This weekend the wife and I escaped for a night to Rochester, MN. Neither of us had ever been here before, though we’d driven past the city a couple of times. So of course I had to turn it into a bit of beer tourism. We headed out from the Twin Cities mid-morning and arrived at Kinney Creek Brewery shortly after they opened. This brewery has been open for a few years, and it’s located in a little storefront just a couple blocks north of Civic Center Drive.
The decor was simple and industrial themed, pretty typical for many taprooms. Kinney Creek is a small batch brewery, brewing on what I believe the bartender told me was a 2bbl system. On the menu was close to a dozen brews, however some were sold out currently. I picked out a flight of 5 beers and we took a seat at a high top.
The first one I tried was a winter warmer beer, and it was well made, but the earthy hops bordered on the dank side. This made it a bit too astringent for me to handle more than a flight sample. Next up was a German altbier, which was really nice and pleasant. It had a decent balance, was well made, and had no flaws. I could see drinking full pints of this.
Next up was their Black IPA. I had high hopes for this beer, as I love Black Ale’s. However, this beer let me down. The hop character was really strong, which is appropriate for an IPA type beer, but the malt character was distinctly out of balance. I found myself really wanting more roast character with maybe a bit stronger chocolate profile. Unlike a standard IPA where you want a refreshing malt character, a black IPA (to me at least) should be a balance between the roast and depth of a porter/stout/dark ale with the piney hop character of west coast hops. This beer feels like it has a lot of potential with just a few tweaks to the malt bill.
The fourth beer I tried was their blonde ale and unfortunately this one was a dud. It had a weird chemical taste and strange aftertaste, so something didn’t work right in this batch. I asked the bartender and he said that it was the first time they had made it on their big system (as opposed to a homebrew system I assume) and so it still needed some tweaking. Hopefully they can get this one better because I wasn’t even able to finish the flight sample.
Finally I came to their American stout, which they had on nitro, and it couldn’t have been a more polar opposite to the experience of the blonde ale. This one was perfectly balanced, with a wonderful roast and chocolate character, and having it on nitro was super smooth. I commented to the bartender how much I liked it and how much I wished I could bring a growler of it home (nitro obviously can’t be put in a growler). Then the bartender went out of his way to offer to hook up a keg of the stout on CO2 and fill a growler for me. Super impressed that he would go through the trouble to do that for me, and I’m quite excited to get this growler home and enjoy it.
Overall I found Kinney Creek to be a nice little taproom, and they’ve got some good stuff on tap. Except for the blonde ale, nothing had any major flaws. Some of the recipes could use a few tweaks, but when you’re brewing on a 2bbl system it’s easy to change the batches quickly. It’s totally worth stopping by if you’re down in the Rochester area.
Second Runnings 