Friday Drankin’: Fair State Brewing

What’s better than a brewery? How about a brewing community? in this week’s edition of Friday Drankin’ let’s take a look at the first fully unionized microbrewery in the United States, located right in the backyard of the Golden Gophers.

Fair State Brewing Co-op

2506A CENTRAL AVE NE

MINNEAPOLIS, MN 55418

Power to the people! The good people at Fair State have seized the means of production and have decided that, instead of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, they have decided to brew good beer instead:

Our story starts on the rugby pitch, where founder Evan Sallee, Niko Tonks, and Matt Hauck first met while playing for rival teams. The competition turned into friendship and while homebrewing together the idea of founding a brewery started simmering. Then, the notion of a cooperatively owned brewery came to life when the three founders had beers together at Black Star Co-op in Austin.

Our founders believed the operations of craft breweries were opaque and that there was a gap between being a homebrewer and owning a brewery. The founders’ hope was that the co-op model would provide a way for consumers to be more involved in operations while also bringing co-op values to the Minnesota craft beer scene.

Now, let’s get to the beer:

Foamer’s Lime - 4.5% ABV - Crispy corn lager with real lime added. It’s somehow even more delicious than that sounds. Snappy, lime-y, ready to party. I am normally not a fan of lime beers because Corona tastes like chilled urine with lime, but a good micro with the lime already mixed in is great.

Vienna Lager - 5.3% ABV - Medium-bodied amber lager. Sound perfect here in the fall for football.

Pils - 4.9% ABV - German-style pilsner with a grassy hop aroma and a crisp finish. Hard to go wrong with a good German pilsner.

Lobster Stuffed with Tacos - 14% ABV - We brewed this beer with our friends at Bottle Logic in the summer of 2019, and our intent was to create a sumptuous tapestry of luxurious flavors so decadent that we could declare with a straight face that this was our finest stout, stuffed with our second finest stout. Truly, a dish even Moe Szyslak would be proud of. This is a 12-month bourbon and brandy barrel-aged imperial stout with ridiculous amounts of toasted coconut, vanilla beans, and caramelized cocoa nibs. That gives me an excuse to use this: