After trying to get in last Saturday night to no avail (too crowded), I finally got to sample the new Town Hall Tap, a smaller, cozier version of the great Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery that opened last weekend. It's the first Minneapolis brewpub to follow the neighborhood-bar trend. It also just so happened to land right in my own personal neighborhood. Are you there, God? It's me, Chris. I love you.
Proximity aside, the new Town Hall is in a terrific location, at 48th St. & Chicago Ave in south Minneapolis near Mexican-food mainstay Pepito's and right next to the cool ol' Parkway Theater, which is fully demonstrating its funkiness this weekend by offering something called "Nordic Sexy Shorts." The Tap site has been a couple different, rather blasé restaurants in recent years. Town Hall's crew gutted the place, added a new historic bar (shipped in from Bloomington, Ill.), some booths and a ton of cool vintage beer signs. Best of all, they put garage doors onto the front of the building that will open up beautifully onto the sidewalk come summer, à la Brasa. The pulled-pork sandwich and other popular food items on the menu at the other Town Hall are offered here.
But it's mostly about the beer, which is brewed off-site but still as fresh as can be. Town Hall shipped in some new brewing tanks from China to add to its brewing capacity. They had about a dozen "guest" beers on tap along with 10 of their own great brews when I was there, including a new Parkway Java Porter that fit the weather as well as it did the location. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, indeed.
