The Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild's fall event is always a hop lover's festival. But this year you can expect to see more than 35 varieties of sour beers as well. Here are five brews to check out if you go.

  1. Apparent Horizon from Schell's. The eighth installment in the sour Noble Star collection promises to deliver spicy rye notes with a balanced acidity and some noticeable cider and lemon flavors.
  2. Surrette from Crooked Stave. A brew based on early 20th-century farmhouse ales and made with barley, wheat, oats, rye and spelt. Both Lactobacillus and Brettanomyces are responsible for the funk found in this beer. I've long waited for Crooked Stave to enter the Minnesota market, and now it's here.
  3. Publican on Northeast Neighborhood Cherries from NorthGate Brewing. This is version of their Pub Ale on nitro with fresh local cherries. Nothing says fall like freshly harvested fruit. Yum!
  4. Hop Shifter from Surly Brewing. Does anyone do hop-forward beers better than Surly? In this forthcoming series of beers, the brewer plays with experimental and new hop varieties while the malt base will remain similar from batch to batch. Chemistry class would have been so much more interesting if this were the main subject.
  5. Cuvee of Consequence from Town Hall Brewery. Barrel aging is an art form and brewer Mike Hoops is a master of the process. This one is a big bold Saison aged in white wine barrels from northern California. Expect this one to be complex with plenty of fruit notes from the yeast strain — and don't hesitate to call a cab (it clocks in at 9%ABV) if you have a few.

For a full beer list check out the program here.

Cheers!