Where There's Smoke, There's Lager (PLUS BOOKS & GAMES)

Upcoming events:

Unlike Adrien Brody giving an Oscar speech, we’ll be respectful of your time and gracefully excuse ourselves once the music stops playing. Surely you have other things on your plate. Maybe even another blog to read. Hey, we don’t judge! What I’m saying is you’re busy, so we’ll keep things short and to the point.
And the point is that you need to clear your schedule immediately because Books & Brews is happening today, March 5!! Until 7 p.m., be sure to come by the brewery to visit this bi-annual pop-up bookshop, courtesy of our good friends at Wildflower Bookshop! Learn a bit about history. Get lost in a novel. Find thoughtful elegance in a poem. Get frustrated with the next Do-It-Yourself book. And do it all with a beer in hand. 
If you find yourself reading this on Thursday and are looking to do something with your open schedule because, let’s face it, life is boring and we’re always looking for ways to fill our time and the void in our lives, you could always swing by for our brewery open house on Saturday, March 8! That’s right, it’s once again International Women’s Day, which means it’s time again for the women’s day brew. Andy will be taking a backseat from the brewing (which is convenient since it’s his birthday and all) and Tasha will be leading the annual brewing of Siduri’s Garden saison. Come by and help! Come by and see what’s happening! Come by and have a cup of coffee and ask what a saison is. Seriously, it’s an open house, so the only thing you have to do is come on by! And then in a few weeks, we’ll have some more Siduri’s Garden for everyone, thanks to you. 
And then on Sunday, it’s the monthly return of Board Games and Records! You know the drill for that one by now: bring us your vinyl records and your gaming crew and conquer the world… unless Yahtzee is more your jam, of course. Or if just watching is more your jam, maybe come back next Thursday, March 13, for the next installment of Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW! Jeopardy! edition!! (Sorry for all the exclamation points.) It’s one of the most beloved game shows in television history, and now it’s gonna come to the Klockow stage. Ditty Wish is assembling the contestants, so all you need to do is pull up a beer and be amazed at what the players know… or laugh at them for being so uninformed. Either way, that’s some good entertainment. 
And I think the music has been playing for awhile now. Ugh, fine. We’ll be on our way now, just so long as we see you later! Just tell your bartender Brody sent you. 

OK, What Is That?
It’s not very common that you see the term “rauchbier” on a menu. Slightly more common, you’ll see “smoked beer,” which is literally just the English translation of the German rauchbier. Regardless of how common they are in the world, you do see them in our taproom, attached to our Lundr’s Lager. And now we’re gonna say a few words about it.
It should be first said that prior to the advent of the drum kiln for the drying of malted grains, germinating barley and wheat and rye was dried over an open flame. And anyone who has been to a campfire is probably quite familiar with the byproduct of wood flames: smoke. So for centuries, functionally every beer was a smoked beer. The problem with that is that not all smoke tastes good. If you’re in England where they have a lot of coal, you’re going to end up with beers that have an awful sooty flavor. Even a lot of different wood out there isn’t going to bring the kind of flavors that brewers are looking for. So for most of the brewing world, the drum kiln was a godsend and they never looked back to the old ways of smoke curing their malts. 

Except for in Bamberg, Germany. Brewers there not only stuck with the old ways, they sought to make them better. And in time, rauchbier became synonymous with Bamberg, the way Altbiers are synonymous with Düsseldorf and Kölschs are with Cologne and Märzens are with Oktoberfest in Munich. So if you stop into a beer hall in Bamberg and simply ask for a beer, expect a rauchbier to come your way.
In all other ways, they’re a fairly traditional and common German-style lager. They have an amber color and a crisp finish. 5ish percent alcohol. Middling sweetness. Yeah, they’re great! But they are indeed smoky, so if you have an aversion to that flavor, be warned. But even if you do, it’s still worth a taste. Maybe you had no idea how much you liked the flavor? That’s what craft brewers are for, after all! To give you new things to try.
So if you’re curious about a traditional-style rauchbier, come to our taproom and ask for a Lundr’s Lager. This beech wood smoked bad boy is one for the books!

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc -

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Bottles & Brews - Grand Rapids

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Rocket’s - Cohasset

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • NoPo Coffee - Grand Rapids

  • 38 Outpost - Grand Rapids

  • Mark’s Bar - McGregor

  • Willey’s Sports Shop & Spirits - McGregor

Duluth, etc. -

  • Dovetail Cafe - Duluth

  • 7 West - Superior

  • 27 Liquors - Duluth

  • SuperOne Liquor - West Duluth

  • SuperOne Liquor - Pike Lake

  • Sir Benedict’s Tavern - Duluth

I Sure As Heckfire Remember What's Coming Up. Sauna and Song? Bing!

Upcoming events:

Groundhogs Day was earlier this month, but the last week or so has made me think of the scene in the movie of the same name where Phil is giving his report for the umpteenth time — tired, depressed, and ornery — saying of the weather, “It’s gonna be cold. It’s gonna be grey. And it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.”
Eventually, tomorrow DID in fact come (“What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today!”), and the sun came out and Phil got the girl. Our version of that, though, will have to be our Mobile Sauna Residency with Stonegrove Saunas, at least until spring actually comes. We had a nice start to the residency last Thursday, so make sure to make it here tomorrow, Feb. 20, especially since they won’t be back until March 13. Thank you, Stonegrove, for bringing a little extra warmth into our lives this winter!

Fun fact, Groundhog Day was adapted into a musical in 2016. I say this by means of a segue to talk about our monthly Open Mic with Ditty Wish, this Sunday, Feb. 23! Starting at noon and going until 4 p.m., we’re always impressed by the people that come out, the monthly regulars as well as the new. Not sure if we’ve ever had someone get up and sing Broadway tunes, but we have had someone do an impressive version of “A Whole New World” from Aladdin, where he sang both parts! Though we’re still waiting to see someone do a whistling bellybutton trick. 
Be sure also, you musical campers, to stick around after open mic for our monthly Klockow Bar Sing! In the age where you can have any kind of entertainment at any time, it’s good to think back every now and then to when the only music at a bar would have been you and your friends singing a drinking song. So that’s what we’re gonna do, this Sunday, starting at 4 p.m. BING!

I Got You Babe…
Groundhogs Day was earlier this month, but the last week or so has made me think of the scene in the movie of the same name where Phil is giving his report for the umpteenth time — tired, depressed, and ornery — saying of the weather, “It’s gonna be cold. It’s gonna be grey. And it’s gonna last you for the rest of your life.”
Eventually, tomorrow DID in fact come (“What if there is no tomorrow? There wasn’t one today!”), and the sun came out and Phil got the girl. Our version of that, though, will have to be our Mobile Sauna Residency with Stonegrove Saunas, at least until spring actually comes. We had a nice start to the residency last Thursday, so make sure to make it here tomorrow, Feb. 20, especially since they won’t be back until March 13. Thank you, Stonegrove, for bringing a little extra warmth into our lives this winter!

Still from Groundhog Day, staring Bill Murray

Fun fact, Groundhog Day was adapted into a musical in 2016. I say this by means of a segue to talk about our monthly Open Mic with Ditty Wish, this Sunday, Feb. 23! Starting at noon and going until 4 p.m., we’re always impressed by the people that come out, the monthly regulars as well as the new. Not sure if we’ve ever had someone get up and sing Broadway tunes, but we have had someone do an impressive version of “A Whole New World” from Aladdin, where he sang both parts! Though we’re still waiting to see someone do a whistling bellybutton trick. 
Be sure also, you musical campers, to stick around after open mic for our monthly Klockow Bar Sing! In the age where you can have any kind of entertainment at any time, it’s good to think back every now and then to when the only music at a bar would have been you and your friends singing a drinking song. So that’s what we’re gonna do, this Sunday, starting at 4 p.m. BING!

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc -

  • Hotel Rapids - Grand Rapids

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Locker Room - Coleraine

  • Hollywood Bait - Bovey

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • Blackberry Junction - Blackberry

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

Further & further south, etc. -

  • SuperOne Liquor - Crosby

  • Scandia Olde Towne Liquor - Scandia

  • Dorset Corner Off Sale Liquor - Park Rapids

  • Ombibulous - Minneapolis

So You Think You Know What An IPA Is, and Other Games & Stories

Upcoming events:

How about that game! We’d like to congratulate the winner of the Super Bowl, the clear victor with so much post-game interest and attraction, Mr. Kendrick Lamar! Yes, the spirit of competition lives on. Young man has a bright future ahead of him.
Closer to home, we have our own competitions we’re interested in, namely So You Think You’re Smarter Than Your Bartender and Third Tuesday Trivia! Tomorrow, my friends, Ditty Wish will be pitting various contestants against two of our most esteemed bartenders to see who comes out on top: the general public or that friendly face behind the bar. Much like the game’s television predecessor, the bartenders will have an advantage with potentially knowing more about the categories, whereas the public’s advantage will be strength in numbers. Be here, in the Klockow taproom, Thursday, Feb. 13, to see who gets crushed into their beer!
Once that’s over, for everyone who would rather get in on the action rather than watch contestants in a game show, Third Tuesday Trivia continues next week on Feb. 18! Though we had fun doing things auction style (it’s much more action oriented, as you can imagine), we’re going to change the structure so that the game is more fair to the less tenacious. Answers will from now on be written out, so don’t worry if you’re not the first to wave your paddle. Just worry whether or not you have a well-rounded trivia team! 
Though, we have to admit, one of the things we’re most excited about is already sitting in our parking lot. Stonegrove Saunas will be beginning their residency at Klockow Brewing on Thursday, Feb. 13, from 4 to 7 p.m., and returning next week at the same time! This will be one of the best times to have a sauna too, because it’s freezing ass cold out this week! If you’ve never experienced negative temps while taking a break from the sauna, you’re in for a treat. How often can you stand bare skin to such conditions and have it feel good?? 
Walk-ins are welcome if space is available, otherwise be sure to save a seat for yourself on their website. It’ll be good for your health. As the Finnish say, if a sauna can’t cure it, it’s fatal. 
Speaking of health, good or bad, that is the theme for this month’s Storyteller Sunday, coming up this weekend on Feb. 16, at 2 p.m. The more we think about it, this theme could yield any number of different stories… might we hear about someone’s battle with cancer? Or maybe someone training for their first marathon? It’s more than possible someone could share a story about how they finally quit smoking. I know my first thought when posed with the topic of health was a story about the lack thereof, but there’s no reason for that! Hell, even being in love is good for your health, so maybe we’ll get a Valentine’s story or two as well. 

Ok, What Is That?
We addressed the hoppy elephant in the room last week, but what about the whole herd? That’s right, we’re talking the big hop head this week: The IPA. 
For better or for worse, the IPA has become a symbol for the craft beer movement over the past two decades. Indeed, we often get people in the taproom, new to breweries, in whose eyes we can see the trepidation in even being there, telling us that they don’t want an IPA and knowing in their heart of hearts that they just committed the cardinal sin of microbrewery etiquette! For every craft beer is an IPA!! 
Of course, that’s not exactly true, though they are crazy popular and every — and I do mean EVERY — craft brewery has at least one IPA. So these newbies aren’t entirely wrong in their estimation. But we’re getting off track. 
What IS an IPA?

For starters, the acronym stands for India Pale Ale. Secondly, it originated in England, and so begins our story: Imperial jolly olde England had a little problem with shipping their popular pale ales via sail ship from Great Britain to India. Much of the time, the beer went bad without any type of modern stainless steel kegs, let alone proper refrigeration. What’s an empire to do? One fairly obvious option was more preservatives. And wouldn’t you know it, but it happens to be that hops, in addition to being a flavor adjunct, are a preservative! So a practical solution to a logistics problem turned into an epicurean revolution! Turns out the people had a taste for these bitter buds! 
This is the story that many a craft beer snob has told over the decades to the perceived neophytes at the bar. And… it’s surprisingly accurate. Without getting bogged down in boring details about the East India Company and Napoleon’s blockade, as well as tangents like the fact that porters were also quite good at being shipped long distances, the story is short, sweet, and pretty spot on. 
Despite its long history, it wasn’t until the recent craft beer boom in the U.S. that the IPA became the powerhouse in world beer that it is today. And why, you might ask? Perhaps because it is the flavor antithesis to the light lager. Maybe coffee-swilling Americans have that much more of a passion for bitter drinks. Maybe one of the gods got sucked into a bet, story of Job style, and now we all have these hop-bombs packed onto our liquor store shelves. Regardless of why, they’re here to stay, and they’re proliferating. Now we have West Coast IPAs (classic American style), Imperial IPAs (higher alcohol and hops), Hazy IPAs (unfiltered and more citrusy), and Session IPAs (lower alcohol but still very hop forward). And this is to say nothing of the styles that have come and gone from popularity, like the Black IPA (darker malt but still hoppy) or the Milkshake IPA (be thankful that you don’t know). 
Maybe this is why so many people think that all craft beer are IPAs! There’s certainly a lot of them.

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc -

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • Boulder Taphouse - Grand Rapids

  • Pickled Loon - Grand Rapids

  • Zorbaz on the Lake - Grand Rapids

  • NoPo Coffee - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke On the Water - Coleraine

  • Bear Ridge Pizza - Cohasset

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

St. Cloud, etc -

  • Westside Liquor - Waite Park

  • Westside Liquor - Sartell

  • Westside Liquor - Little Falls

Westworld, etc -

  • First City Liquor - Bemidji

  • Bemidji Curling Club - Bemidji

  • Happy Tree - Emily

  • Remer Municipal Liquor Store - Remer

  • SuperOne Liquor - Crosby

  • SuperOne Liquor - Baxter

  • Beehive Offsale Liquor - Bemidji

International Falls, etc -

  • Bootleggers Liquor - International Falls

  • The Rocky Ledge - Kabetogama

Shall We "Hop" in the Sauna? And Other Questions

Upcoming events:

Ever get that feeling that you’re just spinning in circles, not really going anywhere? We here at Klockow Brewing Company get you. We understand. How, you may ask? I’d like to think that as makers and sellers of beer, we’ve heard enough stories from people across the bar that we could be certified therapists, all of us. 
Our advice — embrace it. Hell, it’s still the middle of winter and our bodies are doing their best to tell us to slow down and conserve energy lest we freeze, so if there were ever a time to embrace this mentality, it’s right now. 
This doesn’t mean it has to be depressing or otherwise not stimulating. Heavens to Betsy no! Case in point, our Beer & BS event this past Sunday, where we all learned a bit about how a play is produced; from funding, to casting, to set design, to script rights, etc. A big thank you to John Schroeder for taking the time to talk about the process with us in the midst of his latest production, Murder on the Orient Express. Which, by the way, be sure to check it out! Opens Friday, Feb. 21. 

John Schroeder talking about the process of directing Murder on the Orient Express.

Looking ahead, you could simply come in and enjoy a beer. Or if you want a bit more to think about, order the Poirot; our offering for the Orient Express Passeport: A Spirited Itinerary. It’s a Belgian Tripel with a mystery snit, and we challenge you to solve the mystery of what’s in the glass. Only about a third of people who have ordered it have successfully named their mystery beer, so it’s harder than you might think! 
If games are your jam, this is your reminder that this Sunday is once again Board Games & Records Day! Sure, you could just sit and enjoy your tasty beverage, but it would be all the more enjoyable if you were sitting around a table with friends and your favorite board game while your fellow drinkers help with DJing responsibilities. All you need to do is show up with games and records, and we’ll do all the rest. 
This all sounds great, like they’re the kind of days one could look forward to. But maybe you genuinely just want to sit back and relax. Like, really, truly, just sit back. Like sauna-levels of kick back. For you, we’ll be starting our Mobile Sauna Residency on Thursday, Feb. 13. We’re partnering with Stonegrove Saunas for a four-week residency in mid-February and mid-March, where they’ll be parking one of their mobile saunas in our lot on Thursdays. See the website for more information as well as to sign up! 
And once you got a solid sweat on, come back inside and enjoy So You Think You’re Smarter Than Your Bartender! Yes, just like those sick days when you were a kid and you stayed home to watch game shows, we have the next installment of Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW on Thursday, Feb. 13, all for your relaxing entertainment pleasure. A variation of So You Think You’re Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, Ditty Wish has assembled contestants to be pitted against Klockow bartenders to see who is smarter on general trivia. Are you smarter? Are we even smart enough to merit a decent show?? All good questions, and we’ll find out the answers next week. 

Ok, What Is That?
Maybe this is you; you’re at a brewery and you ask the bartender to describe a certain beer and they say it’s quite hoppy. So you nod, knowingly, and then ask about the next one. You know this term. You know that it applies to IPAs. But you don’t know what it actually means. This certainly describes some percentage of you out there, because we’ve been asked point blank before this very question. 
So today we’re going to talk about what “hoppy” means.  
One answer I know I’ve given before is just to say “bitter.” It applied to the moment, and the person asking just wanted a short answer before moving on, so I was correct in saying so. But like so many lessons you learn in elementary school, you find out later that it’s much more complicated than that. To keep it from getting too complicated, we’re mostly just going to look at three different hop varietals (out of hundreds) that many people are familiar with: Columbus, Citra, and Mosaic. 
When it comes to curating the flavor of a particular beer, let’s say an IPA for the sake of this conversation, one of the choices a brewer has to make is what the hop profile is going to be. How bitter do they want it? How floral? Any earthy notes? Fruity? These are all questions that different hops can answer, and the reason there are so many different varietals out there. So if a brewer wants to make a really “hop” forward beer, like a classic West Coast Style IPA, Columbus is often the go-to hop for the job. 
“That’s our main bittering hop here,” said Zach Wood, assistant brewer (and self-described janitor) at Klockow Brewing. “It’s a danker hop.”
“Piney, resiny… it’s what people think of when they say ‘hoppy beer,’ whether they like it or not,” added fellow assistant brewer, Russ Alioth.

Russ Alioth stirring a combination of Saaz, Cascade, Centennial, and Willamette full cone hops into our 22 Hop Road Wet Hop Pale Ale.

As was said, “hoppy” can be synonymous with “bitter,” and Columbus is certainly a beautiful example for that quintessential hoppy character. But if hoppy means anything, it has to mean “hop-like.” So we’re just scratching the surface of what these buds actually taste like. 
Citra, as the name suggests, is widely used to bring out bright citrusy notes in a beer. Very common in hazy IPAs, which are characterized as being juicy and fruity, Citra as a hop is known for lemon and orange flavors, as well as floral. 
Alioth described an interesting aspect of Citra, namely that you could use it as a bittering hop if you keep it in the boil for a long time. But it’s not usually done because it evolves into more of a grassy, green onion flavor, as opposed to the more traditional pine flavor. Clearly, it has more value in bringing the brighter, more acidic notes. 
A common pairing with Citra, the peanut butter to its jelly, is Mosaic. 
“I mean, it’s one of my favorites,” said Alioth.
“It seems like an industry standard at this point,” added Wood. 
Stone fruit, melon, berries: these are some of the unique flavors that brewers use Mosaic for. It sneaks in tropical fruit flavors to blend with the other hops and the malts and yeast in order to give a richer flavor. Indeed, all three of the hops mentioned so far are used in our Travelin’ Jack West Coast IPA, which is likely why so many people are fans of its hop profile. 
So what is “hoppiness”? You can easily get through life describing it as the bitter flavor in beer, but it’s also any vegetal notes you might get. And any citrusy notes. And tropical fruit. And grass. And just about anything else that isn’t bready or grainy. And we’ve only been talking about IPAs so far, the quote-unquote hoppy beers. Maybe another time we’ll take a look at the old world noble hops. So yeah, it’s complicated. But also kinda fun to learn about. 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc -

  • Zorbaz on the Lake - Grand Rapids

  • Bear Ridge Pizza - Cohasset

  • Hotel Rapids - Grand Rapids

  • Bottles & Brews - Grand Rapids

  • Locker Room - Coleraine

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Unwined Up North - Grand Rapids

  • NoPo Coffee Co. - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Rocket’s - Cohasset

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • Eagles Club - Grand Rapids

  • The Craft House - McGregor

Duluth, etc. -

  • 27 Liquors - Duluth

  • Wussow’s Concert Cafe - Duluth

  • 7 West - Superior

  • New Scenic Cafe -

  • Boulder Tap House - Superior

  • SuperOne Liquor - Pike Lake

  • SuperOne Liquor - Cloquet

  • Dovetail Cafe & Marketplace - Duluth

  • D.E.C.C. - Duluth

The Next Beer & BS, and What Would Kelly Fight?

Let it never be said that you, the people of the greater Grand Rapids area, don’t have a song in your heart. We learned beyond a shadow of a doubt this past weekend that we’re all a musical lot indeed, what with the turnout to Open Mic with Ditty Wish and the subsequent Klockow Bar Sing!
Btw, we appreciate that no one actually told any dirty jokes on stage for Open Mic, though we’re always thankful for a decent dad joke or two (which we did get). But yeah, gotta love open mic, what with our faithful monthly regulars who always put on a hell of a show, as well as all the new folks. Especially when they perform original folk songs about poop and mortality (let’s just say you had to be there). So we knew full well that the first part of Sunday would be good for a fun crowd, but we were happy to see the amount of people who stuck around for the pseudo-debut of the Klockow Bar Sing! We technically started it last month with a group sing of Christmas carols, but that just kind of feels like something different, you know. Getting together to sing around the holidays is still something people often do. But the rest of the year? Woefully silent, we are. Which is why we’re trying to change that. Lead by Ditty Wish, with the Beer Choir Hymnal as our guide, the bar sing went great! We even got a nice compliment on our taproom vibe. I mean, let’s face it, belting out a song leads to some good feelings.
Be sure to check out the Klockow Bar sing on the last Sunday of February, starting at 4 p.m.!
Though we admit, maybe not every person wants to come to a bar to sing. Maybe you just wanna work out. And we get that. Which is why we’re so pumped to have Kelly Erickson back for Brewery Yoga with Kelly this Saturday, Feb. 1, at 10 a.m. Even if you’ve slacked on your New Years resolution, that’s no reason to give up entirely, so we’ll make sure to have a space ready for you! 

Or maybe, just maybe, you only want to come here to have a drink. Perfect, because we have drinks a-plenty! Not only that, but we’re excited to be partnering with the Grand Rapids Players for their Orient Express Passport: A Spirited Itinerary. With their newest production, Murder on the Orient Express opening on Feb. 21, the play has reached out to area bars and breweries and challenged them to make a custom drink for the play, as well as to have a passport available for anyone who wants to try to hit all six locations for a chance to win a $100 gift card to Wildflower Bookshop! For here at Klockow, come and enjoy The Poirot, a Belgian Tripel with a mystery. That’s right, our drink is named after the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, so to add to the intrigue, in addition to a Billy Bumbler Belgian Tripel, you’ll be given a 5 oz pour of a beer, bartender’s choice, which you will be challenged to name. If you solve the mystery, you’ll win another 5 oz beer, this time of your choice. 

This could be a good thing to order this Sunday for the next installment of Beer & BS! This month, John Schroeder, director of Murder on the Orient Express, will be giving a talk on the different aspects of directing a play, from casting, to set building, to marketing, etc. There’s no business like show business, and we’ll have a seasoned veteran of the stage to come talk about what it’s like to put on a show. For the beer special, John has named Supply Line Hazy IPA as his favorite, so come get a pint that for only $5 all that day. Talk starts at 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 2. 

We Barley Know You, But We Hop to Change That. It’s the Yeast We Can Do: Kelly Erickson
Question: How long have you been a regular here, and/or done yoga here?
Kelly Erickson: I’ve been a regular here at least three and a half years, since I moved here. I’m a transplant. But I knew about Klockow before I moved because Joel, my partner, lived here already. So we’d come to Klockow several times before then. So I don’t want to claim that I was a regular before I moved.
And then we started doing yoga… I dunno. I moved here in May and I want to say I started in October, so within five months. It was that first winter that I was here. So it was pretty quickly.
Q: But it’s been off and on?
KE: Yep, it’s more seasonal, I would say. In the summer, everyone’s busy, so we tend to take the summer off. So we’ll start in the fall and go through maybe May. 
Q: How long have you been teaching yoga?
KE: Since 2016, so about eight years. I started when I was living down in the cities, at Core Power. It’s a chain studio. There’s quite a few of them. But they have a very specific type of deal; it’s a little more intense, it’s in the heat. But I’ve done my own studies through other teachers. Like I’ve studied yin yoga, which is much more passive. If power yoga is on one end of the spectrum, then yin yoga would be on the other because you just lay in one position. But it’s difficult in it’s own right because you have to hold a position for like five minutes. So anyway, I like to try and combine the two to have some more time on your mat but also working into these more intense postures, more flow, where you’re moving a lot more.
Q: What is your favorite Klockow beer? 
KE: I’m a seasonal person. I definitely like to rotate through the beers. I know that Beatrice (Irish Red) is an upcoming one, so I’ll definitely be on the Beatrice train. Spawn (Pilsner) in the spring and summer. So I don’t have one true favorite. 
Q: When you’re not drinking Klockow beer, what do you like to drink? Doesn’t have to be alcohol. 
KE: Joel has gotten me more into whiskey, on the alcohol front. Otherwise I’m more of a pure water kind of person. Just hydrate. I don’t do it enough in general.
Q: Don’t we all! Ok, so whether it’s whiskey or Klockow beer or water, what’s your favorite food that all this stuff could wash down?
KE: Ooh, great question. Um, I predominantly eat plant-based, so I love a good taco bowl or bean burrito. Those are really easy to just throw together. Joel and I have gotten really into curries. We like to try to make things that we can’t get in town. That’s really what we’re after.
Q: That’s always a good way to go about it. 
KE: Yeah, so right now, I’d say a curry with a lot of veggies it. It’s also soup season, so…

Kelly Erickson

Q: What do you do for work?
KE: Also great question. I… it’s gonna be a long answer. I work for Warner Music Group in tech. I design products and tools that people working in the music industry use to do their job. 
Q: What would be a brief example of what that means?
KE: One of the main tools I work on is this dashboard, essentially, where people who work in the music industry — they’re managing releases and different songs for people — it helps them move that song and the data to different streaming services: Spotify, Apple Music. So getting the music out in the world, essentially, and making sure the data is flowing in the right direction, so that in return, the data flows back and people get paid! 
So I helped build that tool and refine it so that it’s easier to use and works as intended. 
Q: We’ve talked about a lot of things you do, but they’re all work. What do you like to do for fun?
KE: Believe it or not, I do like to do yoga for fun. 
Q: That’s a perfectly believable thing!
KE: I have a dog, Ginger, and I’ll take her on walks all the time. So getting outside, get in the woods. Now that we have snow, we finally went skiing yesterday. Looking forward to that. And I like to curl. Big in the curling community here. That’s super fun. Started doing pottery recently in the last year!
Q: Just at the MacRostie?
KE: Yep, they have a studio there, so I took a class there last April and have been hooked ever since. 
Q: I’ve heard it’s a gateway art.
KE: It is, for sure! It’s so mindful! I see a lot of parallels between pottery and yoga, because you get into this flow state where you’re not really thinking about anything else. You’re not thinking about work. You’re not thinking about your to-do list. You’re just like, I’m here. Just doing this thing, with my body or with my hands. 
Q: What would be a fun/interesting fact about yourself that people might not know?
KE: I don’t know if I have an answer. I feel like I’m a pretty open book. I mean, I did say that I’m in the curling community; I am the vice president of the curling club. I’m only in my third year, and I’m already vice president.
Q: You’re a climber!
KE: It wasn’t intentional. I said no several times. Then they asked again and it turned into a yes. 
Q: Last question: would you rather fight 50 chicken-sized donkeys or one donkey-sized chicken? And why?
KE: You know, chickens are related to dinosaurs, so I feel like a donkey-sized chicken is essentially a dinosaur that I’m now fighting. And those have wings. So I feel like I might have more success against the 50 chicken-sized donkeys. Yeah, I think that’s my answer. 
Q: And this doesn’t necessarily have to be with your bare hands. I’m assuming there’s a farm setting, so there’s whatever you might find in the barn too. If that changes anything.
KE: No, I’d keep it the same, because even if I have, like, a pitchfork or — I was going to say something gruesome like a chainsaw — I think I still fair better against the donkeys. Once again, the chicken, they have wings, and they can be pretty ferocious. So I feel like the donkeys… I might be able to manipulate them. I feel like I could manipulate the donkeys easier, like with a treat, than the chicken. 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff


Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc -

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Lake Store - Grand Rapids

  • Itasca Curling Association - Grand Rapids

  • Ron’s Korner Market - Bovey

  • Balsam Store - Bovey

Iron Range, etc. -

  • MJ’s Resort - Pengilly

  • Marge’s Liquor - Eveleth

  • SuperOne Liquor - Hibbing

  • Sawmill Saloon - Virginia

  • SuperOne Foods North - Virginia

  • Silver Creek Liquor - Virginia

  • Crossroads Convenience Store - Iron

Ely, etc. -

  • Ely Liquor - Ely

  • Boathouse Brewery - Ely

Sing Us a Song, You're the Fondue Guy

Theoretically, atoms themselves, the ever-active building blocks of the universe, will cease to move once the temperature hits absolute zero. Not sure why that’s been on my mind recently though. Such mystery. 
But enough of the jumbled musings of a confused quadragenarian, we got stuff to talk about! Namely that we just had a couple fun and successful events the last couple days, and we’re always looking forward to a few more. Especially given the number of people whose cars inevitably wouldn’t start at some point this past weekend, it was great to see the turnout we did for Storyteller Sunday and Third Tuesday Trivia! 
Like always, we had a nice slew of writers take to the stage to tell their stories of transitions in their lives, from moving to retiring to relationships. So if you’re upset that you missed it, and lets face it, you should be, cast your worries aside. Michael Goldberg of KAXE recorded the entire show and will be airing each speaker on Stay Human this weekend. So tune in to 91.7 KAXE on Saturday at 9 a.m. or Sunday at 5 p.m.

Trivia, like always, was a hit as well, and will return on Tuesday, February 18. For the first two months, we worked with the “auction” style of trivia, having people wave their paddles if they know the answer. For as much fun as it is to have more interaction with the game, we’ve spoken with organizers and players alike and will be changing the format in future months to something more traditional. So if you’re an introvert, or otherwise aren’t as quick on the draw as a Jeopardy-style trivia night would require, once again you should cast your fears aside. Third Tuesday Trivia is going to be a bit more accessible in the future. 

Speaking of the future, we’re excited, as always for open mic on the last Sunday of the month! My oh my, where has the time gone? January is nearly over as we reach toward February, the month of love. But January ain’t over yet, so let’s close it out with a bit of song, at least! Ditty Wish will be hosting this monthly event, so bring your guitar, your ukulele, your poems, your castanets, your grand pianos, or even your dirty jokes… we’d love to see what you got! And following open mic, starting at 4 p.m. this Sunday, we’ll be continuing with our monthly Klockow Bar Sing! If you haven’t noticed, it’s not the holiday season anymore, so no Christmas songs this time. We’ll be consulting the Beer Choir Hymnal, vol. 2, for songs going forth, so click here to check them out! Hoist a pint to your lips with a song in your heart with us this Sunday! 

EAT YOUR BEER!
There’s nothing like warming up in the chalet after a day of hitting the pristine slopes of the Swiss alps with a pot of fondue and a glass of 2013… nay, 2010 Dom Perignon. A close second would be getting inside your house in northern Minnesota after failing to jump your car, realizing you’re essentially stuck at home, and making a pot of beer fondue with a can of Travelin’ Jack. And since the later is closer to home, let’s take a minute to learn how to make that delicious beer fondue.
This is something I made after work on Sunday, hunkering down as the bitter cold put us in mind of rich and fatty foods lest we succumb to the weather. To make it, all you need is: 

  • 1 lb. of cheese (see below for options)

  • 1 tablespoon of cornstarch (or all-purpose flour)

  • 8 oz of beer (see below for options)

  • 1 clove of garlic, minced

  • 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

  • 1/2 tablespoon of brown mustard

  • salt and pepper to taste

Before anything else is done, the big decisions you have to make are concerning your beer and your cheese. For beer, I used Angry Arms Cream Ale, but any number golden, non-hoppy ales or lagers would work. Heck, I almost used Lundr’s Smoked Lager, but decided to go Angry Arms last second. For the record, it worked amazingly. As for the cheese, it’s a good idea to do at least two varieties in order to play with the flavor and make it a little more complex. Classic fondue uses gruyere and emmentaler, and both of those are great, but this is beer fondue: use at least one cheddar. Other options could be fontina, Monterey Jack, tomme, raclette, or just another cheddar.

Whatever you decide on, grate all the cheese in a bowl and mix with cornstarch while bringing the beer to a simmer in a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Once simmering, add finely chopped garlic and Worcestershire sauce to beer and cook for a few minutes. 
Bring burner down to medium-low and slowly add cheese one handful at a time into the beer. Stir continuously and add more cheese as it becomes integrated. This should take about 10 minutes. Once all the cheese is mixed into the saucepan, add mustard and salt and pepper, stir, and transfer to fondue pot for serving. If you don’t have a fondue pot, there is zero shame in just dipping your bread chunks/pretzel bites/cured meat/left-over cheese straight into the saucepan. 
It’s quick, it’s easy, you might even have all the ingredients on hand as we speak, and it’s freakin’ delicious. It’s beer fondue. 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc. -

  • Itasca Curling Association - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Grill - Grand Rapids

  • Bottles & Brews Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Eagles Club - Grand Rapids

Westworld, etc. -

  • Brew Ale’s & Eats - Ottertail

  • 1894 - Perham

  • Vergas Liquor Store - Vergas

  • Continental Divide Brew Pub - New York Mills

Southward, Metro, etc. -

  • Northbound Liquor - Cambridge

  • Isanti Municipal Liquor Store

  • Liquor Works - Forest Lake

  • Stinson Wine, Beer, and Spirits - Minneapolis

  • Ombibulous - Minneapolis

  • Surdyk’s Liquor - Minneapolis

  • Top Ten Liquors - Roseville

  • South Lyndale Liquors - Minneapolis

  • Scandia Olde Towne Liquors - Scandia

  • North Country Bottle Shop - Mora

Early 2000s Music References and Smoked Chili is How We Roll

Well, we hope you’re happy. Talking specifically to the skiers and snowmobilers amongst you, for we finally have achieved a good half-foot of snow and therefore are properly situated for a bit of winter recreation! Of course, that’s all thirsty work, so we’re doing our part by having a few cold pints waiting after all your cold play (is that how they got their name? Are they skiers?).
So when you’re done “viva la vida” in the great outdoors, under “a sky full of stars” while dodging the “yellow” snow, come to “my universe” where the beer flows like “magic” (apologies to all non-Coldplay fans. Heck, apologies to everyone). What I’m trying to say is we got some awesome beer, and a few decent reasons to swing by the tap room as well. 
First reason is, well, the taproom is just a nice chill place to hang out with your beer. We’re told this all the time, how people like the cut of our jib. Between that and the wide selection of beer styles, you don’t really need another reason.
But we’ll give you some anyway. Second reason is this Sunday, Jan. 19, is Storyteller Sunday! Starting at 2 p.m., the theme this month is Transitions, where we hope to hear tales on all the ways we’ve made it onto the next chapters of our lives. As per usual, Micheal Goldberg will be on hand to record the speakers, all of whom will be candidates for inclusion on the weekly KAXE show, Stay Human. 

On your average Storyteller Sunday, you can expect a few people with prepared pieces, plus a couple people who take the stage to tell a story off the cuff, usually inspired by previous stories. It’s all open mic this month, so come tell us of a transition in your life.
And yet another reason is Third Tuesday Trivia on Tuesday, Jan. 21! It’s bar trivia, so what more is there to even say?! I suppose I could add that the Trivia Master this month will be from Itasca Indivisible. That we’re once again doing trivia “auction style,” so you best practice being quick with your name paddle! Also that there are five categories, each with three levels per game, but it’ll take wild horses to get the category names out of me. For that, you’ll just have to show up on Tuesday (and because everyone asks, no, the categories don’t necessarily have anything to do with the participating non-profit each month). And furthermore, it should be said that teams can be comprised of up to six people, and the winners of each game get a free round of beer. 

First of two games starts at 6 p.m., so get here early to sign up and be ready to answer obscure questions on life, the universe, and everything.*

EAT YOUR BEER! 
We’re about due to check in with Zach to see how he likes to cook with beer. The dude didn’t disappoint. We’re talking Smoked Chili levels of didn’t disappoint! So without further adieu, here’s Zach Wood’s “Over the Top Chili.” First, the ingredients:

  • 2 lbs beef

  • 1 lb sausage (Zach prefers hot Italian, though breakfast sausage works great, too)

  • 1-3 jalapeños (if you like more heat)

  • 3 medium red onions 

  • 3 tablespoons garlic minced 

  • 5 cans tomatoes with juice (14 oz)

  • 1 can tomato sauce (15 oz)

  • 7oz Chipotles in Adobo sauce

  • 2 cans Lundr’s Lager Smoked Lager (1 for the chili and 1 for you.)

  • 1 can black beans 

  • 1 can red kidney beans

  • 3-5 tablespoons of your favorite chili seasoning to taste

  • Cayenne pepper if you'd like more heat (optional)

Zach uses a Dutch oven for everything, but you can use whatever works best. First, on the stovetop, sauté onions, garlic, and Chipotles until onions are translucent. After about 10 min, add in all your cans of tomatoes, beer, and chili seasoning and bring to a simmer. 
For the meat, mix the beef and sausage together into a meatloaf to cook over the top of the chili for the day on a smoker. The meatloaf goes on a second rack or a cooling sheet above the chili (see picture below). Be sure to salt the meat and/or use a BBQ seasoning of your choice. If you don’t have a smoker or a grill, you can also just brown your meat and add that right into your pot and let it simmer two to four hours (or all day. The longer it simmers, the more the flavors come together). 

Back to the smoker, set the smoker to 225 until the meat hits 165, which could take up to four hours. Once finished, crumble the meat into the chili and then let it simmer for a few more hours 
Make sure to stir the chili every 30-40 minutes, especially in the smoker to help integrate any amount of “smoke crust.”
From there, as the French say, c’est done. Garnish however you prefer but to do it the Zach way, use shredded cheese and some jalapeños.

*42

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc. -

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • Boulder Taphouse - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Pickled Loon - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Sugar Lake Lodge - Cohasset

  • Itasca Curling Association - Grand Rapids

  • Gosh Dam Place - Deer River

Westward, etc. -

  • Lakeview Liquor - Bemidji

  • First City Liquor - Bemidji

  • Northern Off Sale Liquor - Bemidji

  • Beehive Offsale Liquors - Bemidji

  • Bemidji Curling Club - Bemidji

  • Remer Municipal Liquor Store - Remer

  • Boulder Taphouse - Baxter

  • SuperOne Liquor - Crosby

  • SuperOne Liquor - Baxter

  • Westside Liquor - Baxter

Northward, etc. -

  • SuperOne Liquor - International Falls

  • The Rocky Ledge - Kabetogama

  • Ash Trail Lodge - Orr

It's About New Dawns, NA Brews, and Newlyweds

It’s a new dawn,
it’s a new day,
it’s a new life for me,
and I’m feeling good.
- Nina Simone

With luck, you and Nina have something in common with this new year so far! And why not? The sun is shining, the… uh, um… Boy, I thought I’d have more positives to share off the top of my head. But after that gloomy December, the sun poking out ain’t nothing!
Maybe you’re feeling good because all those New Years Resolutions you made are making you a better person? There’s at least a few happening here amongst the Klockow crew. Starting with Jamie, she’s doubling down on last year’s progress on protecting her mental health. For Tasha, this year is going to be more about “all or something” rather than “all or nothing.” Don’t let not doing it perfect stop you from doing it all together, you know. Kyle and Amanda were very cryptic about some big project they plan on completing this year. I dunno, we’ll all have to wait and see, I suppose. And Adrianne always chooses a word of the year as a theme, or maybe to haunt her, which she said she figures out later what it more or less means for her. This year’s word is “peace.” We should probably all pray for her.
Then there’s Andy with these words of wisdom: “You don’t have to wait until 4/20 to get high, you can NOT drink months other than January, and you can start a resolution anytime.” The smug bastard has been hitting the gym since October.
But if there’s one thing that New Years is good for, it’s looking ahead. And that’s my segue to talk about upcoming events, specifically the next iteration of Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW! We’ve been looking forward to this one, because it’s the Newlywed Game! Seriously, do I even need to say it? Local couples, all pre-chosen (yeah, if anyone is worried about getting called out of the audience to play, fear not. That’s not how these games are set up), will be put to the test and potentially subjected to public embarrassment all for your entertainment! Do these couples, these life partners, have what it takes to answer basic questions about one another?? We’ll all find out on Thursday, Jan. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m., only in the Klockow taproom.

It’s also the second weekend of the month, which means Board Games & Records on Sunday, Jan. 12. Time to assemble your crew for a solid RISK campaign, or whatever game tickles your fancy, as well as your finest vinyl for a chill day of, well, board games and records. It’s relaxed. It’s easy going. It’s all day. And it’s at the Klockow taproom.

Ok, What Is That?
Despite what Andy said about having a dry month whenever you want (and, let’s face it, April is clearly the best month for that), January is widely recognized as the time to do it. Dry January, they call it! And we don’t know whether you know this or not, but we do actually have a number of non-alcoholic options if you still wanna go out for a beverage this chilly month. Naturally there is root beer and cream soda, as well as a few different flavors of kombucha. We’ve been making our Dukka Water for some time now, and we can’t forget the Shrubbery line (dry just means no alcohol; it says nothing about THC).
But we also have our BHK-NA, our non-alcoholic nut brown ale. Which begs the question: Ok, what is that?
No doubt you’ve seen non-alcoholic beer in the grocery store or in television commercials, but have you stopped to ask yourself what this means? If so, you’re in luck, because we’re going to tell you how our BHK-NA is made, as well as why it was.
“I felt like there was a demand for that. Definitely had people asking about NA options,” said Andy Klockow, co-owner and head brewer. “And we saw an opportunity in the marketplace, because no one is really doing a dark beer.”
Mid-dark, to be more specific. But that’s still darker than the various pale lagers that are most prevalent in the NA market. Even NA IPAs, with their greater hop flavor, are still mostly relegated to golden malts. And our customer base has definitely noticed this, given the number of compliments we’ve received for putting out a different style for the NA brew crowd.

But the question remains, how is this done? Well, since water and alcohol boil at different temperatures, one way is to throw the beer back in the kettle, bring it to 172 degrees F, and boil off all that alcohol. Whereas this is definitely a way to do it, and has been done by many companies before, it has a few big problems. For one, all your alcohol is lost unless you set up an additional coil to catch it. What’s more, if you don’t bring it down to less than .5%, you can’t actually call it NA, so it’s difficult and costly if you get it wrong. And last but certainly not least, boiling your beer kinda makes it taste like garbage. There’s a reason people haven’t historically been huge NA beer fans.
So what is a brewer to do if they want to have a good tasting brew that has functionally zero booze?
“There’s a company in St. Paul that came up with their own technology to vacuum distill alcohol out of beer,” said Andy.
Using the same principle of alcohol boiling at a lower temperature, the aptly named ABV Technology created a process whereby they put the beer batch under pressure so that they can boil the alcohol off without actually increasing the temperature. The result is a beer that is functionally the same as it was before, just missing an ingredient.
“It allows the alcohol to be driven off without affecting the flavor of the beer. Which is huge!”
And what of this alcohol that’s been distilled away from the beer at room temperature? It is captured, sent back to us in a separate container, and eventually turned into our Itsa Selzer (in a way, this is like a double “Ok, What Is That?” since now you know where the alcohol in our hard seltzer comes from, too!).
Throughout the upper midwest, if you have an NA beer, you likely have enjoyed a product thanks to ABV Technology. In addition to processing onsite, they actually manufacture the same equipment for use at larger breweries and smaller, dedicated NA breweries. So besides BHK Nut Brown Ale just being a tasty beer to begin with, if you’ve enjoyed one of our BHK-NAs before, you can thank this ingenious process and the folks at ABV Technology.
Whether you’re doing dry January, dry April, or dry whatever, fear not for we have you covered!

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff


Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc. -

  • Zorbaz on the Lake - Grand Rapids

  • NoPo Coffee Co. - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Lake Store - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • 38 Outpost - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

Duluth, etc. -

  • Dovetail Cafe - Duluth

  • Corktown Deli & Brews - Duluth

  • 7 West - Superior

  • SuperOne Liquor - Cloquet

  • SuperOne Liquor - Pike Lake

  • Old Chicago Pizza - Duluth

  • Boulder Tap House - Superior

  • Fitger’s Wine Cellar - Duluth

  • D.E.C.C. - Duluth

McGregor -

  • Mark’s Bar - McGregor

  • The Craft House - McGregor

  • Big Zandy Zorbaz - McGregor

Happy Solstice Drag, Donate Blood, and have a Merry Beery Christmas!

If you’re reading this, it probably means that you’re doing your best to take a break from your family get-together, and we respect that. But we’re going to keep it brief all the same, because all we really want to do this week is wrap some presents, have a pint or two, enjoy some eggnog, and look for our own excuses to take a little break from extended family. 
But we’d be remiss if we didn’t say thank you to everyone who came out Saturday for our Winter Solstice Radiance Drag Show! It was a fantastic night with some incredible acts (who knew someone in high heals could dive into a roll on a cement floor and make it look safe?) and an audience who ate up every minute of it! We even got to play a little game of “who was it who left the religious pamphlets on the tables and bathroom?” at the end of the night! Seriously, you had to pay a cover to get in, and no one stood out to us as someone who might be there for a covert protest of sorts. Whatever, we enjoy a little mystery as much as the next person. Whoever it was, we hope they enjoyed the show!
For now, we’re gearing up for Festivus tonight, Dec. 23! Ditty Wish will be hosting with music by Sam Miltich, and there’ll be feats of strength and an airing of grievances and, with luck, a few Festivus miracles. Music starts at 5 p.m. and additional shenanigans around 6 p.m.

Later in the week, make sure to take a break from the eggnog long enough to come to the taproom for our blood drive! There’s always a need for blood, so your donation just might save a life. You can schedule online here, sponsor code 4858, or contact Trudy at 218-740-1542 or tyoungren@mbc.org. The blood bus will be here on Thursday, Dec. 26, from 12 to 7 p.m., and Friday, Dec. 27, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Be sure to hydrate before hand!
We’re also excited to have our very own McKeon Roberts gracing the Klockow stage on Friday, Dec. 27 as well! We’re going to start the last weekend of the year with a little bit of style, charm, and rhythm. Music starts at 7 p.m., no cover. 

And with that, we have nothing else to add except have a merry Christmas! With luck it’ll be merry and bright, full of delicious food and drink, and surrounded by the best of friends and family. 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff


Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc. -

  • S&S Bottle Shop - Deer River

  • Frontier Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Hotel Rapids - Grand Rapids

  • Bottles & Brews - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Lake Store - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • Red Eye - Swan River

  • Blackberry Junction - Blackberry

  • Bear Ridge Pizza - Cohasset

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

Iron Range, etc. -

  • MJ’s Resort - Pengilly

  • Marge’s Liquor - Eveleth

  • The Great Outdoors Bottle Shop - Pengilly

  • SuperOne Liquor - Hibbing

  • Keyboard Liquor - Chisholm

  • SuperOne Liquor - Virginia

  • Sawmill Saloon - Virginia

Da Nort, etc. -

  • Ely Liquor - Ely

  • Frontier Sports - Marcell

  • Bigfork Wilderness Bar - Bigfork

Bemidji -

  • Northern Off Sale Liquor - Bemidji

  • Tara Bemidji - Bemidji

The Many Holidays at Klockow Brewing

There are times when I’m proud to be a member of the human race, and this is one such occasion. I mean, not to put too fine a point on it, but it is a great week! Not only do we have the great fortune of being able to look back at the likes of Storyteller Sunday with Stay Human, Ridley and the Rascal: 2 Chaotic to Christmas, Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAMESHOW, as well as the debut of our Third Tuesday Trivia, but we’re happy, nay, privileged to be able to look ahead to such things as the return of the Radiance Drag Show, Open Mic, and Festivus! 
But I’m sorry, I appear to be burying the lead. My main point on why it’s such a great week is because Thursday, Dec. 19, is the grand return of Magic Roundabout, our Bourbon Barrel-Aged Imperial Vanilla Stout. Why is this so exciting, you may ask? To quote Tasha, the brewery co-owner and good taste impresario, “So here’s the thing, the best beer we’ve ever done, hands down, is Magic Roundabout. I’m going to say that on the record, it is Magic Roundabout.”  

Yes, it will be back. It’ll be back on tap. It’ll be back in cans. And it’ll be back in bottles! We’ve taken a little hiatus on imperial beer bottling, but it looks like supply chain issues have resolved themselves enough to get some 750 ml bottles again. So crank up the heat on that colored wax, we got some bottles to seal!

Which, I should add, is right on time for Christmas. The only question is, who do you like enough to give a bottle of Magic Roundabout to?? Hopefully the answer is: yourself. 
But it ain’t Christmas yet! We got another holiday this Saturday; Winter Solstice! For all you pagans or just those of you who enjoy turning points on the solar cycle, we present to you Radiance! Our first drag performance three months ago was an amazing night, one we knew we had to replicate. And what better time than Winter Solstice to bring those fabulous queens and kings back?! The performance, which is 21+ and $15 at the door, starts at 9 p.m. and will go past midnight as our own Malachy Koons (who is more well known for his work at KAXE) will be DJing a dance party following the show. The energy was just too infectious at the last show, so we figured we’d channel that into an after party this time!
If dancing the night away ain’t your thing, maybe singing in the afternoon is more your cup of tea. With Solstice out of the way, might as well sharpen your caroling skills because we’re going to be doing an old fashioned bar sing following Open Mic on Sunday, Dec. 22. We normally do Open Mic on the last Sunday of the month, but the fourth Sunday will just have to do for December. Works out nice though, since it would feel weird to sing Christmas Carols after Christmas! This is likely going to be a monthly thing, the bar sing, since there’s an ocean of bar shanties out there just dying to be sung with a pint in hand. So c’mon out for the inaugural sing; I guarantee you know at least a few of these classic songs!
Though if Christmas just ain’t your thing at all, and you’ve rained blows down on your fellow shopper over a doll for your son for the last time, maybe you should come celebrate Festivus with us. On Monday, Dec. 23, the traditional day of Festivus, we are going to have a day of music by Sam Miltich, a potluck dinner, an airing of grievances, feats of strength, and of course, plenty of Festivus miracles. Hosted by Ditty Wish, there will be joy and merriment in abundance, particularly when it comes to the leg-wrestling. 
After that… Merry Christmas! 
But in case you’re looking for an extra dish to share for the holiday…

EAT YOUR BEER!
You don’t have to look too long before you find a recipe that requires a pint of beer. Some of them even have you put it in the food (slaps knee). Case in point, you could look in the Minnesota Brewers Cookbook and find a ridiculous amount of them. One such recipe is from our very own Tasha Klockow, and is for Asparagus Risotto. All you need is:

  • 6 cups broth

  • 5 tbsp unsalted butter

  • 1 large onion

  • 1 pound asparagus, cut

  • 2-4 cloves of garlic

  • 2 cups Arborio rice

  • 1 cup Crosswind Kölsch, or any other light, dry beer

  • 1/2 cup frozen peas

  • 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese 

  • 1 lemon

  • Salt and pepper to taste

Put the broth into a pot and bring to a boil. Chop the onion and asparagus, and put the asparagus ends in the broth for added flavor. Reduce heat and simmer. 
In a large pan over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add onion and salt, cook until soft (about 5 minutes). Add garlic and cook until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add rice, stirring constantly for about 3 minutes. The edges of the grains will start to turn translucent.
Add 1 cup of beer and continue to stir for about two minutes, or until all the liquid is absorbed. Then, using a strainer, carefully pour 5 cups of the hot broth into a measuring cup and add to the rice. Reduce heat to medium low, cover, and cook for 18 minutes, stirring every 6 minutes. Add more broth if it absorbs too quickly. 
With 6 minutes left, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a pan and add asparagus. Cook for 5 minutes, then add peas and cook for 1 minute then remove from heat. Asparagus should still be crunchy. 
Add 1/2 cup more of the hot broth to the rice and stir constantly to get a creamy texture. Add Parmesan and stir until well combined. Remove from heat and cover for 5 minutes. 
Finally, stir in remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and the juice from the lemon (as little as half the lemon, or the entire thing). Fold in the asparagus and peas add salt and pepper to taste. 
Then enjoy! May your Christmas feast be full of great eats, delicious drinks, and plenty of good cheer! Prost!! 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc. -

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Locker Room - Coleraine

  • Hotel Rapids - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Lake Store - Grand Rapids

  • Boulder Taphouse - Grand Rapids

  • Eagles Club - Grand Rapids

  • Pickled Loon - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • NoPo Coffee - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Itasca Curling Association - Grand Rapids

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Rocket’s - Cohasset

Metro, etc. -

  • Northbound Liquor - Cambridge

  • Isanti Municipal Liquor Store - Isanti

  • Lexington Liquors - Lexington

  • 61 Liquors - Maplewood

  • Ombibulous - Minneapolis

  • Top Ten Liquors - Roseville

  • Stinson Wine, Beer, and Spirits - Minneapolis

  • South Lyndale Liquors - Minneapolis

West world, etc. -

  • Landmark Liquors - Perham

  • Brew Ale’s & Eats - Perham

  • Dorset Corner Off Sale Liquor - Park Rapids

  • Red River Liquor Co. - Akeley

Upcoming Games with a Light Lager

Anyone else miss the sun? I swear it still exists somewhere, but it’s been so long I’ve all but forgotten what it even looks like! If you told me with enough confidence that it was a purple square in the sky, I just might believe you. 
So what are we going to do about it?? The obvious answer is probably to have a drink, and we could make a few recommendations to you, but maybe you want a healthier option. Again, we could tout some of the various health benefits that have been foisted onto beer over the years, but let’s go for some more obviously healthy options. Like exercise. Like yoga! 
Brewery Yoga with Kelly is back this Saturday morning, Dec. 7, starting at 10 a.m.! This one-hour vinyasa yoga is open to the public prior to regular taproom hours and only costs a donation to the local non-profit of Kelly’s choice, this month being Great Tails Animal Rescue. Suggested donation amount is $15, but individuals are welcome to pay what they can. 

This will be the start of a new monthly routine for us. So mark your calendars for the first Saturday of the month, dust off your yoga mats (or simply roll up your well-used yoga mats), and come early to Klockow for a refreshing and healthy start to the day. THEN have a beer. 
We’re starting things off slow this month, but stay tuned because it’s gonna be a busy one! We of course have our second Sunday Board Games and Records Day coming up this weekend, which sounds like an amazing way to spend a day given the weather lately. Honestly, take a look outside and tell me with a straight face you’d rather do something out in the dreary cold than to hang out with friends, playing a game while kicking back a couple pints and listening to random vinyl records. Can’t be done. So, yeah, see ya’ll this Sunday. 
And of course there’s the next installment of Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW! Always the second Thursday of the month, for December she’ll be doing her vision of the $10,000 Pyramid, where contestants will be paired up with Klockow staff to win fabulous prizes (ie, free pints). Which is why we’re also dubbing it the $10,000 Beer-amid. That’s from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 12. Come see the ridiculousness!


Ok, What Is That?
American Light Lager. We’ve all had one. Even if you don’t know it, you’ve had one. Pretty sure red-blooded American babies have one as their second bottle ever. 
But you may ask, “what are you even talking about? Isn’t this section about things most customers haven’t even heard of? We all know what an American Light Lager is.” Surely, and I would have guessed that too. At one time at least. But let’s just say it’s happened too many times where a customer, dragged into the taproom by his craft-beer buddy, has asked for whatever is closest to a Bud Light. And once I’ve said, “oh good, we have an American Light Lager on tap,” I didn’t see a knowing grin. No, surprisingly often, I see a blank-stare shrug and then “Ok, can I try it?” as a response. At least at that point they try it, like it, and then order it. So let’s take a second to talk a bit about what they are!
The birth of the “American Lager” goes back a long ways, so for convenience we’ll start at the beginning of the big-beer era: the founding of Anheuser-Busch. In the mid-1800s, A.B. was one of many regional breweries, but was beginning to make a big splash that no-one could’ve seen coming. Most breweries were making heavier, maltier beers, but many of the German immigrants, especially those who moved to warmer climates like around St. Louis, Missouri, found that it was more enjoyable to drink some of the light, crisp lagers of their home country. By 1876 when they released their flagship, a scaled-back version of an old-country golden lager called Budweiser, it was the beginning of the end of the regional breweries that had peppered the landscape, paving the way for the big national players. Americans had fallen in love with this simple, German-influenced, golden lagers, and they couldn’t get enough of them. In the United States, the style had all but taken over, with Budweiser being the single most sold beer. Before we knew it, you could say “beer-flavored beer” and people knew what you were talking about. They meant a Budweiser. 
And it stayed this way for a long time. Other breweries competed for dominance, such as Coors and Miller, but the beer style remained the same. That was, until 1973, when Miller Lite hit the scene, an even lighter, crisper, version of the beer we all knew and loved. All we needed to hear was John Madden say “tastes great, less filling,” and there was a new major beer style. The idea was that it wasn’t a “diet” beer, even though it had less calories, but that it was just a “light” beer, so you could have more of them. Very similar to its predecessor, the American Light Lager is defined by having lower alcohol content, a light, almost watery body, no hop character, and a very simple aroma and palate mostly characterized by corn, rice, and other grains. They’re light straw colored. And at most you’re going to get a touch of apple sweetness. But short of someone attempting to give a description on what these beers taste like, no one actually cares about any of that. What fans of the style typically care about is that they’re cold, they’re crushable, they’re plentiful, and just plain taste good. They’re simple and crisp for a reason, and that reason is we’re drinking them while watching the game and not at an organized beer tasting. 

A Stranger lost in the snow

If you want one at Klockow, you can either ask for whatever is closest to Mich Golden, or you can be more direct and ask for a Stranger Ranger! It is our answer to all those customers who were maybe brought here by their beer-connoisseur buddies but just want something familiar, or to the folks who know they’re going out to eat and just want something light, or for anyone who wants just one more so a low ABV crisp lager simply hits the spot. Have it on tap or take home a four-pack! 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc. -

  • Unwined Up North - Grand Rapids

  • Locker Room - Coleraine

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

McGregor -

  • Mark’s Bar - McGregor

  • Willey’s Sports Shop & Spirits - McGregor

Duluth, etc. -

  • Woodland Liquors - Duluth

  • SuperOne Liquor - Duluth

  • SuperOne Liquor - Pike Lake

  • 27 Liquors - Duluth

  • Duluth Tap Exchange - Duluth

  • 7 West - Superior

  • Dovetail Cafe & Marketplace - Duluth

South, etc. -

  • Scandia Olde Towne Liquor - Scandia

  • Northbound Liquor - Cambridge

Happy Thanksgiving from the Klockow Brewing Staff

Here we are, the big day just around the corner, Thanksgiving! Hope you remembered to thaw your turkey and picked up enough green beans from the store! Yes, it truly is one of the great holidays (history and origin notwithstanding), for it is the one holiday in our country with no pretense other than to feast! That doesn’t mean we don’t individually have our favorite little traditions outside of stuffing our gobs. Just means that there aren’t any other socially mandated activities, like gift giving, church services, etc. Heck, there aren’t even Thanksgiving cards!  
So we thought we’d take a moment to share with you some of our favorite Thanksgiving foods and traditions, straight from the mouths of the Klockow staff. 
It’s not a competition, but if there’s a winner for most popular food to eat amongst those that work here, potatoes take the trophy (Tasha, Andy, Adrianne, and Nathan). This is followed by green bean casserole, which both Jamie and Nathan named as a favorite to make/share for those big family gatherings. And why not? It’s easier than it looks, tastes better than you’d guess, and is generally a fan-favorite. (Side note: does anyone else find it odd that we call everything “hot dish” in Minnesota except for green bean casserole?)
Though if passion for a favorite is what it takes to make a food a winner, that would have to go to cranberry sauce, which Malachy named as his “answer for everything.” 
Some other notable favorite dishes include ham (Zach the “ham man”), stuffing (Andy and Jamie), pistachio pudding (Amanda), and of course, turkey (funny enough, only Andy said turkey). 

Nathan and a turkey breast.

But what is a big feast without people to share it with?! Some of our staff’s favorite traditions and memories involve bringing people together. Having long worked in the restaurant industry, Amanda shared how she and her husband Kyle have “hosted what we called transplant thanksgiving. So all the line cooks and servers who didn't have a place to go would all come over and we'd cook rich, decadent meals like truffle butter turkey. Always loved that feeling of community with industry folks.” This is similar to what Tasha said about “having a ‘Lost Boys’ Thanksgiving for Andy and his friends who had to open Guitar Center at 4 a.m. on Black Friday when we lived in the cities.”

Amanda dreaming of future leftovers with Kyle and friend Ashley.

I know it’s crazy to say, but sometimes the people you’re eating with are actually family! Nathan noted “though I have enjoyed personally cooking an entire spread for just Rachelle and I (like last year’s Cornish Game Hen feast), we do tend to see extended family this day too.” One of Zach’s favorite memories of Thanksgiving was “playing flag football up at grandma and grandpa's with all the cousins and uncles, ice skating if the lake was safe, and listening to all the stories when everyone was together.” Jamie looks fondly on her running tradition of having “a sleep over at my BIL and SIL Wednesday night to mentally prepare for hosting Thanksgiving; AKA we drink and eat appetizers and play games.” 

Adrianne honing her Betty Crocker side.

Some of us looked back fondly at the Thanksgivings of old, when we were kids. Sometimes we helped out, like Amanda recalling back when “my sister and I used to wake up at like 4 a.m. with my grandma to stuff the turkey (that had been brining the previous day) and she always made us sew it shut!” Or maybe we didn’t help, like Adrianne: “I would color in the Star Tribune turkey while watching the parade; AKA staying out of the kitchen.” Or maybe it was something else entirely, like Nathan’s “the Tuna Thanksgiving.” 
Admittedly, some of us have better Thanksgiving memories than others. Good thing this isn’t a competition, because Andy and Tasha would take the pumpkin pie on this one. Quoth Andy, “Thanksgiving is when I proposed to Tasha! She had been frantically cleaning the house and almost found the ring I’d cleverly hidden in my jacket pocket. I waited until she was in the middle of making s'more pie and proposed! The pie is now forever known as ‘Engagement Pie.’"
The day will ultimately come to a close though, and you’ll be divvying up the leftovers amongst guests. That’s when you’re going to have to talk to Amanda, who named as her favorite food “Post-thanksgiving leftovers, stoner food edition. Lefse quesadillas with turkey, stuffing, and mac. Pan fried. Dip in cranberry sauce and gravy. Ima leftover queen. Challenge me!” So yeah, she might have some ideas on what to do with your leftovers.

Cornish Game Hen and friends.

And with that, we hope that you have a wonderful holiday! Make sure it’s filled with good cheer (and maybe more than a couple beers), a full plate, and a bunch of new memories. Happy Thanksgiving!! 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff


Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc. -

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Boulder Taphouse - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • Frontier Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • Itasca Curling Association - Grand Rapids

  • 38 Outpost - Grand Rapids

  • S&S Bottle Shop - Deer River

  • Balsam Store - Bovey

  • Ron’s Korner Market - Bovey

Bigfork, etc. -

  • Kocian’s - Bigfork

  • Big Fork Wilderness Bar - Big Fork

  • North Star Lake Resort - Marcell

  • Hayslips Corner - Talmoon

The Range, etc. -

  • SuperOne Liquor - Hibbing

  • Rocket Liquors - Virginia

  • Silver Creek Liquors - Virginia

  • KM Corner Store - Nashwaulk

  • Keyboard Liquor - Chisholm

Ely, etc. -

  • Insula - Ely

  • Zup’s Food Market - Ely

  • Stinky Pete’s Tiny Weed Shop - Ely

A Look at Reoccurring Events, and Some Thanksgiving Suggestions

As I write this first sentence, the first snowfall of the year is happening; and much like this first snow fall, this sentence isn’t amounting to much.
But this little dusting is just a further reminder that the seasons are changing and we need to be prepared for the winter months ahead. That could be making sure your snow tires are put on your car. Maybe it means you finally have to tune up your winter commuter bicycle, if that’s your thing. Any amount of home winterizing is dangerously close to being too late to do, and you should probably pull that box of hats and gloves out of the garage. 
Ahh, but how wonderful it was, not even that long ago! Temperatures around 50. Sun shining. And Ditty Wish held her first game show in the Klockow taproom, the beginning of the new monthly series Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW! Last Thursday we had a live production of Family Feud on the Klockow stage, with four different “families” competing against each other, all trying to figure out the most popular answers to some truly ridiculous questions (seriously, how many different things have teeth? Especially when the number one answer was simply “animals”?!?) 

Ditty Wish, in her sparkling dress, did her best Richard Dawson impersonation, and all the contestants did a wonderful job of not only playing the game, but coming up with back stories for how their “families” were composed. A highlight was the team comprised of long-lost sisters, all named Ditty, who were there to reunite with their last sister, Ditty Wish. 
Game show nights will be consistently on the second Thursday of the month, though the specific game will rotate. Next month will be the $10,000 Pyramid (or Beer-amid, if you will)! So pop it on your calendar, from 6 to 8 p.m., Thursday, Dec. 12. 
Another lovely thing to look back on with a tinge of anticipation was last weekend’s Storyteller Sunday! It’s one of those days here in the brewery where we all chill out a little bit for an afternoon of spoken word art, as some of the finest voices in the greater Grand Rapids area gather to tell us all a little tale. Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and always a little curiously entertaining, we’ve been excited to bring back Storyteller Sunday on the third Sunday of the month following its summer hiatus. And if you missed it, fear not: Michael Goldberg of Stay Human on 91.7 KAXE was on hand to record the stories, making them all eligible for broadcast on an upcoming show. 

Which brings us to the tinge of anticipation. Next month, on Sunday, Dec. 15, Michael Goldberg and Stay Human will be co-organizing Storyteller Sunday with a line-up of amazing writers from around the state, as well as from here at home. So since you’re already putting things on your calendar next month, might as well pencil this one in as well! 
All this talk of anticipation for upcoming events this next month or so brings something else to mind: the holiday season is approaching! We’re right on its doorstep, in fact. News of this may bring about mixed emotions, but rest assured, it will be ok. Maybe even great. For coupled along with all the family gatherings and the gift exchanges and travel, etc., is the most glorious part of any holiday: the eating and drinking. 
Now, as you may have guessed, we have a few opinions on the best drinks for all your holiday affairs. And since we allow mix-and-match four packs, you’ll definitely be able to have something for everybody at your Thanksgiving feast. Want to try to pair something with the turkey? Have a Schönfeld Honey Wheat Ale. Want to pair something with the entire spread? You could do worse than a Ryetasca Roggenbier. Need to appease your trendy cousin who fancies themselves a hop head? Supply Line Hazy IPA is clearly the right choice. Are your parents worried that you brought local brewery beer because they’re convinced that “craft beer” just means “hoppy beer”? Better include a couple Stranger Ranger American Light Lagers. Got an especially picky relative and you don’t know where to start? Just ask whoever is behind the bar and we’ll ply our trade to get you the best beer for your crew as possible. 
And of course, if you’re daunted by the scope of the food spread, not to mention how you’re going to handle a whole day with extended family, we do have our Klockow Shrubbery line of THC seltzers. At 10 mg per can, it shouldn’t take long until the edge is taken off and the munchies kick in. 

EAT YOUR BEER!
So what about the eating? We’d like to think you already have that under control being Thanksgiving and all, but maybe you’re joining a larger group and have been tasked with bringing a dish and you still just don’t know what that might be. Assistant Brewer Russ Alioth actually has you covered with a recipe he enjoys making from time to time: Beer Bread! All you need is…

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour (sifted)

  • 3 teaspoons baking powder

  • 3 tablespoons sugar

  • 1 teaspoon salt

  • 12 oz of BHK Nut Brown Ale

  • 1/2 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix dry ingredients and beer until just combined and pour into a greased loaf pan. Pour melted butter over the mixture. Bake for one hour, then remove from pan and allow to cool at least 15 minutes. And what you have is a hearty and crumbly bread! Russ definitely recommends the BHK Nut Brown Ale, though he feels confident that the Ryetasca Roggenbier (German Rye Ale) and the Woodland Legacy (Amber Lager) would be quite good as well.
If you want to go for an even bigger, richer flavor, try our Downwind Smoked Chocolate Stout. And if you want to get a little crazy, there’s always Travelin’ Jack IPA on one side and Mlinar Delight Raspberry Smoothie Sour on the other. Though let us be clear, we do not actually recommend the IPA or the sour for your beer bread. But if you’re feeling oddly adventurous, we’d love to hear if they turn out at all!

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc -

  • Eagles Club - Grand Rapids

  • Pickled Loon - Grand Rapids

  • Zorbaz on the Lake - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • Locker Room - Coleraine

  • Bottles & Brews - Grand Rapids

  • Frontier Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • NoPo Coffee Co. - Grand Rapids

West world, etc.

  • Dorset Corner Off Sale Liquor - Park Rapids

  • 1894 - Perham

  • Continental Divide Brew Pub - New York Mills

Minneapolis, etc.

  • Ombibulous - Minneapolis

  • Isanti Municipal Liquor Store - Isanti

  • Stinson Wine, Beer, and Spirits - Minneapolis

  • South Lyndale Liquors - Minneapolis

  • Liquor Works - Forest Lake

  • Princeton’s Liquors - Maple Grove

Remembering Brian Crowe

It rained the day of your funeral,
so all we saw was gloom.
But all these drops innumerable;
they made the flowers bloom. 

This week’s blog is going to be a little different. Of course we want to do things like highlight and hype upcoming events, such as Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW on Thursday and Storyteller’s Sunday this weekend. That’s what the blog is for, after all. But last week, as you may have heard, a frequent regular and friend of brewery, Brian Crowe, passed away unexpectedly. So we’d like to spend a little time remembering our friend. 
As a bartender here, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with Brian about all sorts of things. The running joke is that regardless of the topic, it always came back to food. At one point, there was a discussion that since cheese cake exists, shouldn’t it be logical that there should be a cheese pie as well? As it happens, this turned into a more-than-a-year long running conversation, involving multiple people. But Brian was the only one who made the mistake of saying that he was going to make one! To date, there has never been a satisfactory definition of what a proper “cheese pie” should even be; the best sounding recipes ended up being closer to a quiche, and we were specifically going for a dessert.
I’d like to think Brian would roll his eyes and say something like, “really, you’re going to bring that up again now?” if he could see that we’re talking about the cheese pie again. But that’s just the stuff you think about when someone is gone. The whole eye-rolling thing would be just for show, though. He’d actually love that this is what we’re talking about. 
Another thing one tends to think about when someone dies so young is what they haven’t done yet. Brian said he’d make the pie because he loved to cook, so much so that he had plans of quitting Pepsi to run a food truck. Issues surrounding health insurance and the initial investment gave him pause, but these were things that he just knew he had to work around. The food truck was going to happen. He regularly would show me trucks and trailers he found for sale that would be a good platform for this new business venture. He even had a list of locations to park where he knew he’d get a good influx of people for lunch. 
We just have to make peace with the fact that his food truck will never park outside the brewery. And that’s hard. We don’t want to think that. 
But what is easier is being thankful for the time we had with Brian. We’re fortunate enough to be able to remember the good times and the laughs. All the times he would say “ok, one more” after he swore he was on his last beer, all because another friend came in. And all the little things that we don’t even remember today, but will be reminded of because he left enough minor impressions to always have a call back. 
Speaking of call backs, Brian was the first non-employee to be interviewed for this blog. So we’ll leave you with a few of his own words…

We Barley Know You, But We Hop to Change That. It’s the Yeast We Can Do: long-time regular at the taproom, Brian Crowe
Question: How long have you been a regular here?
Brian Crowe: I think only about three years, as a regular. It hasn't been that long. It took me awhile to actually come here, and I don't know why.
Q: What's your favorite Klockow beer?
BC: I don't necessarily have a favorite. I have multiples that I like a lot. Supply Line (Hazy IPA), One Aught (Cold IPA), Siduri's Garden (Saison); depends on the season, depends on the day.
Q: If all those are on tap, which one would you pick?
BC: Probably Siduri's Garden, because it's the least likely to be on tap! Or just for a short amount of time, I mean.
Q: When you're not drinking Klockow beer, what do you like to drink?
BC: Mountain Dew Kickstart Fruit Punch. It's my coffee.
Q: Sticking with the theme, what are some of your favorite foods?
BC: A lot of smoked barbque. Ribs. I like smoked fish. And I've become a fan of sushi!

Brian Crowe

Q: What do you do for work?
BC: I'm employed by Pepsi Cola as a service technician. Which means I fix anything that dispenses Pepsi products; bar guns, fountain machines, coolers, vending machines. I've done just about every job in the company over 25 years.
Q: What do you like to do for fun?
BC: Camping, curling, and hanging out by a bonfire!
Q: What's a fun/interesting fact about yourself?
BC: That's difficult. I can't think of anything... Only thing I can think of is that I've participated in BBQ contests, rib contests. In three years, we went from 9 out of 10, to third. It was ribs.
Q: Was there a secret to your success?
BC: Yeah, and it's a secret! But we did change the recipe. We went from 9th, to 7th, to 3rd, and it was the last year that we changed the recipe.
Q: And lastly, if you could be transported back to any time or place in history, when and where would it be and why?
BC: Oh gosh... Actually, the land rush days when everybody was claiming their lands, where it was a free-for-all run to stake your land, I'd like to go back and see that. That's kind of a cool thing; now it takes so much to get a piece of property. Back then, well, you had to work hard on it to make it work, but you worked for what you got. Now you work for everything but you can't get as much.

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer drops this past week:

Local, etc -

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • Boulder Taphouse - Grand Rapids

  • Hotel Rapids - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Blackberry Junction - Blackberry

  • Red Eye - Swan River

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Unwined Up North - Grand Rapids

  • KM Corner Store - Nashwauk

  • Timberwolf Inn - Marcell

Bemidji, etc. -

  • Bemidji Curling Club - Bemidji

  • First City Liquor - Bemidji

  • Lakeview Liquor - Bemidji

  • Tara Bemidji - Bemidji

  • Beehive Offsale Liquors - Bemidji

International Falls, etc. -

  • SuperOne Liquor - International Falls

  • The Rocky Ledge - Kabetogama

  • Revelation Ale Works - Hallock

Cuyuna, etc.

  • Happy Tree - Emily

  • Deer Haven - Remer

  • Grizzly’s Wood-Fired Grill - Baxter

  • Remer Municipal Liquor Store - Remer

  • SuperOne Liquor - Crosby

  • SuperOne Liqour - Baxter

Rocky (in a good way) Past and Gamey (also in a good way) Future

We did the Time Warp… for the first time. And we look forward to doing it again next year, but we’re just going to have to wait on that. In the meanwhile, we’ll bask in the glow of the beauty that was last week and remember what it’s like to have that kind of fun. Because it was fun. It was fun as hell!
If you don’t know what we’re talking about, that means you missed our Rocky Horror Picture Show viewing party! We took part in that long tradition of interactively watching this cult classic, with all the noisemakers, bells, jeers, newspapers, and even toast that have made the movie the unique legend that it has become! The night began with an amazing set by local psychedelic groove band, the aptly-though-temporarily named The Time Warp, which brought people down on the dance floor and set the right mood for what the rest of the night would offer.

And when it was all over, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the taproom more messy than I did when the lights came back up around midnight. But as they say, many hands make light work, and there were no shortage of Good Samaritans to help with the cleanup. 
All of this was the day after MN Beer Day, when the throngs of the thirsty crowded the taproom in order to get their hands on this year’s annual Beer Day pint glass! We’re no stranger to busy days, but damn… we seem to have underestimated how many people wanted this glass! We had about 80 glasses for sale, which we thought was a safe amount to procure in order to sell out of but not run out of too early. Given the fact that the glasses were gone by a quarter to 5 p.m., we clearly did our math wrong. 
More important than bad math, what this means is that we owe you a thank you! MN Beer Day is the day set aside to celebrate local brews and the people that make them, and you all came out in force to make it a worth while celebration! We felt the love with every pull of the tap handles, every gulp of the suds. It was just another example of the beauty of last week that we want to hold on to. It’s one of those things that sustains us in more ways than one. 
Looking to the future… we still have plenty of that great beer we’ve been celebrating! But if you want more than that, (sigh) fine. How about a game? Or, even better, a game show! Next Thursday, Nov. 14, starting at 6 p.m., Ditty Wish will be hosting a new series happening here in the taproom: Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW! You may know her from our monthly Open Mic, or from her various musical appearances at a venue near you, but Ditty Wish… well, maybe I’ll just let her explain the show, as well as introduce herself a bit:

We Barley Know You, But We Hop to Change That. It’s the Yeast We Can Do: Emily Slaubaugh AKA Ditty Wish
Question: How long have you run Open Mic at Klockow Brewing?
Emily Slaubaugh: I… has it been three years now? Three years. Two and a half, maybe. That sounds about right. 
Q: And in all that time, what is your favorite Klockow beer?
ES: I really like Siduri’s Garden (Saison). That’s probably one of my favorites.
Q: When you’re not drinking Klockow beer, what do you like to drink?
ES: Well, right now I’m drinking root beer! I drink a lot of tea; a lot of black teas and green teas. Really any kind of tea.
Q: You’re a big tea person.
ES: A big tea person.
Q: What are some of your favorite foods that you like to pair with these teas?
ES: It’s often in the morning, so I’ll have it with eggs. Or toast. Or hash browns. 
Q: Any other favorite foods in general?
ES: I like a good taco.  Singing Chihuahua Tacos especially are my favorite. I miss them. 

Q: So what do you do for a living?
ES: Right now I’m working at running my own business where I’m freelancing fully. That involves a lot of performing. I’m still playing under the name Ditty Wish. So trying to do more performing. I’m going to be hosting more stuff coming up at Klockow…
Q: Yes, I understand some of this new business involves not just music but other things.
ES: Other fun things! Starting next week, on Thursday, Nov. 14, I will be hosting a live game show at Klockow! So we’re going to have contestants come up. We’re doing Family Feud for this first one, but in the future we’ll be doing different ones: The Newlywed Game, the $10,000 Pyramid… or Beeramid, if you will. 
So it’s gonna be a lot of fun! It’ll be a fun community event, I think. We’re going to have contestants come up to play the game, I’ll be up in a sparkly dress hosting, and at the end I’ll have some games that anyone can come up and try, like Minute to Win it. 
Q: So how will that work for people who will just be showing up?
ES: Well, it’s going to be fun to watch, even if you’re not participating. Our contestants are pre-selected this time around. So if you come and watch, it’ll be a good time. And when we get to the last 30 to 40 minutes, we’ll ask for volunteers to come up to play these other games.
Q: Speaking of fun, what do you like to do for fun?
ES: You already know I like to play music. That’s a fun thing I like to do. I also enjoy being outside. I like going on hikes and riding my electric scooter around. Oh, and I like playing games: board games, card games, that kind of group games is what I’m into.
Q: What is a fun/interesting fact about yourself, perhaps something not too many people know?
ES: A lot of people already know this, but I don’t think everyone does. I was born in Canada, and so I am a Canadian citizen as well as a U.S. citizen. 
Q: That is interesting. Don’t know if it’s fun, but it’s definitely interesting.
ES: It’s fun for me!
Q: Ok, last question: if you could wake up tomorrow and be amazing, as in world-class, at one thing without having to train for it, what would it be and why?
ES: Hmm, well I need to decide between giving a fun answer and a practical answer.
Q: You could give both if you like.
ES: Ok, my fun answer would be improv. Because it looks very fun but I don’t think I could ever do it. It’s just something that… I enjoy taking it in, so I feel like I would enjoy performing it as well. Just seems like a fun skill to have.
Q: You need to be quick-witted, so yeah. How about the practical one?
ES: I’ll say picking up languages. So to be able to learn all the languages really fast. 
Q: That’s almost a super power.
ES: And very practical. Some people have a good knack for it. 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer and Shrubbery Drops this Week:

Local, etc -

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Bob’s Country Market - Bovey

  • Bottle’s & Brews Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Frontier Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Timberwolf Inn - Marcell

  • NoPo Coffee - Grand Rapids

  • Timberlake Lodge Hotel - Grand Rapids



Enjoy MN Beer Day with Chad's Meat Wagon

We don’t feel old, but we’re certainly no spring chickens anymore. I mean, 7!?! It was exciting coming up to our anniversary last week, but now that it’s passed, all we have is the realization of the indifferent passage of time, and the cold comfort that we’re wizened from our years as we ignore the inevitable decay of our bodies. 
Which is why we went for a group bike ride last night! We’re not giving up without a fight! 
Our Biking for Beer: A Spooky Spokes Bicycle Pub Crawl was, dare I say, not scary at all. In fact, we all had a lovely time! Especially as we looked at the forecast the week prior and saw cold rain projected for yesterday, odds seemed good that the ride was going to be cancelled. And sure enough, it did rain in the morning, but it gave way to mere overcast skies that even broke up a bit in the late afternoon, and the temperature hovered around the mid-40s. Honestly, one could ask for waaay worse weather for a bike ride. 
And what’s more, about half of us dressed up for the occasion. A special thanks to Jon from Ardent Bicycles for being our repair and tire pump guy, and for doing the whole ride in a hot dog costume! 

But still we must look forward. The past might be pretty and sparkly, but we can’t dwell on it lest we miss the present and fail to prepare for the future. Good thing we planned ahead and got our order in for the Minnesota Beer Day annual limited edition pint glasses!! It may not be a major holiday. It might not be cause for people to gather around the table and say what they’re thankful for. We may not spend a month putting up decorations for MN Beer Day, or sing Beer Day carols. But it’s the day that we hoist a glass, literally and metaphorically, to the “brave” men and women who go to work every day to bring that glorious craft malt beverage that we all love into the world and into your hands. That alone sounds like something worth celebrating. And if it’s not, you can just come on in for our day-long happy hour! In addition to the $10 pint glasses that come with a free first fill, we’ll be doing $5 pints all day! So c’mon in on Friday, Nov. 1 for MN Beer Day!

Now someone just needs to work on some MN Beer Day carols. Perhaps “Oh IPA Oh IPA, how hoppy are your bubbles.” Or maybe “On the first day of Craftsmas my true love gave to me, a Pale Ale that’s not too piney.” No? Ok, we’ll keep working on it. 
In the meanwhile, if you just wanna do some fun group sing-a-long, perhaps we can tempt you here this Saturday for our Rocky Horror Picture Show night! We’ll be doing a full audience participation viewing, with all the cursing and jeering and toast throwing one has come to expect from a respectable Rocky Horror night. We’ll have short cue scripts so that y’all know what to do, but let’s face it, there are plenty of people who know the movie like the back of their hands, so we’re not exactly gonna stop you if you wanna sing along or throw out your favorite jeer. 
Movie will be at 10 p.m., and prior to that, we’ll be having music from The Time Warp, a GR based psychedelic groove band that is not actually called The Time Warp but are temporarily named that for the night. See, we’re all getting in the spirit of things! Music at 8 p.m., movie at 10 p.m., and then we just set you nuts loose on an unsuspecting world. 
THEN GO VOTE ON TUESDAY!!

We Barley Know You, But We Hop to Change That. It’s the Yeast We Can Do: Chad Yost of Chad’s Meat Wagon
Question: As the owner of Chad’s Meat Wagon, how long have you been running the trailer, and how long have you been coming here?
Chad Yost: Funny story, I started this seven years ago. My first year in operation was also Klockow’s first year. I was brand new, they were brand new, and I would say we just entered into an incredible partnership, business owner to business owner. We actually did the soft opening, the day they opened with the family, friends, and employees that helped turn this into the brewery. And the following day we were here for the grand opening for the public. So we’ve been here since day one!
Q: Fortuitous timing! So in all that time, do you have a favorite Klockow beer?
CY: I’m not a big beer drinker. But I do like that Upwind (Irish Blonde Ale). That’s my favorite.
Q: When you’re not drinking the Upwind, what do you like to drink?
CY: I drink whiskey mostly, as my choice of alcoholic beverages. If it’s a beer and I’m at home, I’ll usually just drink a Mich Golden Light. I’m not a very robust connoisseur of darker, heavier beers. [laughs]
Q: This might be a silly question to ask, but what’s your favorite food?
CY: You know, gosh, people ask that, but I don’t know if I have a favorite! Everybody loves pizza. My go-to, at a restaurant, if I can get fried chicken, that’s probably my favorite.
Q: But you are famously known for your barbecue. Do you have a favorite thing to make that you sell in the Meat Wagon?
CY: My ribs, on the bone, that’s my favorite. I take the most pride in my ribs because that’s the reason I started cooking barbecue was because I like ribs and I could never find a rib place around that was consistently giving me what I want. I’m not a competition cooker. I cook for my customers and what I like, and that’s for the ribs to fall off the bone and be tender. So I started that, and that’s my number one favorite thing that I do. 
Q: Well you do a good job with that! 
CY: Thank you!

Q: Obviouosly you are the owner of Chad’s Meat Wagon as well as its namesake. Tell me a bit about what the day in the life is like in the Wagon?
CY: A lot of people think that owning a food trailer would be fun. Your get to sit outside and sell. And that’s the culmination of our day, when we’re sitting out with the window open. But there’s so much work that goes on in my driveway at home, all the meat prep and the smoking and the pulling and constantly cleaning inside. So there’s a lot of work that goes in to sitting for a day.
A lot of our pork butts will cook prior the day we sit. And then I’ll put the meat in, get it hot and ready to serve that day. But our ribs and everything else on the menu is prepared fresh the day that we sit. Our morning starts off with getting everything prepped and ready to go so that when we show up here at the brewery, the food is hot and ready to be served so customers aren’t waiting.
Q: What do you like to do for fun?
CY: I’m an avid hunter. I fish a little bit in the summer, but not much. The fall is my time. Many people out there might recognize my email address as duckaholic68@yahoo.com. I took that email address way back when email first started because I’m an avid duck hunter. I go to North Dakota every year and spend time out there duck hunting. And November is rolling in so I’m getting ready for deer season. That’s pretty much what I like to do. I work my summers so I can live in the fall.
Q: What would be fun/interesting fact about yourself that people might not know?
CY: The people that know me well just know that I love being around people. I’m a very outgoing person and I really enjoy the interactions with my customers and visiting. One thing that people may not know about me is how passionate I am about my business. If I meet someone new, or if I’m talking to a couple on the phone about a wedding, I talk very fast, I get very loud, I get very excited about what I believe in and what I do with my business. I guess the more I talk, the louder I get! [laughs] 
That and I’ve done stand up and I write poetry! I did it about four times at the Joke Joint Comedy Club in the cities. And that dream’s not dead. So we’ll see.
Q: Last question: If you could eat barbecue with anyone, living or dead, who would you pick and why?
CY: My mom. My mom passed away back in 2020, so she’s never really got to see what I’ve done as far as the cooking aspect of my life. My mom cooked at various restaurants in the area and was a fabulous cook - always cooked our meals growing up. I would like her to see what I’ve done. Part of her lives on in me through my cooking. So I would love to share one of my meals with my mom.

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer and Shrubbery Drops this Week:

Local, etc -

  • Frontier Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Itasca Curling Association - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Pickled Loon - Grand Rapids

  • Eagles Club - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • Ron’s Korner Market - Bovey

  • Hollywood Bait - Bovey

Duluth, etc -

  • New Scenic Cafe - Duluth

  • 7 West - Duluth

  • Boulder Tap House - Superior

  • Wussow’s Concert Cafe - Duluth

  • SuperOne Liquor - Duluth

  • SuperOne Liquor - Pike Lake

  • Dovetail Cafe - Duluth

McGregor -

  • Big Zandy Zorbaz - McGregor

Existential Thoughts with Klockow (PLUS MN BEER DAY!!)

Do you experience the passage of time? As a physical entity, are you affected by the phenomenon of entropy? Are you human?
If you answered yes to any of the above, then might we suggest checking out the goings-on at Klockow Brewing! This all starts with the fact that it is currently our Anniversary Week, Year 7!
Can you believe that it’s been 7 years already? Seems like only yesterday that our brew system churned out its first batch of Travelin’ Jack, and look at it now: still making a ton of Travelin’ Jack. But not all things have stayed the same! With over 500 batches of beer made, there’ve been more different styles made here than you can shake a stick at. And whereas we began with only serving beer and selling crowlers in the taproom, we now can a significant percentage of all beers brewed with our in-house canning line, and outside can and keg sales make up a majority of our business model. 

Honestly though, it’s kind of surprising how much has stayed the same. Sure, there are little differences like the new small glass growlers and the fact we got rid of the pews against the wall. But when it comes to the overall look and feel and taste to the place, we’re still just Klockow; that quirky little brewery in the northwoods. That, more than anything else, is worth celebrating. 
We look forward to seeing you come in this week! We have a huge 7-centric sale going on all week as a thanks to you, our favorite customers. That means $7 4-packs and growler fills, $7 shrubberies, $17 shrubbery 4-packs, and $70 shrubbery cases. 
Though if entropy is getting you down, perhaps a little exercise is in order. Good thing we have you covered there too! On Wednesday, Oct. 30, we’re bringing back our Biking for Beer: A Bicycle Pub Crawl. This time, in honor of the season, it’s A Spooky Spokes Bicycle Pub Crawl, meaning that we’re expecting to see everyone in their very best bike-friendly Halloween costumes (anything with flowing robes might be tricky, no matter how cool it would be to see Dementors floating down the street). 

Same as last time, we’re starting our ride at Rapids Brewing Company before riding across the river to Klockow and finally south of town to Pickled Loon Saloon. We’ll be starting at 4 and trying to keep each stop to about a half hour so as to keep the ride in some sort of day light. We definitely recommend you bring bike lights though. Light issues aside, we are aware of the time of year, so we’ll be paying attention to see if the weather is going to cooperate with us. If it’s too cold or otherwise too lousy, the ride will be canceled, so check for updates. The rest of the details for the ride will be on the event page, so check it out and we’ll see you on Wednesday! 
Then after that if the human in you likes community efforts, might we interest you in a taste of this year’s Minnesota Beer Day? Klockow Brewing Company is a participating member in MN Beer Day 2024, meaning that we will be carrying the limited edition 2024 Beer Day glass in our taproom on Friday, Nov. 1. All day long, we’ll be showing support one glass at a time to the people behind the beer throughout our state. And for only $10, one of these glasses can be yours, and we’ll even fill it up for you. 
If our anniversary week is about thanking you, the customers, then MN Beer Day is about thanking us, the brewers. So we hope to see you here that day as we celebrate craft brew throughout the state! 
So what about time? I suppose we could do the Time Warp again. Yes. Yes! Let us do this, on Saturday, Nov. 2, let us come together out of the storm for a Rocky Horror Picture Show viewing party! Starting at 10 p.m., this will be a full-on audience participation event, with all the yelling and cajoling and junk throwing that have made these traditionally-midnight showings as infamous as they are throughout the country. We just think it’s our turn to have some of that fun. And to get warmed up, come early for The Time Warp, a psychedelic groove band straight out of Grand Rapids, MN. Music starts at 8 p.m. during regular business hours. Movie at 10! 


We Barley Know You, But We Hop to Change That. It’s the Yeast We Can Do: Tia Marie of Smoke on the Water
Question: How long have you been a client of Klockow?
Tia Marie: Five and a half years!
Q: And where is our beer on tap for you?
TM: When I started off at UnWined, Klockow was the first place I contacted as far as having beer on tap. And with Smoke on the Water, it was the same thing. I can’t imagine having a bar and not having Klockow beer on tap.
Q: Always good to hear. What are some of your favorite Klockow beers, either to drink or have on tap for your customers?
TM: Supply Line (Hazy IPA) is one of my favorites, both to drink and to have on tap everywhere I’ve been. But my favorite… Guardians of the Beam (Barrel-Aged Imperial Brown Ale) is my absolute favorite beer of all times. I kept a bottle for my people that I love to open and share. It’s just delicious. I love all the barrel-aged things that you do. 
Q: When you’re not drinking Klockow beer, what do you like to drink?
TM: I’m far more of a coffee/tea person. I wish I was a water person! I’m getting back into it though I’m not really good at that. Otherwise, if I’m going to have a drink somewhere, and it’s not a Klockow beer, it’ll be a Jack Daniels.
Q: I’m a little surprised you didn’t say wine!
TM: I’m surprised as well. But I’m not that much of a drinker for someone who owns an establishment. I love wine, but I don’t open a bottle of wine by myself because then what am I gonna do with it?
Q: What are some of your favorite foods?
TM: That’s a really good question. Do you want me to list local favorites around here, or…?
Q: However you want to answer the question.
TM: I love ethnic foods. I wish we had a Thai restaurant in town. I make Thai at home! Fuji is one of my favorites. I do not attempt sushi at my house! I’m not good at it. 
Q: It’s harder than it looks.
TM: Pastas are great. And give me a steak! 

Q: Tell me a little bit about your establishment, Smoke on the Water, and what do you do there?
TM: Smoke on the Water is a little restaurant in Coleraine. It’s an old fire hall that we refurbished. We’re starting our second year, so things are starting to firm up much better. A lot of experiments in that first year. We have wood fired food. Homemade soups have become my love, so I make two or three every day. That’s been a passion of mine that I didn’t know I had. And we’re trying to get a smoker in there so we can expand our menu a bit more. 
Otherwise we have craft cocktails as well. Amazing beers. Klockow’s always highlighted. Right now we have seltzers. At some point we hope to get back to where we wanted to be, making wines and ciders, but the state has to catch up with us. 
Q: What do you like to do for fun?
TM: I swim. That’s my favorite. I swim a mile every day. But that’s stopped with the cold, so just a few days ago. Just got a fat tire bike, found one on the marketplace. So I’m going to play around with that and see if that’s my new fun! I love to read. I have to get a book from the library because I like to feel the books, and I like keeping our libraries going. Playing cribbage is one of my favorites; well, any board games I love to play. And you can tell I’m happy if I’m home and have my record albums playing along with a candle. That means I’m going to be home more than 45 minutes! 
Q: What would fun/interesting fact about yourself?
TM: I’m from a family of nine. They adopted me as number 8 out of 9, so they’re a very wonderful breed.
Q: You’re adopted?
TM: I’m adopted. So family is very important to me.
Q: Where a lot of your siblings adopted?
TM: No, I was the only one. Actually, their oldest daughter had me, and so my parents found out about me when I was six weeks old. They had had me in an orphanage, but she hadn’t signed the papers. So they found out about me, came and got me, so there you go! Best thing ever to happen!
Q: So your parents are biological grandparents?
TM: Yeah. And it’s wonderful. Now I have a great relationship with my birth mom. Everything has worked out how it has supposed to be.
Another fun fact is that I rode my bike across country when I was 20. My pedal bike. Coast to coast, from Seattle to Atlantic City, back before cell phones.
Q: Last question: You have a time machine and can go to any year, future or past, what year would you pick and why?
TM: Definitely past, not future. I’m thinking when my mom and dad were younger, back after World War II… late 40s, early 50s, when they were raising their families. Just listening to their stories when they were alive of their lives back then, seems like a wonderful time to go back and just see what it was really like. Before that I was thinking about the flappers and all that, but there was so much going on in our country back then.
Q: Yeah, pros and cons.
TM: And there were pros and cons then too, but I think it was a simpler time. At least they pretended it was, so I’d like to go back and see if it was!

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff


Beer and Shrubbery Drops this Week:

Local, etc -

  • SuperOne Liquors - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room - Grand Rapids

  • Pickled Loon - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Boulder Taphouse - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • 38 Outpost - Grand Rapids

  • Blackberry Junction - Blackberry

  • Bottles & Brews Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Rocket’s - Cohasset

  • Bear Ridge Pizza - Cohasset

  • S&S Bottle Shop - Deer River

  • Tavern on the Range - Bovey

Westworld, etc -

  • Landmark Liquors - Perham

  • Vergas Liquor Store - Vergas

  • Brew Ale’s & Eats - Perham

  • Seven Sisters Spirits - Detroit Lakes

  • 1894 - Perham

  • Dorset Corner Off Sale Liquor - Park Rapids

  • Continental Divide Brew Pub - New York Mills

Iron Range, etc -

  • Marge’s Liquor - Eveleth

  • MJ’s Resort - Pengilly

  • The Great Outdoors Bottle Shop - Pengilly

  • KM Corner Store - Nashwauk

  • SuperOne Liquor - Hibbing

  • Keyboard Liquor - Chisholm

  • Crossroads Convenience/Liquor Store - Iron

  • SuperOne Liquor - Virginia

North, etc -

  • Timberwolf Inn - Marcell

  • Boathouse Brewery - Ely

  • North Star Lake Resort - Marcell

  • Frontier Sports - Marcell

  • Mike’s Drive-In Liquor - Ely

  • Ely Liquor

South, etc -

  • Westside Liquor - Waite Park

  • Top Ten Liquors - Roseville

Feeling Cultured Going into Anniversary Week

You know how when people ask you “what’s new?” and you totally blank as if nothing new has ever happened to you in your life? Well, that is definitely not us lately! 
Go ahead, ask us what’s new.
…
Funny you should ask, because for starters, we got new swag! T-shirts arrived a couple weeks ago (four new colors), and mid-weight hoodies just showed up this week (four colors as well). Oh, how our poor merch closet overfloweth. So to help entice you to pick up some new seasonal clothing, and subsequently help us with our bloated hangers, the new hoodies even have our unofficial motto: To Beer or Not To Beer… Is That Even a Question?

Never let it be said that we’re not cultured. Actually, that reminds me of a fart joke…
But there’s no time for that! There’s so much new stuff that’s happening here, like the fact we just held our second Books & Brews: Spooky Book Fair. Same as before, our friends at Wildflower Bookshop didn’t disappoint with their spread of books, and it didn’t take long before the taproom started filling up with regulars as well as new faces, nearly all of them checking out the tables on the stage. As for our part, being the cool cultured people we are, we put out sheets with beer and book pairing recommendations, just in case you needed the help. For instance, if you’re interested in history, we recommended our Münchkin Märzen. True crime? One of the THC seltzers. Erotica/romance? Obviously the Mlinar Delight Raspberry Smoothie Sour. 

And attendees of the first Books & Brew event may remember that we had an info sheet on our various beers that are named after Stephen King characters. Quite fitting, especially since we’re in the midst of the spooky season, after all. But would you believe it, we only have ONE King named beer on tap at the moment!! If it wasn’t for bad planning, we’d have no planning at all. So yeah, we skipped that info sheet this time.
Hey, at least I wore my Kafka cockroach T-shirt this time. Talk about being cultured!

If all this reading has put you in a storied kind of mindset, perhaps we can recommend you come to the taproom this weekend for Storyteller’s Sunday! It’s the return of the storytellers after the summer sabbatical, and to properly mark this return, Michael Goldberg of Stay Human on 91.7 KAXE will be recording the different tales for possible air time on the show. As always, Storyteller’s Sunday is open to all storytellers, whether you planned something in advance or you just happen to be reminded of an interesting thing that happened years ago and you wanna wing it. And being October, the theme this month is “eeriness.” With any luck, we’ll hear a few ghost stories this time around. In fact, I know of at least one. Maybe yours will make it two. Story time is from 1 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 20. 
And all this is the precursor to our anniversary week! And what, you may ask, is happening for that? In short, just a big thank you to you, the fabulous customers. And no, don’t be modest. You’re totally fabulous. Who else has such impeccable taste?? To thank you for seven years of keeping us in business, we’re holding a seven-centric sale the whole week. From Oct. 21 through 28 (yes, we’re aware that is 8 days), shrubbery is now $7 a can, $17 for a 4-pack, and $70 for a case of 24! 
And beer is $7 for a pint! Yeah, we know that’s what it always is. Just gonna have to deal with it. To make up for that, we’re making beer 4-packs and growler fills $7 as well! 
To cap off the week, on Friday, Oct. 25, is the return of Brothers Burn Mountain! It’s really easy to remember what time they start: 7:00 p.m.
And that’s basically just the next week. We’ll get into the stuff happening at the end of the month next time. Spoiler: it’s all pretty awesome too.
Ok, now that we got all that out of the way: What did the unimpressed butt have to say? Pfft. 

We Barley Know You, But We Hop to Change That. It’s the Yeast We Can Do: Klockow Forklift
Question: We’re sitting here with the Klockow’s forklift. How’re you doing today?
Klockow Forklift: Oh, a little sleepy. My battery is kinda low.
Q: Tough to hear. How long have you worked here?
KF: I was one of the first employees, even before any of the humans were hired!
Q: That’s impressive. Well, in all that time, what’s your favorite Klockow beer?
KF: Uh, my favorite is probably the distilled water.
Q: But that’s not a beer?
KF: Lamosezwhat.
Q: What?
KF: Hmm?
Q: Nevermind. So, why the distilled water?
KF: Ooh, it charges my batteries real good. I got a real big battery.
Q: That’s fair. So… uh… besides the distilled water, what else do you like to consume. 
KF: Love plugging into my charger for electricity! Then the water comes full circle, so that my batteries hold the charge so that I can work hard and lift heavy things. Not that you would know anything about that.
Q: Oh, wait. What was that? 
KF: …
Q: But anyway yes, I hear you lift very heavy things.
KF: Not to brag, but I am stronger than Max.
Q: …That’s f***king ridiculous. 
KF: Hey believe it or not.

Q: I’m gonna wait for proof. In the meanwhile, I hear that people that are forklift certified are infamously sexy. Why is that?
KF: As per law, and for safety in general, only the elite can operate me. And there’s an air about those folks: they naturally get more women, they’re more attractive in general, they study hard, they fill out paperwork, and they even watch crazy YouTube videos.
Q: That makes sense. This is all very logical. So tell me more about what you do at the brewery.
KF: I suppose, just this once, I can take a command from someone who isn’t forklift certified. Let’s see, I’m kinda the workhorse in general. I go outside a lot. Get to move things out of trucks. Lift heavy things. I’m so strong, I’ve lifted all the tanks back there.
Q: All of the tanks?
KF: All of the tanks. And the canning line. The brewing system. I’m pretty strong, I’ve lifted it all. Not gonna lie.
Q: That is impressive. You might be stronger than Max. What do you like to do for fun though?
KF: Honestly, just lay low. My top speed isn’t too fast, so I just move around at a walking pace. Not into that speed stuff. I just wanna chill.
Q: What’s a fun/interesting fact about yourself, besides being stronger than Max?
KF: Fun story, one time my accelerator got stuck wide open.
Q: Really? What does that mean?
KF: That means I wasn’t even thinking about it and was just going! Luckily, my operator was certified. So in that panicked situation they were able to stop it and fix my accelerator.
Another fun fact, I get serviced multiple times a year. There’s a special company, they come by and give me a whole once-over. You know, greasing the parts and dusting off any build up that they find. Those are the days I look forward to, when the attention is all on me. That’s the day that I get sexy.
Q: Alright, last question: If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
KF: I’d have to say flight. Being so strong, I’m kinda heavy, so I can’t really get off the ground. If I could have the power of flight, like even just on a plane, I’d be the happiest piece of machinery ever.
Q: That’s a wonderful dream. But wait… you’re real heavy. You’re super strong. One more question… could you lift yourself?
KF: Uhhh… that is the ultimate question. Could I even lift myself?? [stares longingly in the distance with the existential dread]

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff


Beer and Shrubbery Drops this Week:

Local, etc -

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Bottles & Brews Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Raven Stone - Coleraine

  • Smoke on the Water - Coleraine

  • Unwined Up North - Grand Rapids

  • NoPo Coffee - Grand Rapids

North of metro, etc. -

  • Home Town Liquor - Braham

  • Milaca Off Sale

  • Liquor Works - Forest Lake

Minneapolis, etc. -

  • Princeton’s Liquors - Maple Grove

  • Top Ten Liquors - Roseville

  • South Lyndale Liquors - Minneapolis

  • Ombibulous - Minneapolis

Books and Brews and Roggenbier and Roberts

It’s common knowledge that once into October, when autumn is in full swing and a chill returns to the air, the new national hobby is to stay inside with a warm drink and a good book. Well, nights not withstanding, that proverbial chill has yet to really emerge. So… I don’t know what that means. At minimum, it means it’s still a good time for a cold beer of any number of lighter styles, from wheats to shandies, which is good because we still have plenty of those available in our taproom! But, if you want to get a head start on all things fall and winter, we have a beautiful selection of darker malt beer as well. 
But what about that good book? 
Two good options for that would be 1). to finally grab one of those ol’ tomes off your shelf that you’ve been putting off, or even better 2). to come to Klockow on Wednesday, Oct. 16 from 4 to 7 p.m. for Books & Brews: Spooky Book Fair edition. 
Our good friends at Wildflower Bookshop will be back in our taproom with their mobile pop-up shop with another wide selection of great books. As the theme would suggest, there will be plenty of horror titles to choose from, but fear not if fear-inducing literature isn’t your jam. As per usual, there will be a little something for everyone. 

The last time we hosted Books & Brews, the place was packed! Definitely surpassed our expectations, on both ends. Wildflower was thrilled with the turn out, and were very happy to have so fewer books to box up at the end. And it was just plain ol’ fun. So many people were browsing and picking out books, then going to tables to talk about what they had found. With pint in hand, they thumbed through the pages of their big score before closing out and heading home to finish their books. And with luck, we’ll have the same kind of day next Wednesday.

Ok, What Is That?
Roggenbier. That’s a word on our menu. A word that many people have asked, “Ok, what is that?” So maybe we should take a second and break this beer down for everyone. 
In short, Roggenbier is German for “Rye Beer.” And as the name suggests, the primary grain used for this style is rye. Those practical Deutschlanders really do know how to name a beer style! But we won’t just leave it at that. The longer story is that Roggenbier first originated in Europe in the Middle Ages, but then wasn’t brewed for hundreds of years, only recently making a subtle come back. 
As is the case with many styles of beer, Roggenbiers were first made as a necessity since they came from areas where rye was the most plentiful grain available. The people needed beer, and rye was just the grain to do the job. The problem with this is that rye was also used to make bread, and, well, the people needed bread too. Though we’d hate to argue that bread is more important than beer, at the end of the day, it just might be. But even if there technically was enough to go around, redirecting resources for brewing affected the prices of these grains, subsequently increasing the price of rye bread. For this reason, the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516 was put into effect, which stated that beer could only be made from water, hops, and barley (and yeast, though these little creatures weren’t named as an ingredient in the original law). These laws, also known as the Reinheitsgebot, had the desired effect of partitioning which grains were used for each commodity in order to keep prices down, as well as to ensure that no undesirable preservatives were used in beer, such as stinging nettle. 
Seen as a victory in maintaining German brewing traditions and a landmark in food safety regulations around the world, it did have the unfortunate side effect of destroying numerous beer styles, namely Roggenbier. 
Hundreds of years passed. Nearly half a century in fact. And in 1987, regulations in the purity laws were loosened to allow other grains to be used in the brewing of beer in Germany, and a number of styles reemerged from their long hibernation. Funny enough, a previous loosening of the laws had allowed wheat to be used in beers long before this, meaning that Hefeweizens were legally allowed for a much longer time, but Roggenbiers were only finally able to see the market again in the final years of the 20th century. 

Despite what the picture shows, Ryetasca is actually served in pint glasses.

Much of their comeback, as quiet as it has been, has come from the new craft beer scene in the United States. It’s both traditional and lesser-known, which makes it catnip to hipster beer nerds, not unlike us! Here at Klockow, you’ll find an example of this style in our Ryetasca, which we just released at the end of last month. This beer nicely highlights rye as a grain, bringing out the hallmark spice of rye as well as subtle touches of candy sweetness, expressed as notes of banana bread and clove. 
The weather is inevitably getting colder, and this medium dark malt beer is just what’s needed for that transition of the seasons. Come have a pint in the taproom and/or take a 4-pack home! 

We Barley Know You, But We Hop to Change That. It’s the Yeast We Can Do: McKeon Roberts
Question: How long have you worked here?
McKeon Roberts: I started working here… would’ve been the fall, September, of 2023. So about a year.
Q: But you haven’t been here the entire time, correct?
MR: Took a little gap off, would’ve been April, 2024, to the beginning of this month, October of ‘24. So I basically took the summer off. 
Q: What were you doing?
MR: I have a background in outdoor media. So I was working for an outfit called Virtual Angling as a content creator, filming anglers and guides across the Midwest and delivering how-to educational fishing content.
Q: Very cool! But in all the time you’ve worked here, what’s your favorite Klockow beer?
MR: I’m going to go with - currently - 22 Hop Rd., the Wet Hop Hazy Pale Ale. I think this year’s batch is very, very delicious. So that’s been a go-to of mine, of recent. I think long-term, Billy Bumbler Belgian Tripel is just an outstanding beer. It’s award winning for a reason, obviously. It’s the beer that really turned me on to Belgian beers. It’s just a clean, perfect beer, in my opinion. 
Q: Good answers, both. When you’re not drinking Klockow beer, or beer in general, what do you like to drink?
MR: I tend to go with the seasons. I heavily lean on the hoppy side of things. That being said, I start to do the seasonal transition, whether it is a brown ale, porter, and stouts as we get deeper into the colder season. But for the most part, I lean toward a hazier IPA. There’s just a million of them out there that do a great job with that. So yeah, anything hoppy and hazy definitely takes my palate for a ride.
Q: Nice. Sticking with this theme, what are some of your favorite foods?
MR: Well, lately I’ve been taking an approach of eating what you catch or kill. So yeah, just paying more attention to what you put into your body and knowing where it comes from. So that being said, I eat a lot of game birds, like ducks or pheasants or grouse. A lot of venison. Adrianne here sells eggs and so I buy two dozen eggs from her a week. Eggs and bacon pretty much every day for breakfast. So I like that heartier, know-where-it-comes-from type foods, I guess. 
Q: Do you manage to hunt and fish all year round then? Or do you stock up?
MR: Yeah. Well, there’s regulations on seasons. I fish year round; of course in Minnesota, the game fish season closes February through May. But there are other fish out there to be had that are edible. So I eat fish all the time because I fish all the time. And when fall comes around, that opens the door to hunting season and being able to eat that stuff. Otherwise, in the summertime, for meat consumption, going to local farms and getting a bunch of really good bacon and pork chops… things from local farmers. 

Q: So what do you do at the brewery?
MR: I am mainly a beertender. So serving suds to all the local faces. And just recently started doing some production work in the back. Today is my first day! So labeling and all the things that make taking beer from our facility out to greater Minnesota, having a helping hand in that. 
Q: So I think I know what some of this is - you’ve already talked about fishing and stuff - but what do you like to do for fun?
MR: My two favorite things on earth are fishing and music. Fishing in general, just being outside… I’m a super biology nerd. Wildlife biology, plant biology. Just being outside in nature and observing things, you know. Just encountering critters. It’s essentially related to Pokémon, honestly. You look for rare things in their environment, that that really excites me. 
Fishing is the closest thing to my heart, for sure, and music. So very, very heavily involved in the local music scene. It’s one of my biggest passions that I throw myself into. 
Q: What’s a fun/interesting fact about yourself?
MR: First thing that comes to mind is, you know my first name is somewhat unique. It’s a last name. But McKeon is my first name. And I got my name because my mom was pregnant with me at the time, and my dad just finished Pink Floyd’s “The Wall.” The actor who plays the little boy in “The Wall,” his last name is McKeon. So he looked up at my mom and said, “How about McKeon?” And here I am.
Q: That’s hilarious. [laughs] I had no idea. I suppose that’s why it’s a fun fact! Ok, so we’re down to the last question. If you were granted the ability to know when and how you die, would you want to know? And why or why not?
MR: I’m going to go with my gut, hip shot here, but I think I’d rather not know and still live every day with the intention of having surprises and never knowing what’s next anyway. So when the day comes, and it’s a surprise, then that’s how it was meant to be. That’s where I’m at with that. 

~

Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.

The Klockow Staff

Beer and Shrubbery Drops this Week:

Local, etc -

  • Bottle & Brews Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Dutch Room & Mad Dog’s Pizza - Grand Rapids

  • Locker Room - Coleraine

  • SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids

  • SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids

  • Unwined Up North - Grand Rapids

  • Sammy’s - Grand Rapids

  • Timberlake Lodge - Grand Rapids

  • Eagle Ridge Golf Course - Coleraine

  • Rocket’s - Cohasset

  • Pokegama Grill - Grand Rapids

  • Willey’s Sports Shop & Spirits - McGregor

Bemidji -

  • First City Liquor - Bemidji

  • Lakeview Liquor - Bemidji

  • Northern Offsale Liquor - Bemidji

  • Beehive Offsale Liquors - Bemidji

St. Cloud -

  • 7 West - St. Cloud

Up nort -

  • The Rocky Ledge - Kabetogama