Every year my husband and I take a long weekend in Minneapolis. It’s only about 4 hours from home, and it’s a city we both just love. The people are nice, and there’s lots of breweries we love to get to. The city is very walkable and full of history. We always have gone in the winter time, which has been wonderful, especially walking along the river during the first light snowfall of the season. Last year, however, I looked at my husband and asked why we have never come in the summertime. I guess it never really occurred to us? I don’t know.
That conversation is what kicked off this year’s summer trip, and wow was it great! First of all, drinking at breweries is WAY better on their patios than it is in the cold. Secondly, I am obsessed with state fairs. I’ve made it my mission to visit every single state’s fair at some point in my life. (I’m way behind…I’m 40 now, and the Minnesota State Fair brings my total up to 2. Haha, oops). Thirdly, summer means baseball, and the Twins stadium is right in the heart of downtown. It helps that they were playing one of our rivals, the Cardinals, while we were in town too.
We had an Airbnb that we normally stayed at on these visits, but it recently went under new ownership, and our reservation was canceled. That turned out to be one of the best things that could have happened, because husband found the most incredible apartment that was directly across the street from Target Field. That’s not the amazing thing though. This apartment was on the third floor, but up on the 18th floor there is a viewing platform that looks right into the stadium. We could watch the games right from the balcony, and it was just such a fun new perspective that really allows you to take in everything at once…the people, the action, the cityscape behind it…it was just so cool. Bonus: they do Friday night fireworks after the games! What a show!
Friday was also the day that we went to the State Fair. We had a great time, but it was a bit overwhelming. It’s definitely one of the largest fairs. We spent the entire day walking around and we still didn’t see it all. While there was a map to follow the streets, there wasn’t anything to guide us to the food and drinks that we most wanted to try. Some of them we stumbled upon, but there were also a lot we never found. There are also just people everywhere. Even some of the areas that are usually not well trafficked at the WI state fair had huge lines in MN. We couldn’t even look at the fair exhibits, like the pies, cakes, vegetables, etc. because the lines to get into these areas were just massive. It was also impossible to find air conditioning anywhere. Even though we had a blast, we both decided that WI was better in the end.
I’m not here to complain though, of course I had a blast and I’ll tell you all about my favorite parts. Starting with the food, I was able to find the savory eclairs that were on my list, which is basically a lobster roll but on an eclair. Delicious. We also had crab fritters, this hot honey BBQ bacon dish served over white rice, MN hot dish on a stick, a brisket sandwich, and of course the thing the MN state fair is most known for…the bucket of cookies. They filled this bucket of cookies to overflowing. It is now about a week later that I’m writing this, we’ve eaten 38 cookies, and the bucket is still half full. We didn’t really need an entire bucket of cookies, obviously, but when in Rome…
For entertainment, they had plenty of animals to look at, a DNR area filled with fish and an observation tower to climb, a dog show area, lots of shopping, a history exhibit, and a 4H exhibit hall. My personal favorite, however, was the Butterfly House. We paid $4 each to go into the butterfly area and have them land on us and fly all around us. I thought it was worth it. There was more to do, rides and games and all the typical fair things, but we couldn’t have possibly hit it all in one day. Initially we thought we’d go to the fair twice, but the weather got extremely hot over the weekend, so we chose to stay away.
Saturday, we actually went to a Twins game inside the stadium, which was a lot of fun. I caught my first baseball, and the Twins pulled out a win, so I couldn’t ask for much more than that! In the first picture below, you can see our apartment building, and the 18th floor viewing window/balcony is directly above the Budweiser sign.
The rest of the time was spent at some of our favorite restaurants and breweries. Butcher & Boar has a really good brunch. Smack Shack has some good lobster rolls with Cajun fries. Graze has our favorite MN BBQ joint. Our go-to Breweries include Inbound, Surly, Urban Growler, Blackstack, Bauhaus, Indeed, Fulton, Modist, Lake Monster, Pryes, Fair State, LynLake…I’m sure there’s more that I’m forgetting. No, we did not visit ALL of these on this particular trip. New to us this year were 56 Brewing, which has a great patio area complete with food truck, games, and plenty of shade for a hot day, and Bang Brewing which is in a cool little silo and has picnic tables scattered throughout their wildlife reserve. No matter what your drinking style, you really can’t go wrong in Minneapolis! Also a quick shout out to Backstory Coffee Roasters—one of the most beautiful coffee shops I’ve ever set foot in. When I’m with my husband we tend to grab coffee and go, but if I were here on a solo trip I would absolutely be spending my morning there reading or writing. I just love a coffee shop with a perfect ambiance.
That was the gist of our trip. Typically in the winter we include a stop at the Mall of America on our way back home, but we chose to skip it this year since we had worn ourselves out by then. I already can’t wait to go back!
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