A visit to Bald Man Brewing Company

The next brewery I stopped at this past weekend, which opened its doors about a month or so ago, is Bald Man Brewing Company located in Eagan, MN. There were a few reasons I checked these guys out; The first being that it's located not too far from where I live, the second being that one of their beers was featured in the Pioneer Press, and the third is that I used to live in Eagan. That's right, after living in Robbinsdale for the first 15 years of my life, I moved to Eagan and lived there for 5 years before moving away for school.

From what I've observed, Eagan hasn't changed too much with the exception of Lockheed Martin shutting down, the addition of an outlet mall along with more commercial developments since I left there. In fact, when I first heard that a brewery was setting up shop in Eagan, I was a bit surprised considering how Eagan wouldn't be at the top of my list for places I would expect to see a brewery. Also unlike some breweries that are located in the industrial part of town, Bald Man is located in an office park by Silver Bell Road & County Road 13 near the Eagan-Burnsville border. From the outside, it looks like any other business in the same park, with the Bald Man Brewing sign in the office park font. On the inside, however, we've got a pretty large taproom and, of course, fermentation and bright tanks for all to see.

Anyways, let's talk about the beer. Since they're a pretty new brewery, there was only 5 beers to choose from which is to be expected and that's alright. Plus the word-of-mouth I had heard about the beers was quite good, so I was quite excited to try them out.

Blinded By The Light Blonde (4.1% ABV) - Pale malt backbone with a slight bitter hoppiness, along with some mild biscuit notes. Nothing that I haven't already seen in a Blonde Ale before but this one was drinkable and good!

Tupelo Honey Brown Ale (6.5% ABV) - Nice honey notes paired with some chocolate malts & light floral hops with a surprisingly roasty (for a brown ale) finish. The honey helps gives some character to what is a very roasty brown ale; Perhaps toning down just a smidgen on the roastiness....

Calibration Day Session IPA (4.5% ABV) - A SMASH (Single Malt & Single Hop) Session IPA. Bitter hop and melon notes and a moderate malty backbone with a bitter finish. I'm not a big fan of SMASH IPAs as I think they're one dimensional (in a bad way) but this one was surprisingly good for what it was and I wouldn't mind having this again

Young America Pale Ale (5.6% ABV) - This was the beer that was featured in the Pioneer Press and had heard good things about prior to coming in. The flavor has a floral hop, yeast and mild bitter hop flavor profile upfront and through the middle, while the back end and aftertaste is dominated by the bitter hoppiness. In short, it's a solid pale but it wasn't my favorite of the bunch. That honor belongs to......

Misty Mountain Hops IPA (6.1% ABV) - My favorite beer during my visit there! You've got rich citrus hops backed up by bitter hops and it's all rounded out by a nice toffee malt backbone with a nice citrus & bitter hop finish along with a light hint of grapefruit. If you're looking for a nice West Coast-style IPA, this is your beer right here!

With the exception of the Misty Mountain IPA, there wasn't anything that really jumped out at me as great but at the same time they were all good, drinkable beers. Like Wild Mind, I'll keep my eye on these guys to see what they put out in the future. As for those who happen to find themselves in the South Metro of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Bald Man is certainly worth checking out.