Last weekend, I took advantage of the nice day to go out and about. Upon wondering what to do with my free time, I remembered that a brewery called Wicked Wort Brewing Company had recently opened their doors in Robbinsdale, MN so I decided to take it upon myself to go check it out. You're probably wondering why I decided to go to this brewery in particular, and that's because Robbinsdale is my hometown. That's right, I was born and raised there for the first 15 years of my life before I moved away.
Needless to say, I just had to check this place out and see what my hometown had to offer. Located in the old TCF Bank building along Broadway Ave on the main drag in downtown, the space looks very different than it did 15 years ago. Even the bartender who I was talking with shared memories of coming there as a kid.
Anyways, enough about that. You're probably wondering how the beer is. Luckily for me, they had a very wide variety of beers to choose from, which is shocking considering how new this place is. So I managed to get a flight as well as a pint of beers so I could cover my bases in terms of styles go.
Banks Closed Brown (6.3% ABV) - The first beer I had and an homage to the building's former occupants.. For a brown ale, it was surprisingly roasty and had a porter-like taste to it. Aside from that, you've got your chocolate malts & nuttiness with just a touch of bitter hops. Aftertaste was a bitter roasty finish.
Birdtown Blonde (4.6% ABV) - A blonde ale which gets its nom de guerre from Robbinsdale's nickname. Starts out fairly pale malt forward with some light floral hops with some light yeasts and more light hoppiness towards the end. Even though they had a lager on tap there (which I didn't get around to), this felt very much like a lager, which is certainly not a bad thing.
Cheap Seats IPA (5.3% ABV) - Citrus hops and mango notes on the front of the palate that sustain throughout the flavor with some pale & toffee malts showing up towards the back end of the palate with some hints of orange peel. The aftertaste is mainly a light bitter hop finish.
Ape Hangers Pale Ale (5% ABV) - Named after a style of handles on a motorcycle. Moderate floral hops with some pale malt on the front of the palate followed by some light bittering hops and yeasts, which both make up the back end of the palate and the aftertaste.
Burly Eyed British Bitter (4.2% ABV) - Bitter and floral hops upfront, followed by some light buttery biscuit notes and a bitter hop aftertaste.
I'm not going to lie, the past couple of new taprooms that I've been to have been somewhat disappointing in terms of overall quality and I was expecting this to be more of the same here. Thankfully every beer I had here was good & drinkable and bucked that trend of mediocre tasting beers.
At the same time, I could tell that they were playing it safe as far as the beers go since they are a fairly new brewery. On top of that, none of the beers really jumped out at me as being "great" but rather just simply "good." So while the beers were pretty by-the-numbers, I will definitely be keeping my eye on this place as I think these guys have the potential to do awesome things in the future.
For those of you wondering if it's worth checking out, I would say absolutely. The beers are good, the taproom aesthetics and atmosphere capture the spirit of Robbinsdale quite well and it's the perfect place to hang out on a nice spring afternoon.
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