Surly Brewery Tour

This weekend was Ben's 34th Birthday on Saturday, and since we were going to a wedding that night, I wanted to surprise him with something fun on Friday. So, I arranged some friends to meet us at the Surly Brewing Company in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota and we did a tour there, it was SO fun!

The brewery comes out a nowhere in a little neighborhood of businesses off of Highway 100. Ben was so confused on where we were going, until we pulled into the brewery's parking lot that sits at a dead end of the businesses.


The tour started with mingling in their cute bar area, and you got five tokens so you could try their different beers.


Because I'm more of a fruity, cocktail drink gal, I liked their lightest beer, Bender, although their most popular is an IPA called Furious. I used about three of my tokens and then gave the rest to the birthday boy!

After a good amount of time filling up on beer and visiting the gift shop, there was a presentation on the history of the brewery, which was really interesting, followed by more time to enjoy some beer, and lastly information on how the beer there is brewed.

The tour was completely free, but they fill up fast, so if you want to attend one of the tours (they're only held on Friday nights) you have to sign up fast on their website three weeks before the tour is given.

Sam, Brad, Kari, Jamie, Ben and I on the tour

We concluded our night, by stuffing our faces with pizza, and then going to one of the best bars I've ever found around here, it's a Vodka Bar called St. Petersburg. It's a converted American Legion hall, that offers many different varieties of vodka, and is a "Cheers" type bar where everyone welcomed us in, and was super cheap to boot!


After having my share of beer, I had a fruit cocktail made with one of their signature Vodkas, delicious!


St. Petersburg was definitely a place of regulars, as we sat enjoying our drinks, we heard one of them from the bar say, "this is the place where dreams come true." After our fun night there, and a bill that hardly put a dent in my checking account, I had to agree!