Wooden Ship Brewing

Wooden Ship Brewing sits on West 44th Street in Linden Hills, in the south-west corner of Minneapolis where the neighbourhood commercial strips are small and the taprooms are scarce. The room seats about fifty: big windows out to the street and in to the production area, a garage door for warm weather, and a stated policy of being dog-friendly, kid-friendly and, in the brewery's own phrasing, YOU-friendly. Every beer it brews is gluten-reduced, which already makes it an unusual stop for anyone drinking around a dietary constraint. The taproom runs seven days, from 2pm on weekdays and midday at weekends, closing at 10pm most nights.

The non-alcoholic side is worth setting out precisely, because a state tourism listing has described Wooden Ship as having launched two non-alcoholic brews of its own and the brewery's published beer list does not support that. What the brewery's own page does list is a house Hop Water at 0.0% ABV — sparkling water dry-hopped with Centennial and Au Tropical, which gives the citrus and tropical aroma of an IPA with none of the alcohol, sugar or bitterness — plus canned non-alcoholic beer from Untitled Art, whose Italian-style pilsner is on the list, and Deschutes' Fresh Haze non-alcoholic IPA. Beyond beer, the taproom makes specialty cocktails that are offered at either 0% or 10% ABV, so the shrub seltzer, the hibiscus margarita and the dill seltzer can all be ordered with nothing in them: a genuine choice at the point of order rather than a single token option. Northstar Kombucha, house sodas, apple juice and La Croix cover the rest. This is a working brewery with a full-strength tap list and is graded as a modest but real non-alcoholic offering, not an alcohol-free venue. For anyone planning a visit around the non-alcoholic options, the practical point is the cocktail list rather than the beer: being able to order the same seltzer or margarita build the rest of the table is drinking, at 0%, is a materially different experience from being handed a can. The hop water and the non-alcoholic cans are priced in line with the rest of the list.