We'll Cross That Bridge When We Come To It: Lift Bridge Brewing Review

Not long ago my wife (Sarajo) and I took a day trip out to Stillwater, Minnesota for a little visit of the sites and breweries in the area.  It's actually been 14 years since we last stayed in Stillwater for our first anniversary...wow does time fly!  I've been meaning to get to Lift Bridge Brewing for years, ever since they built their own brewery.  Not too long ago one of my friends--Randy Ust--formerly of Midwest/Northern Brewer and then Herkimer, started working for Lift Bridge and was willing to give us a tour of the place.

We showed up fairly early in the morning, before the taproom opened, and entertained ourselves for a bit playing cornhole (hey I didn't invent the name) outside until Randy arrived.  The day was beautiful and sunny with a slight hint of chill that was burning off rapidly.

Led by our bearded friendly giant (BFG), we got an awesome up-close and personal tour of the facility, located in a large but attractive warehouse building on the outskirts of town.  The facility is one of the bigger breweries in the state, but not as massive in scale as say Surly or Summit.  The brew system is a 15 barrel affair which they use to fill 11 30 barrel fermenters and 4 60 barrel fermenters.  Do the math there--they have to brew 4 times to fill one of those 60's!  I sense a bigger brewhouse or 24-7 brewing in their future!  Lift Bridge began around 2007/2008 and have been steadily growing ever since, perhaps being more cautious in their expansion plans than some, but still ever enlarging their production and distribution.  Randy showed off a new yeast propagator that was the most recent addition to the equipment as an example of a new area of growth.

They have a bottling line, a somewhat "experienced" kegging line (and Randy to lift those heavy kegs), and now a new canning line for packaging up the beers.  We also got to peek into an accessory warehouse where all the bourbon barrels filled with precious beer lie maturing and waiting to become one of the best barrel aged beers in the state--Barrel Aged Silhouette!

Home of future Barrel Aged Silhouette...

Lift Bridge was one of the early additions to the  Minnesota Craft Beer Renaissance (I should trademark that) and led with Farm Girl Saison as their flagship beer.  Back in early 2007/2008 putting out a spicy, estery Belgian style beer as your flagship in Minnesota was pretty bold.  Many of the early recipes for the brewery had additions of spices or flavors to accentuate the flavors and nod to the experimentation oriented homebrewing roots of the founders.  The current Head Brewer for Lift Bridge is Matt Hall, a storied brewer previously of Firestone Walker in California, and things have only improved since he came on board.  I've met Matt a few times at Happy Gnome beer dinners and he's not only a stellar brewer, but also a wonderful guy.

Awesome old wooden fermenter on display in the brewery.

Once we were done with our tour of the grounds (plenty of room for more fermentors!) we headed to the tasting room.  In 2011, after the "Surly Bill" allowed for brewery taprooms, Lift Bridge was the first in the state to take advantage of it.  The taproom is open and comfortable with mainly bench seating at varnished wooden tables.  A jukebox sits in the corner, and a small bar lines the back wall.  Plenty of merchandise fills some cubbys in the back corner for your swag needs.

The taproom has a lot of the standard Lift Bridge beers on tap but also hosts some small-batch taproom only beers that are worth a check.  Randy took us through the then current line up of beers and here are my pencil sketches of some of them from this visit.  I've given the beers a score between 0-5, with 3 being my average drinkable beer.

1) Shadow Effect: Taproom only German style schwazbier.  This was very roasty and dry--much more in line with a dry Irish stout than a malty lager. Still decent though.  3.25

2) The Warden: A sweet/milk stout.  I get lots of coffee, cream, and roastiness.  Very nice. Can't drink much of this since I'm lactose intolerant!  3.75

3) Mango Blonde:  The base beer for this a very respectable blonde--better stylistically than most of the big selling Minnesota examples (I'm talking to you Fulton and Excelsior!)  The addition of mango is subtle but makes this pop with some juicy tropical flavors.  I had an aunt and uncle who raised mangoes in Florida so I grew up loving this fruit, but most mangoes in Minnesota are hard little bitter things compared to those.  This beer gets the balance right!  4

4) Cowboy Jack's IPA: A session IPA brewed for Cowboy Jacks, and available there or in the taproom.  Very strong citrus hop up front on aroma.  Crisp.  Lemon and orange flavors.  Dry finish.  Quite nice.  I like this a lot more than the Crosscut and would drink it regularly if I could.  4

5) Irish Coffee Stout 2016:  A blend of barrel aged Russian Imperial stout and milk stout finished with cold press coffee.  This beer is actually one of my favorite Minnesota coffee beers and is often underrated.  Aroma of roasted grain and fresh brewed dark coffee.  I get a thick and creamy mouthfeel out of this. Flavors of coffee, malted milk, hints of vanilla and toasted oak.  I like this beer best aged one year. 4.25

Overall, Lift Bridge is putting out some very good beers.  I'd still like to see them drop or minimize the spiced beers, but think that some of the newer offerings are hitting the mark well for me.  These guys are doing some amazing things with barrels and I want more!  This trip I didn't get to try the Commander Barleywine, nor the BA Silhouette, but I'll be posting separate reviews of those beers in the coming weeks since Randy was kind enough to donate a few personal bottles of his own to my cause.

Magnetic cribbage boards build into the tables!

By the time we finished sampling beers and buying merchandise the place had filled up for a busy noon crowd of thirsty drinkers.  This was fun mix of locals and other beer tourists like us--everyone seemed to be having a good time.  Thanks go out to Randy, Sarah, and all the staff at Lift Bridge for a great experience.  I'd highly recommend visiting the taproom.  In fact, make a trip of it:  check out the cool downtown area, have dinner or lunch at LoLo, check out Oliphant in nearby Sommerset, WI across the historic lift bridge, and stay the night in one of the many B&B's (I like the Rivertown Inn).

A Whale A Week: Lift Bridge Barrel Aged Silhouette

Last week on A Whale A Week we tasted the bright and refreshing Cantillon Fou' Foune.  During that tasting that became a somewhat epic bottle share among a small group of us, we ended up cracking some other whales.  Not to miss the opportunity, I made everyone work for it and write out their descriptions for use in the past couple of weeks.  The goal of this series of reviews is to force me to actually drink some of these rare beers that are lurking in my cellar, rather than just gaze upon them in adoration.

Lift Bridge Barrel Aged Silhouette

This week we finish up our whale tasting binge with local Minnesota brewery Lift Bridge's barrel aged Russian Imperial stout.  Lift Bridge Brewery was one of the first wave of "new" breweries in Minnesota when craft beer started to gain popularity here.  In 2008 they started out contract brewing with other early Minnesota craft brewer Flat Earth.  By 2010 they had gained enough of a reputation with their flagship Farm Girl Saison that they were able to move brewing to their own facility in Stillwater (where the old lift bridge the company is named for is located).  They have also taken advantage of the new legislation in the state to open a taproom on site for thirsty fans to sample a pint of their beer.  I have not been out to the brewery yet, but look forward to getting out there at some point this year.  

To be frank, over the past couple of years I haven't really found myself drinking much beer from these guys.  However, I was recently at the Happy Gnome beer dinner that featured Lift Bridge and was actually impressed with the improved beer quality since the last time I had tried them.  The star of the show was the preview of the not yet released Barrel Aged Silhouette and this promptly jumped up into my most sought-after beer category.  I had tried the regular Silhoutte at Winterfest a couple years back and was pleased with it, but the time in the barrel has really brought this beer up a level.

Silhouette is a Russian Imperial stout, with stats: 10% ABV, 80 IBU, 70 SRM.  They use 12 year old bourbon barrels to age a portion of this and release it once a year since 2013 as a special event at the brewery only.  While they haven't reached Darkness Day or Dark Lord Day numbers yet, the past two years have shown a big increase in interest in this beer and the event itself.  The barrel aged version has a 100 rating on Beer Advocate and a 97 on RateBeer: both very respectable scores!

Per the bottle description: "Black as a moonless night and brewed in the style of a Russian Imperial Stout, this complex beer’s notes of coffee, roasted malt, rich toffee and black licorice meld with an intense roasted character to provide a complex, rich and full bodied beer. It’ll warm the senses on a cold winter night, or anytime you decide to let a little darkness in. Pairs well with cave aged blue cheese, dark chocolate and cherry chocolate cake."

For today's tasting we gathered a panel of experts...Ok, people who like beer.  Included were:  Me--Homebrewer, BJCP judge.  My wife Sj--Fan of Imperial stouts.  Dave Manley--JAB member, homebrewer, cellared beer expert.  Jim Stroner--Beer enthusiast and photographer.  Rick Spaulding--Also beer enthusiast, biker, and photographer.  With this varied dream team assembled, we cracked open Jim's bottle of the 2015 Barrel Aged Silhouette!  This was the last of four big beers we reviewed, so our descriptions suffered a bit...bear with us!

Aroma:
Eric: Strong bourbon aroma, vanilla, toasted oak.  Dark bitter chocolate and roasted malt.  Some sweetness as it warms in the glass.
Dave: Bourbon, malt, toffee, vanilla.
Jim: Vanilla, booze, heavy molasses.
Rick: Bourbon.

Appearance: 
Deep and dark, nearly perfect black.  Thick and viscous with legs on the edge of glass as swirled.  Nearly opaque, but a slight ruby highlight at edge when held to the light.  Very fine tan head that fades quickly.

Flavor:
Eric: Sweet, thick, and malty as anything!  Coconut, vanilla present.  Alcohol warming but not overly hot.  Slight sweet dark cherry flavor.  Roasted grain lends a somewhat bitter finish, but not acrid. This actually cuts down the residual sweetness.  Body is pretty thick and mouth coating.
Dave: Wow!  Bourbon, licorice, vanilla.  Just a hair too boozy.
Jim: Very sweet--in a good way.  Very much the same as the aroma.
Rick: Caramel, bourbon, smooth and warming.  Medium to heavy body.

Overall:
Eric: A very good beer.  Not overly smooth--the alcohol is pretty strong in it, but complex and exciting to taste.  A wonderful example of the bourbon barrel aged RIS.  I'd love to try the 2014 version and see if it smooths out some. 4.5
Dave: Nicely done.  I think age with bring out the complexities even more.
Jim: Very nice! 4.5
Rick: 5
Sj: 4.5

So overall, we were pretty impressed with this beer.  Not too shabby for a small batch from a local Minnesota brewery!  This beer alone makes me want to pay more attention to Lift Bridge and see what else they are doing.  Anyone who can craft a beer this fine deserves some beer geek love.

Next week we'll review Logsdon Farmhouse Brewery's Peche 'n Brett for a return to sour territory-- tune in!