At Ward House
Brewing in Waseca, the owner/brewer
played his guitar personally for us at the table. We could not believe it. He sang “Every Rose Has its Thorn” by Poison.
Again, many local people here thanked us for visiting.
At Bemidji Brewing, a large group wants us to give an impromptu question and answer session about our travels. We
were happy to do it. Met a couple at Bent Paddle Brewing from Cotton, Minnesota, and would later, by randomness, meet
them again at Broken Clock. Met a nice lady on the Lake Wobegon bike trail who had a flat bicycle tire. We stayed with her
and chatted till her husband came and picked her up.
I could keep going on endlessly. But, this ought to give a taste of what we experienced during our journey. Every place
has a story and every home has a heart. We listened to the heartbeat of this State and it has a beautiful one.
What it cost:
Over this year long trip, we tried to keep track of our expenses such as hotel costs, miles, money spent on beer and gas.
Teri is an Accountant, so she did some accounting and the following are the stats from our journey. It hurts to see how much
overtime I need to work this coming year to compensate. LOL!
Our advice to anyone trying to do this in one year: You better have lots of time, money, a love for beer and travel. We are
not kidding. I suppose we could have done this cheaper but, our thoughts are, if you are going on an adventure and you
need to count pennies, don’t go. These numbers are not exact but, they are close and maybe a bit on the conservative side.
The amount presented below for beer includes clothing, (t-shirts, pullovers) crowlers, growlers, bomber bottles,
patches, stickers and beer soap. Yes, soap. There are those who make beer soap. This was sort of another “side adventure”
for us. We would buy beer soap, when we found it and then “experiment” with it. I’ll just leave that there. As you can see,
money wise, this was no small endeavor. Was it worth it? As Stone Cold Steve Austin would say. “Hell Yeah!”
Total # of Breweries visited: 191
Miles traveled: 10,531
Gas Money: $ 835.00
Hotels: $ 4428.28
Beer: $ 7509.67
Elizabeth Foster:
Sometime around June or July, Teri and I were starting to have second thoughts about going through with this. Our lives
had been consumed by all the time away from home, the effort and planning. We could not afford missing a weekend beer
trekking, because that meant we would have to somehow make up for it the next. It was starting to be too much. Vacation
from work, missing other events that we should/ought to attend, yard work, the money for gas, hotel rooms, beer, etc.
This was when I read an article in the Growler magazine. There was a story written by Liz Foster, who hit 120 breweries
in 2018, we were in awe. We had assumed there were others who were doing this sort of thing and now we found one. She
was our hero. Here was our “Beer Sister”, a kindred-spirit in the first degree!! WE HAD to meet. I friended Liz on Facebook
explained what we were up to and she was more than happy to meet with us.
We caught up with Liz when she was working. Her job title is the “Chaos Coordinator” at Urban Growler Brewing. She
was gracious, kind and giving of her time. We took a picture together, exchanged some beers, and talked about all our
travels. Without knowing it, Liz inspired us to continue our journey. Thank you, Liz, for taking the time to visit. We never
intended to break your or anyone else’s record. Hopefully we will meet again. By the way, please stop at Urban Growler
when in St. Paul, we know you will love it here. Random Thoughts:
Is it the journey or the destination? For us, the journey is what matters and every journey teaches a lesson. At least it
should. I don't have many people whom I look up to but, if I was asked, Anthony Bourdain would be one that comes to my
mind. Not because of all his travels around the world or the crazy food he ingested, it's because of his intellect and unique
views of culture and place/home. He was a keen observer of the human condition.
He could always relate his experience in a special way that touched me personally. He possessed curiosity and a
knack for finding and listening to the local people and relating that in a way which made myself long to travel, to visit, to
know these places, people and culture.
I remember a photo of Bourdain sitting on the floor of an airport waiting on a flight in some corner of this planet, he was
holding a sign on which he wrote, "Be a traveler, not a tourist". That to me is quite profound. I think he had a talent to see
deeper into life, to ponder this world we inhabit and to truly realize that we are all intertwined in our common humanity. He
had kindness, and a desire to understand, to learn and listen to others. These are things we aspire to. Personally, I
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