Vine Park Brewing Company

dander21

Minnesota

3.75/5  rDev -3.8%
quality: 3 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4 | $$

Vine Park, a place that lets someone be a homebrewer without owning their own equipment.

The Good:
This is a great place for people interested in learning more about beer and enthusiatic to get a hands on experience. The staff was helpful and knowledgeable as well as able to quickly adapt to different levels of brewing background. They offer a pretty nice selection of beer styles that one can choose to brew. It can truly ease the apprehension of new brewers getting started.

The Not So Good:
Some of the styles offered are difficult to pull off due to Vine Park due to only allowing two weeks of fermenation time before bottling. Also, after our enjoyable breing experience and delicious beer on bottling day, the pale ale that we bottled has matured into a beer that tastes heavily of diacetyl....

In all, you can purchase growlers on site of fresh beer, and their root beer was especially delicious. A great gateway into homebrewing at home.

10-16-2009 17:51:55 | More by dander21

Mdog

Minnesota

3.8/5  rDev -2.6%
quality: 3.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 3.5 | $$

Vine Park is a good place to get introduced to brewing. I usually go about twice per year with a group of co-workers to make up some beer and be sociable.

The guys who run the place are great and have a lot of patience for all the strange people who brew beer there.

They have a pretty big selection of beer recipes to choose from and look to have added some new ones since the last time I brewed. My group has brewed about 10 different beers, I would rate them in the 3-3.5 range for the most part. The cost is very reasonable, it's usually about $2 per bomber.

It's like homebrewing without the mess.

04-21-2007 23:41:27 | More by Mdog

objectivemonkey

Minnesota

4.15/5  rDev +6.4%
quality: 4 | service: 4 | selection: 4.5 | $$

Went here with my dad a while back, and made a return trip. He goes about every other month or so to brew beers. The deal with this place is, you set an appointment to brew your own beer.

For guys who don't know much about the process (like my dad, and to a certain extent, me), its a pretty sweet place to go, as they assign you a kettle, walk you through the whole process, and with a return trip two weeks later, you're bottling a few cases of beer your own beer. The recipes are easy to understand, and quite frankly I haven't come away with a beer that I didn't like from there.

The staff has always been professional, helpful when needed, not overbearing or condecending to anyone who didn't know much. Fun atmosphere, its all about the beer and having a good time brewing.

Basically, if you don't own your own brewing equipment, or if you don't feel like doing all the grunt work (ie cleaning, storing, cooking, buying ingredients, etc), this is a really good deal.

11-16-2005 04:24:32 | More by objectivemonkey