Is Duluth the Beer Capital of Minnesota?

It sure looks like Duluth IS becoming the beer and brewing capital in Minnie to me.  Based partly on the fact that with several of them all being within stum, er, walking distance from one another this has to be a killer brew destination!

Cheers!

I agree with the sentiment, but I have to get all geeky and dispute the numbers.

Castle Danger is in Castle Danger, Borealis is in Knife River and Thirsty Pagan is in Superior -- all close to Duluth, but you have to add their populations into the equation before the brewery-per-person number makes sense.

Of course, it's less fun to say Duluth/Superior/Castle Danger/Knife River are the combined brewing capital of Minnesota, with a combined population of 113,854; one brewery for every 11,385 people.

All I can say is that Dave Hoops has a tremendous beard. Wow.

There's also Bret's Basement Brew, but that's a secret.

Well, I don't know about beer, but that photo is certainly evidence that Duluth is the beard capital of Minnesota.

Having moved here from spending a year in Utah, let me tell you, Duluth is a beer Mecca!

I homebrew, all grain, and the local brewers support us hobbyists in a great way. 

Lake Superior Brewery will even sell sacks of grain to us homebrewers. And they are never too busy to stop what they are doing and chat for a minute.

All hail the hops! barley! and yeast!

Crop that Frank guy out of the photo and you'd have an "Upset in Duluth."

I sent this link to my brother-the-beer-lover in Omaha, and he is extremely impressed with the quality of the mathematical breakdown as computed by woodtick and Paul.  If the beer won't entice him up here for a visit, maybe our mathematics will.

TimK, you're totally right!

We'll do the brewing. You guys can do the math.

According to our mayor it's official.

Traverse City MI, 5 for a population of 12,000.  1 per every 2,400.  Like Duluth they service many from outside their border, but math is math.  Be well.

Traverse City is for the very best cherry turnovers on the planet! Duluth, now Duluth is for beer!!!

Prost!

Proving how well traveled some Duluthians are.  Beer here is nice.  Capital of the Midwest?  Not so much, but room to improve.

Thomas, he said it was the Beer Capital of Minnesota, not the entire Midwest.

My question: What other cities should be in the running for Beer Capital of Minnesota?

Having been to nearly every State in the U.S. and some forty countries, I feel this Duluthian is well traveled.  And Duluth has one of the better beer scenes by far.

Marquette has a very strong beer program and one of the hottest/nicest filipino waitresses of the 21st century, but the downhill is nill, and you need nice skiing if you're going to have good beer, unless the skiing sucks, then you'll need good beer. I somehow doubt Hancock has decent beer.  Certain locations are begging for a little  entrepreneurialhoodmanship.

+1 Bret.

Given that a lot of us are also from somewhere else...Thomas' remark seems rather shallow.

If Duluth was the beer capital of MN, awesome US micros and special global brews would be distributed in our area-not just the Twin Cities. 

I have traveled at least as much as Bret and respectfully disagree with his assessment. Drive 2.5 hrs south to witness a thriving beer scene. For really great beer towns, go to San Fran, NYC, Chicago, Portland OR, Denver, Seattle, Philly, etc. OK, those are all big cities. How about Portland ME, Anchorage, Boulder, Bend?

Midwest being the operative geographic descriptor ... why are people missing that?

Agreed dog neato.  There is no mention of quality here, just # of breweries.  Good clean brews, good prices and a discerning local population signify a beer mecca. It's true I got spoiled in other towns, but we're talking about Minnesota here, so the point seems moot.  If the Twin Cities take the prize, and Duluth comes in second, that means it beat out St. Cloud, Rochester, big deal!

One could make the case that Milwaukee is the beer capital of the Midwest ... but that speaks nothing of quality ... frankly, I'd rather drink water than the "beer that made Milwaukee famous."

Perhaps ... the craft beer capital of the Midwest.

For Christ, let's just give it to them! These guys earned it. Yes goddammit, Duluth is the beer capital of Minnesota. That ain't asking for much. 

Midwest? I'd say Marquette is hot on your tails, boys. I could drink cat piss served from that waitress would make El Nino taste like the back of a donkey.

I like the breweries per capita idea, although I just visited Monhegan Island Brewing in Maine, which has an awesome dark and only has a year-round population of 65.