Slightly OT: Beer at TCF

Donate To GopherHole
T

Too Long in the Wasteland

Member
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
890
Reaction score
0
Points
16
The latest City Pages has a hilarious article critiquing which tallboy should be the official state beer. The best review of PBR I've ever read. Since several of these brands are sold at TCF I thought it might interest this board (plus a few of us do like beer).

Quantity over Quality

Personally, I like the Nordeast, although they make a valid point about the Packers colors.

On a related note, I went with a friend to the Gopher hockey game Friday night. Great time and even better outcome. A few notes:

  1. Great student section. The student section at TCF could learn a few things from these guys
  2. One thing they did that was hilarious was holding up a big poster of the LBJ. Awesome!
  3. My friend asked me if they can sell beer at TCF, why not at hockey games?
  4. We rode the light rail to the game, and stopped at Surly for a couple of beers beforehand. The place was packed (2+ hour wait to be seated). It'll be interesting to see how crowded that place is before a game at TCF. If the B-dubs is any indication, the answer will be very.
 


Time for them to swap out the Nordeast's green for a special Gopher Gameday edition can with Maroon!
 

Too Long in the Wasteland said:
The latest City Pages has a hilarious article critiquing which tallboy should be the official state beer. The best review of PBR I've ever read. Since several of these brands are sold at TCF I thought it might interest this board (plus a few of us do like beer).

Quantity over Quality

Personally, I like the Nordeast, although they make a valid point about the Packers colors.

On a related note, I went with a friend to the Gopher hockey game Friday night. Great time and even better outcome. A few notes:

  1. Great student section. The student section at TCF could learn a few things from these guys
  2. One thing they did that was hilarious was holding up a big poster of the LBJ. Awesome!
  3. My friend asked me if they can sell beer at TCF, why not at hockey games?
  4. We rode the light rail to the game, and stopped at Surly for a couple of beers beforehand. The place was packed (2+ hour wait to be seated). It'll be interesting to see how crowded that place is before a game at TCF. If the B-dubs is any indication, the answer will be very.
Click to expand...

Surly does have a very large beer garden outside of the actual brewery. They haven't opened it up yet, but my guess is if they support Gopher Gameday, they will open that glass wall and have corn hole games and music playing (much like their original taproom). That should help with the crowd. The only concern I have with Surly is they need to figure out their Point of Sale problem. One spot at the bar to buy a beer and that line is easily a 45 minute wait if the beer hall is full.

They are still going through some growing pains, but they will figure them out. Heck, the last time I was there they were still flavor matching their flagship beers, and the only production brew to leave the place was Abrasive. Awesome place, though! Need more Surly at TCF
 

You'd think with Surleys being so close to campus, they would come up with a Gopher brew of some sort. Maybe we could help them come up with a name.
 


Firejumper said:
You'd think with Surleys being so close to campus, they would come up with a Gopher brew of some sort. Maybe we could help them come up with a name.
Click to expand...

It'd be a fantastic idea on their part, though something tells me that they won't need to as they'll have no problem packing the house.

Pour Decisions Brewing (now merged with Bent Brewstillery) used to make a "Maroon and Bold" IPA that was pretty solid. I love the name, so maybe Surly could ask pretty-please and revive it.

Back on the off-topic topic, I'm not sure you could argue for any other pounder to be more Minnesotan than Grain Belt.
 


OP, beer discussions are NEVER slightly OT!
 

Not a huge Grain Belt fan. Really like Surlys.....but their beer is a little more potent than I would expect TCF to offer. Hope that I'm wrong.
 



Gopher Bandanna Guy said:
Time for them to swap out the Nordeast's green for a special Gopher Gameday edition can with Maroon!
Click to expand...

Last year GB did a special "Brain Belt" edition for that zombie pub crawl. It was actually pretty clever, assuming you like the undead festooning your silo. So they probably could do a special gopher edition. I would certainly be more likely to hoist a Primo if the can had "Better Dead than Red" in a 36 point font when we're playing the Vadgers this fall.

Drummer - I agree with you that Surly still has some kinks to work out. The waits weren't more than 5 minutes in the tap line on Friday, but I've heard horror stories. It probably will improve once they get the patio open. It would be nice if they ran a shuttle down to the game, but as someone pointed out, if they're packing the place regardless, why would they need to? The light rail worked out well for us, other than Surly's brewhaus is almost perfectly halfway between the Westgate and Prospect Park stations.

Dr. Don - I stand corrected
 

Firejumper said:
You'd think with Surleys being so close to campus, they would come up with a Gopher brew of some sort. Maybe we could help them come up with a name.
Click to expand...

Was at Surly Sunday, they have no interest in sports or participating in a gopher Saturday extravaganza. As the manager told me, "we are not a sports bar"

I asked if they would do porta Tv's just for game day....nope.
 

gopherjay said:
Was at Surly Sunday, they have no interest in sports or participating in a gopher Saturday extravaganza. As the manager told me, "we are not a sports bar"

I asked if they would do porta Tv's just for game day....nope.
Click to expand...

That is pretty stupid.
 

You can keep Surly. Hipster doofus staple, along with a flannel shirt, fedora, food with bacon added and any type of facial hair. Long live Brain Melt!
 



Nordeast for me.

I spent a day there last season selling beer (for my daughter's softball fundraiser), and by my unofficial reckoning Grain Belt was the most popular.
 

gopherjay said:
Was at Surly Sunday, they have no interest in sports or participating in a gopher Saturday extravaganza. As the manager told me, "we are not a sports bar"

I asked if they would do porta Tv's just for game day....nope.
Click to expand...

Wow - that's too bad. Maybe when the novelty of their new diggs wears off, they'll reconsider.
 


Surly isn't going to do anything to draw Vikes fans over on Sundays in the fall? B.S.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
Surly isn't going to do anything to draw Vikes fans over on Sundays in the fall? B.S.
Click to expand...

They're going to make really good beer. It's seemed to work for them so far. The place is packed pretty much constantly. Why would they need to do anything special on gamedays?
 

MinneStoa said:
They're going to make really good beer. It's seemed to work for them so far. The place is packed pretty much constantly. Why would they need to do anything special on gamedays?
Click to expand...

Maybe they could do something special on gamedays as community outreach, in return for the millions of $$ environmental cleanup grants and govt. loans it received to build. Just saying let's see what happens.
 

Surly built their destination brewery to be just that - a destination. They want it to be a place people consider visiting when they make a trip to the Twin Cities along with seeing the other sights. A sports bar is not their identity. They want their patrons to be connected to their beer and enjoy food that pairs really well with it.

The whole point of their location is that you can utilize mass transit to get to either Minneapolis or St. Paul. That could include Gopher fans on their way to the game. Right now, they don't even open until 11AM. It'll be interesting to see if they change that for Gamedays. I wouldn't expect giant TVs though.
 


You must log in or register to reply here.



Top Bottom