10K Brewing

I’ve always enjoyed hitting two birds with one stone. The first bird was a brewery we’d visited but I hadn’t written about and the second was an outdated Groupon that had been driving me crazy. Our car became the stone as our destination was put into Google Maps: 10K Brewing.

10K Brewing is located in downtown Anoka, Minnesota. It’s an underrated city of 17,000 located at the confluence of the Rum and Mississippi Rivers. I’ve only visited once before during our quest to complete the Northern Ale Guide but this time we weren’t contending with a city wide event and packed taproom. Our visit took place on a very hot July day and with my aversion to extreme heat and my wife’s pregnancy we were more than happy to take a seat inside. They do have a small patio on the sidewalk out front and it’s not much, maybe a handful of tables at most. The taproom straddles two buildings. On one side is the bar and the brewing equipment while the other side contains a majority of their seating and is also where they have their live music.

We took my flight board to a hightop in the main seating area. They’ve got a nice mix of hardwood floors, wood slats, and light brick walls. It’s nothing flashy, but solid decor compared to breweries I’ve visited in towns of a similar size. At the front of the room were full glass windows that let a lot of natural light in, always a plus in my book. We generally fill our time with casual conversation, but occasionally a game catches our eye. In this case it was the Minnesota Trivia Tour. Basically Trivial Pursuit without the board/rules that focuses purely on obscure, and very dated, Minnesota trivia. It was a nice play at your pace time waster that has me thinking I need to create an updated version to distribute to all of the breweries we frequent!

Beyond the flight of four there was also two pints included in the Groupon for a total of six. They were Cold Press Loonar Uprising, Babe the Blueberry Ox, Triple IPA, Nordic IPA, CTRL ALT DEL, and Goldy’s Golden Ale. The Babe the Blueberry Ox was surprisingly drinkable. Usually blueberry beers I steer clear of but this one was actually fairly decent. My favorite though was the CTRL ALT DEL. An Altbier that had a deep copper hue and clean maltiness. While not quite as delicate and balanced as its Germanic cousins, I’d order it again!

We spent a nice leisurely afternoon at 10K. You could do a lot worse for a small town brewery but overall none of their beers met the challenge of some of their outer ring brethren. They make up for it a bit in ambience. I enjoyed their taproom and the first time we visited they had a lovely acoustic duo that may have been my favorite music act of any brewery during my travels. While I wouldn’t make a trip specifically for 10K, if I was driving through the area I wouldn’t hesitate to stop and try some of their other offerings.