St. Paul Needs to Connect its Brewery to its Bike Trail

Editor’s note: Bill Lindeke is a founder of Streets.mn and currently writes the “Cityscape” column in MinnPost. Subscribe to Bill’s weekly “Cityscape” newsletter here.

Two topics about which I have a good deal of amateur expertise are riding bikes and visiting breweries. Ideally, these Venn diagrams overlap. When they do, I consider myself something of a local expert.

This is why I can tell you about the Biking to Breweries Gold Standard (BBGS): This is when a brewery sits directly adjacent to an off-street trail, so that your cycling group can roll right into the brewery without encountering street traffic. This is the experience every beer-drinking cyclist is constantly seeking. We yearn for it, like moths and flames or Gollum and the ring. The closer you can come to it, the more the brewery becomes a giant magnet attracting people on bikes.

It’s therefore sad that there are precious few breweries that qualify for as true BBGS winners. Here’s a local list:

  1. I guess I’ll count the Surly Brewing +  the University of Minnesota Transitway (because that one block of Malcolm Avenue hardly counts as a city street).
  2. I guess I’ll count Eastlake Brewery when it was still open + the Midtown Greenway. (RIP to Eastlake.)
  3. You have Pryes Brewing + the Mississippi River Trail.

That’s it, pretty much. You would think there would be more, but you would be wrong. The list of places that come close but remain moated by car-clogged streets is long. 

For example, the Steel Toe Brewing + Cedar Lake Regional Trail combination is close but no cigar, because biking on Beltline Boulevard for two blocks sucks.

Luce Line Brewing (which I haven’t been to) also seems great. After exiting the Luce Line Trail, you’re on a lightly used (on weekends, at least) industrial backstreet for only a few hundred feet.

This preamble is to put into context one of my great 21st-century frustrations, a St. Paul example where a great off-street bike trail and a good brewery almost touch, but not quite. I’m talking about St. Paul Brewing (formerly Flat Earth Brewing and also known as STPB), which boasts good beer and a great, unique patio. It also happens to be right on the Swede Hollow bike trail, probably the most interesting recreational Twin Cities bike path. The tragedy here is that they should come together, and they almost do, but for many years have been separated by an unopenable city-owned chain link fence.

A view of St. Paul Brewing and the fence from the Swede Hollow Trail.
A view of St. Paul Brewing, and the city-owned gate, from the Swede Hollow Trail. Photo: Bill Lindeke

Many a time I’ve gone to St. Paul Brewing, perched myself in their north-facing window, and gazed longingly out at the bike trail in the valley below which comes right up to, and then bypasses, the outer edge of the patio wall. Instead of being able to bike directly into the brewery courtyard, cyclists must instead take a steep traverse through a sometimes creepy narrow tunnel up to Payne Avenue, pass through the intersection at Minnehaha, and then bike up a way-too-wide concrete street to the narrow entrance to the brewery parking lot. It’s not pleasant.

A view of Swede Hollow Trail in St. Paul from the brewery complex.
A view of Swede Hollow Trail from the St. Paul Brewing complex. Photo: Bill Lindeke

The good news: I was over at St. Paul Brewing the other day — staring longingly out the window at the bike trail, per usual — and happened to run into a friend who introduced me to the brewery owner. He told me that they are having discussions with the City of St. Paul, especially Ward 7 City Councilmember Cheniqua Johnson, and may be finally able to open up the bike trail entrance in the next week or two. 

It would be glorious. If and when this happens, I urge anyone who likes bicycles and beer to assemble. Venture forth immediately to St. Paul’s Railroad Island and Swede Hollow, and discover the Bicycling to Brewery Gold Standard for yourself. Much like Vinz Clortho and Zuul opening the gate to release Gozer the Gozerian, opening the Swede Hollow gate to St. Paul Brewing will release good times into St. Paul’s bicycle trails. Once opened, I guarantee St. Paul Brewing will become the metro’s incomparable cycling brewery destination. Let’s make it finally happen, St. Paul!

Bill Lindeke

About Bill Lindeke

Pronouns: he/him

Bill Lindeke has writing blogging about sidewalks and cities since 2005, ever since he read Jane Jacobs. He is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota Geography Department, the Cityscape columnist at Minnpost, and has written multiple books on local urban history. He was born in Minneapolis, but has spent most of his time in St Paul. Check out Twitter @BillLindeke or on Facebook.