Pilgrimage

I'm traveling this week. My first stop is in Minnesota, where my colleagues Greg Beresnikow and Cherri Schmidt and I had a presentation to make to some prospective customers in a suburb of St. Paul. We wrapped up the presentation just before lunch.

Guess who else is in St. Paul? Northern Brewer, of course. Since we had to pass through St. Paul to get to the airport anyway, my colleagues indulged me during our lunchtime with a visit to NB's retail operation on Grand Avenue. (I guess it is an indication of how obsessed I have become with the whole homebrew thing that I even had the gumption to suggest the trip.)

After a few GPS-induced navigation opportunities, we arrived at Northern Brewer:



They had a really funny poster in the front window. If you look close you can see my reflection as I took the picture (I'm in a red shirt):



As we entered the store we found the "grain room" just off to the left. In it were dozens of poly buckets with many variations of malts and other adjuncts:



Here's a closeup of the arrangement. It's reminiscent of the bulk bins at a grocery store.



Cherri went down the street to another shop with Irish merchandise while Greg and I browsed the offerings at Northern Brewer. Greg found a bottle in a suitable size:



The guys working in the store were friendly and very helpful, especially in regard to the burning question of the day. I'll address that in another post.