Welcome to Monday, friends. I can say with certain authority that it is definitely a Monday.
All Monday-ness of today aside, it was a beer-filled weekend for this zombie.
That’s right! I ventured out into Minneapolis with three great friends for the country’s largest (and first) Zombie Pub Crawl. This ain’t no freshman pub crawl. This is a balls to the walls crawl, filled with 30,000 of your best zombie friends. Sublime played a main stage show. So did A Flock of Seagulls (and many other local acts, including Solid Gold and an array of local hip-hop). I happened to miss both of these, but nevertheless, a great time was had. There was even a ferris wheel offering free rides to zombies all night long in the family-friendly Quarantine Zone.
We started our night out at the Republic – home to the sour/wild beer festival we had attended the previous weekend. Along with our quick appetizer, we had our first round. My selection was Sweet Yamma Jamma. This is your non-traditional “pumpkin” beer, which was actually made with yams and pumpkin spices such as clove and all spice. I’m a big fan of the seasonal pumpkin beer, and this blew most out of the water in my opinion. It was spicy and sweet without being over-brazenly PUMPKIN flavored. It tasted like a crisp fall afternoon, and I am already on the lookout for a six pack or two for Thanksgiving this year. It was yammy gold!
Moving on to Town Hall, a local bar that brew much of their own beer, we tried our hand at August Schell’s BRAIN BELT. It should be made clear that it really is just Grain Belt in a fancy, zombie-covered can… But if you ask me, this just made it all the more special. What is to be said about Brain Belt? It’s your classic anyone-will-like-this beer that you can bring to any frat party or garage beer-pong game. Easy enough to drink with enough flavor to not be that watery urine beer. We had to have one to say we did.
I also sampled Duchesse De Bourgogne by Brouwerij Verhaeghe in Belgium – a sour beer on tap at Town Hall that poured a deep, deep burgundy. The beer itself was named after Mary of Burgundy and was quite the tasty Flanders style Red Ale. It was quite heady and fragrant, reminding me of the smell of a good, rich cherry Cavendish. That dark Bing cherry flavor was very prominent, and the tobacco-like flavor hit lightly at the finish of the beer. I really enjoyed this one, and I might have drank it far too fast. It was cool and smooth and just what this zombie needed.
Moving on to Maxwell’s, I ordered up a Hop Dish by Lift Bridge Brewing in Stillwater, understanding this may mean certain death for me. Little known fact about Kat: as much as I love beer, I have a bit of a hop allergy akin to hay fever. Thankfully it isn’t the itchy, rashy kind of allergy, so I just pain through it in the name of good beer. This beer was exactly as advertised. HOP FORWARD doesn’t even begin to touch it. It was brewed with SEVEN (count them, SEVEN!) different kinds of hops to give it that crazy hoppy flavor. Strangely enough, there was a sweet taste of something like fresh King’s Hawaiian Rolls at the finish. It was like a punch in the mouth… followed by kiss on the cheek. I’m picky about my IPAs, and this one gets a great rating from me.
We zombie walked our way over to Grumpy’s where I ordered up another Minnesota beer – Surly Hell. My first taste of Surly Hell was at the Saint Paul Summer Beerfest two or three years ago, and I’ve loved this one ever since. It is a lager style beer, unfiltered and incredibly drinkable. I’ve never had Hell (which is named for being a very light in color beer – “hell” in German means “light”) on tap before, and this was a pleasant surprise. It was heady and yeasty, reminding me of fresh homemade breads with a very mild and palatable finish. I always forget just how much I like this beer when I’m out on a beer run.
I ended my night at the Eagle bar, dancing like a drunk zombie. Probably because I was a drunk zombie. Some things are easy to explain. I had a Leinenkugel’s Original on tap. Nothing special. Another easy beer to tote to the cabin and enjoy while floating in the water, brewed by our Wisconsin neighbors in Chippewa Falls.
To end the evening, as if it weren’t great enough, we found ourselves a Michonne. Fitting that the Zombie Pub Crawl was the day before the Walking Dead Season 4 Premiere!
It was a great night, although it would have been nice to have more people actually playing the role of zombie, rather than just walking around like people dressed up like zombies. A few years back, most people actually lumbered along in that telltale ‘zombie shuffle’ grunting and groaning for brains. Ah, those were the days…
All Monday-ness of today aside, it was a beer-filled weekend for this zombie.
That’s right! I ventured out into Minneapolis with three great friends for the country’s largest (and first) Zombie Pub Crawl. This ain’t no freshman pub crawl. This is a balls to the walls crawl, filled with 30,000 of your best zombie friends. Sublime played a main stage show. So did A Flock of Seagulls (and many other local acts, including Solid Gold and an array of local hip-hop). I happened to miss both of these, but nevertheless, a great time was had. There was even a ferris wheel offering free rides to zombies all night long in the family-friendly Quarantine Zone.
We started our night out at the Republic – home to the sour/wild beer festival we had attended the previous weekend. Along with our quick appetizer, we had our first round. My selection was Sweet Yamma Jamma. This is your non-traditional “pumpkin” beer, which was actually made with yams and pumpkin spices such as clove and all spice. I’m a big fan of the seasonal pumpkin beer, and this blew most out of the water in my opinion. It was spicy and sweet without being over-brazenly PUMPKIN flavored. It tasted like a crisp fall afternoon, and I am already on the lookout for a six pack or two for Thanksgiving this year. It was yammy gold!
Moving on to Town Hall, a local bar that brew much of their own beer, we tried our hand at August Schell’s BRAIN BELT. It should be made clear that it really is just Grain Belt in a fancy, zombie-covered can… But if you ask me, this just made it all the more special. What is to be said about Brain Belt? It’s your classic anyone-will-like-this beer that you can bring to any frat party or garage beer-pong game. Easy enough to drink with enough flavor to not be that watery urine beer. We had to have one to say we did.
I also sampled Duchesse De Bourgogne by Brouwerij Verhaeghe in Belgium – a sour beer on tap at Town Hall that poured a deep, deep burgundy. The beer itself was named after Mary of Burgundy and was quite the tasty Flanders style Red Ale. It was quite heady and fragrant, reminding me of the smell of a good, rich cherry Cavendish. That dark Bing cherry flavor was very prominent, and the tobacco-like flavor hit lightly at the finish of the beer. I really enjoyed this one, and I might have drank it far too fast. It was cool and smooth and just what this zombie needed.
Moving on to Maxwell’s, I ordered up a Hop Dish by Lift Bridge Brewing in Stillwater, understanding this may mean certain death for me. Little known fact about Kat: as much as I love beer, I have a bit of a hop allergy akin to hay fever. Thankfully it isn’t the itchy, rashy kind of allergy, so I just pain through it in the name of good beer. This beer was exactly as advertised. HOP FORWARD doesn’t even begin to touch it. It was brewed with SEVEN (count them, SEVEN!) different kinds of hops to give it that crazy hoppy flavor. Strangely enough, there was a sweet taste of something like fresh King’s Hawaiian Rolls at the finish. It was like a punch in the mouth… followed by kiss on the cheek. I’m picky about my IPAs, and this one gets a great rating from me.
We zombie walked our way over to Grumpy’s where I ordered up another Minnesota beer – Surly Hell. My first taste of Surly Hell was at the Saint Paul Summer Beerfest two or three years ago, and I’ve loved this one ever since. It is a lager style beer, unfiltered and incredibly drinkable. I’ve never had Hell (which is named for being a very light in color beer – “hell” in German means “light”) on tap before, and this was a pleasant surprise. It was heady and yeasty, reminding me of fresh homemade breads with a very mild and palatable finish. I always forget just how much I like this beer when I’m out on a beer run.
I ended my night at the Eagle bar, dancing like a drunk zombie. Probably because I was a drunk zombie. Some things are easy to explain. I had a Leinenkugel’s Original on tap. Nothing special. Another easy beer to tote to the cabin and enjoy while floating in the water, brewed by our Wisconsin neighbors in Chippewa Falls.
To end the evening, as if it weren’t great enough, we found ourselves a Michonne. Fitting that the Zombie Pub Crawl was the day before the Walking Dead Season 4 Premiere!
It was a great night, although it would have been nice to have more people actually playing the role of zombie, rather than just walking around like people dressed up like zombies. A few years back, most people actually lumbered along in that telltale ‘zombie shuffle’ grunting and groaning for brains. Ah, those were the days…
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