HomebrewCon 2017: Prologue

I'm attending the 2017 National Homebrewer's Conference (aka HomebrewCon) in Minneapolis this week. I was sitting on a bunch of airline miles and hotel points, so why not? 😁
I flew in on Wednesday to give myself a little time to explore a new city... and drink its beer. I'm not going to write a blow-by-blow travelogue here. I'll keep it something akin to long-winded tweets on a page.
After checking in to the Hilton Minneapolis, I followed a tip from my Lyft driver and hit a place called Hell's Kitchen for lunch. Their marquee item is a cheese-filled burger called the Juicy Lucifer. It's tough to eat such a thick patty, but it is delicious. The cole slaw was the real surprise with a true-to-theme spiciness to it.

Hell's Kitchen's Juicy Lucifer 

Practically next door is the Angel Food bakery. (They're at street level, while Hell's Kitchen is in the basement. The ironies were not lost on me.) The have an outpost at MSP and man their stuff looked fantastic. I hit them up this morning and got their crullers. Mmmmm. I didn't know crullers could be so airy.

Angel Food cinnamon sugar (L)
and plain cruller

Just across the street is Haskell's Wine. It's the closest liquor store for local beer purchases. Other stores probably have better beer selection, but being less than two blocks away wins out.
And just up the street from there is Target, the hometown big-box retailer. Perfect place to get some cheap lunchable-type food and B-complex to survive several days of drinking.
All this convenience is within two blocks of the hotel. I may never leave. Well, I would when winter comes.
The Minneapolis Convention Center is about two blocks away. It can be reached using the city's extensive Skywalk system of pedestrian corridors, but the weather up here is fantastic, so I might as well walk on the street.
I took the Hoppy Trolley's hop-on, hop-off shuttle to Near Northeast to hit some breweries up that way. It's $1/ride, which is a bargain at twice the price if you're leaving or returning to the Convention Center.
I hit 3 breweries: Able, 612 Brew and BauHaus. They weren't too busy so I managed to chat with some of the brewers. 612's rye IPA was fantastic (17% rye, per the brewer), and BauHaus's "belgo-american" ale was superb.
Last night I hoofed it up to Target Field to watch the Twins play the Mariners. The home team lost 6-4, but they do have a nice roomy stadium that feels very social.
The expo floor opens shortly, so I get to kill some time there while waiting for the first round of homebrewer seminars this afternoon.
Follow me on Twitter! I'm @Zymurginian
Cheers!