Minnesota Beer Day Proclamation at Hamm’s Brewery
Well today was a dual celebration of Minnesota Beer!
First off today, September 27th 2024, marks the 130th anniversary of the Grand Opening of the Hamm’s brewery in St Paul Minnesota. The brewery owners and staff invited the eastside neighborhood of then to come and see what Theo Hamm had constructed. Ironically that repeated today as the new owners of the building invited the Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild and members of the press and beer bloggers like myself to come out for the event.
I can just imagine the beer party that happened back in 1894 on that day….and night…..and next day haha.
There was no break in the flow of beer during construction because the beer was still being brewed at the smaller former Excelsior brewery, which Hamm had acquired, and was located right next door to the now finished and much more grand scale modern Hamm’s brewery. Sadly in 1965, after 100 years of brewing, the Hamm family decided to sell the building and the rights of the beer and that was the beginning of the slow decline of the brand and brewery in Minnesota.
The good thing is the beer itself still lives on today…(but I’m almost certain it’s not the same recipe of days gone by) but whatever it is, it’s still very drinkable.
The other big announcement which also happened today was the Proclamation of Minnesota Beer Day which will be observed starting this November 1st and continue on from there after. I was surprised Minnesota didn’t have an official beer day before this but I guess there has been so much going on with alcohol laws being changed in the last few years pertaining to beer and etc in this state, I guess it went right over my head.
So I decided to throw together a short video of todays event and also do another walk around of the buildings of the Saint Paul Brewing company which occupies the former Hamm’s buildings to show people from out of state and or whoever hasn’t made it out to the former source of the Land of Sky Beer …er I mean Blue Waters brewery before haha.
