood bar / brewpub should have it so good.