Drink across Minnesota

 In a continued attempt to get my money's worth out of my Minnesota Hop Passport we decided to drink our way across Minnesota. First day of vacation destination was Rochester and there are many brew pubs between Pipestone and Rochester!

Left home around 10:30 for our first stop - Lost Sanity Brewing in Madelia. I actually was at this brewery on my solo trip but I really liked it so decided to take Kurt. As we were driving I pointed out the gas station that is the last one for quite some time (I found this out by experience and almost had to go on the side of the road once). Kurt asked earlier how much gas we had and I told him just a little more than 3/4 tank. So we get not even 100 yards down the road fro this gas station and my car alerts me that we are low on gas and asked if we wanted it to search for closest gas station. 

Side note - we got a new to us car. It's a 2022 Subaru Outback Wilderness and I love it. It is a very courteous car, it searches for gas stations and says 'See You' when you get out.


Anyways, back to my story. So when I looked at the gas gauge I looked at it backwards. Ends up we were a little under a 1/4 tank... Good thing the car warned us when it did as I pointed out, it's quite a ways before we would have come across another one.

So anyways, we made it to Madelia. Madelia Town Days was going on so had to park a couple blocks away and walk down to the brewery. I really like this little place. Good beer! Even had to get some to go.

From Madelia we headed for Half Pint Brewing outside of Waseca, about an hour. This place was out of town in the middle of nowhere. Even had to take gravel roads in my new to me car... Anyways, I was really excited to try one of their beers. It was a strawberry cream ale. It was meh. Actually everything we tried was just meh. I think my favorite was the root beer. Nice venue though. 


Next stop was Owatonna and Smokin Silverback for food! The BBQ was okay. Nothing great but not bad. I had the pulled pork sandwich and Kurt had ribs and sausage. All of it fine but not worth the 5 star review I read! 

We were going to head for Rochester after eating but it was getting pretty dark and pulling up radar it looked like some major storms were heading into the area. So we decided to hit another brewery and wait it out.

Went to Mineral Springs Brewing right up the road. We parked just as it started to rain. Then it poured. Then it hailed a bit. Glad we decided to wait it out! Mineral Springs was another cute little place with good beers. They were supposed to have a band but that got cancelled. It POURED and they were set up outside. We hung out for a beer or two for Kurt while we waited for the storms to go through.

 
Sunny skies all the way to Rochester, about 45 minutes away. Checked into the EconoLodge for tonight. Nothing fancy but it's fine and has this super comfy recliner, and it was only 8,000 points. Walked over to get a couple waters. There is an ice cream shop right up the road we debated going to but I wasn't feeling ice cream... Hope I'm not getting sick - I am ALWAYS feeling ice cream!!!

Oh well, time to get some sleep. See you tomorrow!

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