Saturday In The Park: Rare Beer Picnic 2024 Recap
The People’s Beer Festival
The Rare Beer Picnic, hosted by the good folks at Junkyard Brewing Company in Moorhead, Minnesota isn’t your typical beer festival. Are there unlimited samples of good beer? Sure. Is there fun times had by all? Of course! But that isn’t what sets it apart. It’s the attention to detail around every aspect of the event that has earned them a nomination for the “Best Beer Festival” in the USA Today 10 Best Readers’ Choice awards in 2023 and 2024.
Photo courtesy of Lexi Ostenaa
The small, exclusive, relaxed feel is different than most, but proves to be the preferred setting. Attendees are encouraged to bring a picnic blanket or folding chair, post up in the shade of the huge trees at the park, and enjoy the summer weather. This year was hot, and you had to keep your head on a swivel, because you were liable to get super soaked at any given moment, courtesy of the Junkyard gang.
This is the only festival I have been to where I can realistically get to each tent 2 times, and even visit a few favorites 3 or 4 times by the end. This is possible because the organizers cap the amount of attending breweries, tickets sold, and make all tickets the same access level. That means no VIP tickets and extra cost, but VIP-like access for all. With a full 4 hours to try all kinds of new beers and breweries.
The ticket also includes 2 things that I feel make the price tag well worth it. First was a catered meal from a local vendor, because, you can’t have a picnic without food, right? Second was the tasting glass. Yeah, yeah, I know every festival has a glass you get to take home. This however was a full size stemmed glass with that year’s event logo on it. Not a bad souvenir to take home if you ask me. Definitely more functional than the typical 5 ounce tasting glass with a bunch of advertisers all over it!
Photo courtesy of Lexi Ostenaa
I could go on and on about the attention to detail, but it really does make such a noticeable difference. Now to get to the star of the show: The Beer! I had a great time tasting a bunch of local beers with a fellow Minnesota beer fanatic, Matt Johnson, and luckily for you all he was willing to make a cameo on this review, and make his own submissions for each of our categories! His knowledge of beers far and wide should bring a very interesting perspective to our recap. So, with that out of the way, let’s get into it!
The Awards
Most Unique Beer: Who came to get weird?
Jack – It only makes sense to put one beer here, because I genuinely have never even dreamt of anything this wild, let alone would think it could work. Junkyard Brewing Company, our gracious hosts, brought an offering that was a special release halfway through, and it was a humdinger. Enter “Mary Want a Brownie?”, an 11.3% Imperial Pastry Stout, but that isn’t where it gets weird. It had marshmallow, pecans, vanilla, and terpenes. If you haven’t put all that together, it’s a w**d brownie inspired stout. You can’t make it up. It was a bit more effervescent than a typical heavy stout, and had a very interesting fruity character to it. While it wasn’t my favorite beer ever, I have to hand it to them for trying something totally new, and I am glad they did!
Matt – A brewery that has interesting concoctions in their taproom each week, I shouldn’t be surprised they were coming with the weird. When I asked for this beer the color screamed at me, ‘What have you done!?!?!’. A fruit loop green color and murky in pour, the “Show Me Your Frooties” from Thesis Beer Project was one weird concoction. An Imperial Sour with Green Apple Frooties, Granola, and Caramel came out exactly as what they were looking for. It was a liquified green apple with some nutty notes. As the green apple flavor gives way to a butterscotch, vanilla sweetness. It looked weird, smelled strange, but I couldn’t stop sipping it.
Biggest Surprise: What sounded odd, but ended up being pretty tasty?
Jack – This is one of the easiest to pick, because interestingly enough, this beer could have been in 2-3 of the categories here. That beer for me was the “Strawberry Pickle Beer” from Oliphant Brewing out of Somerset, WI. Now, let me preface by saying I am a huge proponent of pickle beers, and even I wasn’t sure about adding strawberry flavor to that already perfect concoction. Folks, I don’t know what kind of weird beer sorcery happens when you add strawberry, but it works, it just does. The sweetness balances well with the salty, briny flavor, and the fruity strawberry marries so well with the fresh, crisp, cucumber flavor. I have never had a Kool Aid pickle before, but I imagine it is something similar to this experience. So weird, a little confusing, but so good.
Matt – I love it when breweries collaborate and take their chance to really get down and odd. Whether it is trying experimental hop varieties, interesting ingredients, or just downright strange mash-ups. Oliphant Brewery and Venn Brewing Company teamed up to put out a beer that at first, sounds weird, but ended up extremely delicious. “Pickling Pals” pulls on the heart strings of ginger lovers across the nation. This is a Rice Lager with pickled sushi ginger and hibiscus. Beautiful color poured into my tasting glass from Venn. Refreshing light body with great carbonation. You get hit with huge notes of ginger and finish with a herbal / floral hibiscus note. One of the most refreshing beers made from a combination of ingredients not commonly found in beers.
Best Rare Beer: It is the Rare Beer Picnic after all, so who understood the assignment?
Jack- Now starts the fanboying for Barrel Theory Beer Company out of Saint Paul, MN, because they were the all-stars of RBP in my book. In this category, it’s for their extremely limited release bottles of their recent anniversary collaboration with Back Channel Brewing out of Spring Park, MN. It’s a Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout called “Eternal Frost,” that they very generously shared with fest goers like myself, who weren’t able to procure any at the previous release. This bad boy comes in at 14%, aged in Old Fitzgerald 19 year barrels for 18 months, and conditioned on Thai Banana, cacao, vanilla, and maple walnuts. This thing was decadently sweet, with awesome barrel character, a little bit of caramelized banana, and a huge bitter dark chocolate punch. So, so good.
Matt- The hosts of the festival, Junkyard Brewing, knew what they were doing. They came with timed tappings throughout the afternoon including new brews, infusions, and vintage beers. For the festival they reached deep into the cellar to pull out one of the best Peanut Butter Stouts around – “Barrel Aged King Size”. The 2020 vintage of their Imperial Peanut Stout aged in Willet Bourbon Barrels tastes like delicious organic peanut butter cups (think fancy Trader Joe’s PB Cups) with a bourbon chaser. Even at 11.7% it drinks extremely smooth and the years has leveled the bitterness of the peanut butter / chocolate with the vanilla sweetness of the barrel.
Best Beer Overall: Rare or not, what was the day winner, right on the money, the best thing we put in our mouths?
Jack- Can anyone guess who I am going with here? That’s right, another Barrel Theory pick from me, and while “Eternal Frost” could very easily be here, that’s not what I’m gonna go with. My favorite beer of the day was, believe it or not, a variant of Barrel Theory’s only flagship beer, “Rain Drops”. If you check out my spotlight article on this fantastic beer, you will see that it’s a good beer on its own, but they took it up a notch, and brought a DDH version, hopped with the newest kid on the block; Peacharine. I have only had beers with Peacharine hops in them only a couple times, and they are all some of the best beers I have ever had. It was so silky, pillowy, slightly sweet, with a crisp dry finish. Loads of citrus, nectarine, and of course peaches. The reason this was the best for me was because it was perfectly refreshing in the weather that day, and it was so perfectly executed.
Matt- I’ve actually got to agree with Jack here. Even though it’s “just” their flagship beer, the new iteration of “Rain Drops” from Barrel Theory is spot on. The most recent double dry hopped version they released and luckily brought for attendees of the festival is hopped with Mosaic, Citra T-90 and Peacharine Hops. You can’t go wrong with Mosaic and Citra, but the Peacharine hops are the shining star here. Citrus aromas are extremely high, but the taste really showcases a gentle white peach flavor that welcomes you on each sip. The saturated body is not heavy, and rather like a fluffy cloud that really rounds out the hop flavors.
Best Brewery: Who showed up with their best foot forward, and brought the best roster of beers?
Jack- It’s no secret that Barrel Theory brought their A game for us, and I noticed. Though I only mentioned 2 of their beers, every beer they brought was phenomenal, including an additional limited anniversary stout. They didn’t hold back, and they truly embodied the spirit of the Rare Beer Picnic.
Matt- Lupulin Brewing Company does not sleep on beer festivals. They brought the finest selection of beers from their Scribbled Lines series, their Barrel Aged beers, and some of the new Pilot batches in the smaller system. “Cerise de Chance” is always a winner for me from Scribbled Lines. The Door County Cherries they go and harvest each year always come across. And if you are lover of all things lager, like this guy here, do not sleep on their pilot brews like the “2 Saaz Pilz” Czech style Pilsner or the Kolsch (not a lager, but a perfect representation of the style). I would falter not to call out the “Coconut Banana Demigod”. It may have been hot, but this Barrel Aged Stout has Chocolate Pina Colada vibes that you can’t miss.
Honorable Mentions: Which beers or breweries would we regret not having on this list?
Jack- I know it sounds like I just camped at one brewery tent, but I had so many great beers, it’s so hard to narrow it down. Junkyard had a huge variety of really good beers, many of which were bottle releases. My favorite from them was the “2020 Barrel Aged King Size”, their Imperial Peanut Stout. There were also a lot of sours being offered, and with the heat, they were welcome in my book. Some of the best were the “Watermelon Sour” from Dangerous Man Brewing out of Maple Lake, MN, and the “Pineapple Upside Down Cake Sour” from Bad Habit Brewing out of St. Joseph, MN. As far as IPA’s go, one of the best of the day was “Interstellar Yacht Club” from Falling Knife Brewing Company out of Minneapolis, a delicious (and dangerous) Double IPA with Citra and Galaxy hops.
Matt- Is all of them a valid answer? Everyone brings their best game for the festival. Chilling in a lawn chair and enjoying beers from some of the best breweries, I could list at least one beer from each tent that I would recommend; however, there are definitely some that I have to call out. “Eternal Frost” – a collaboration between Barrel Theory and Back Channel is a beautiful Barrel Aged Imperial Stout aged 18 months in 19 year old Old Fitzgerald Barrels with Thai Banana, Philippine Cacao, Indonesia West Papua Vanilla Beans, and Roasted Maple Walnuts. I love a good banana stout and this rocked it. The “Pineapple Upside Down Cake Sour” from Bad Habit was one of the few sours I got multiple pours of as it was delectable. From a nice, easy drinking perspective I always love Falling Knife’s “Tomm’s American Lager” and was impressed by Modist Brewing’s “No Fkn Ziti”, an Italian Grape Ale with Pilsner Malt, Nelson Sauvin hops, Sangiovese Rose Grape Juice and Must.
Thanks again to the Junkyard gang for putting on one hell of a party, and creating an awesome environment for everyone to connect over good beer. The Rare Beer Picnic may be small, but it is mighty, and instantly has become my new favorite beer festival. Take my word for it, and start planning your trip to the Fargo-Moorhead area for Summer 2025!
A special thank you to Matt for keeping me company, tasting some beers, and contributing to this article! If you want to see more of his beer, homebrewing, and travel content, go give him a follow on Instagram at @matts_beer_adventures !
Featured Image Courtesy of Lexi Ostenaa