Taste Your Way Across Minnesota This Fall
Taste Your Way Across Minnesota This Fall
By Erica Wacker
In addition to the changing leaves and crisper air, grape stomps, apple festivals and Oktoberfest celebrations are sure signs that fall has arrived in Minnesota. While some of our favorite food traditions go back centuries, others are much more recent additions.
Wild Rice for sale at Big Bog State Park, along the eastern shore of Upper Red Lake
Wild Rice
One of Minnesota’s oldest and most treasured fall harvests is wild rice. Historians believe this ancient grain, which still grows naturally in northern Minnesota’s shallow lakes and streams, was one of the major factors in the Ojibwe migration here hundreds of years ago. Every fall, tribal band members and others with the required license harvest the rice using canoes, a forked push pole and wooden flails—a process that’s remained unchanged for centuries.
While this hard work is best left to the experts, the rest of us can taste the fruits of their labor at wild rice festivals in McGregor and Roseville which in addition to wild rice also offer live entertainment, demonstrations and activities for the whole family. Visitors to the Mille Lacs Indian Museum in Onamia can watch museum staff process wild rice in hourly demonstrations on select days.
Minnesota Apples
Unlike wild rice, Minnesota’s other celebrated crop required major human intervention to reach its full potential. Starting with the Wealthy in 1868, it wasn’t until 1991 that Minnesota cemented its status as a serious apple state with the introduction of the beloved Honeycrisp. Today, more than two dozen varieties are grown at over 100 orchards and farms across the state, drawing visitors from near and far to stock up on fresh apples, cider, pie and other treats.
In addition to all the festivities at the orchards themselves, many communities celebrate the apple with festivals of their own, including Excelsior Apple Day, the Almelund Apple Festival, Smaczne Jablka (Apple Day) in Winona and Applefest in La Crescent, held every fall since 1949 in Minnesota’s “apple capital.”
Craft Beer & Wine
Prefer to drink your fruit? Many Minnesota wineries hold annual harvest events this time of year, when the grapes are at their peak ripeness to be picked and made into next year’s wine. Some wineries, like Falconer Vineyards in Red Wing, Parley Lake in Waconia and Four Daughters in Spring Valley, welcome volunteers to help with the harvest in exchange for wine and a hearty meal.
Sip samples from craft brewers across Minnesota at the Autumn Brew Review / Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild
Pair your wine with a wood fired pizza at Falconer Vineyards in Red Wing
Visit Glacial Ridge Winery in Spicer for tastings, tours and wine sales / Wayne Moran
Morgan Creek Winery near New Ulm
A former brewery is now home to a new one in St. Paul's West Seventh neighborhood / Darin Kamnetz
Other wineries go the celebratory route, hosting grape stomp festivals complete with live entertainment, art and food vendors, family-friendly activities and costumed teams of grape stompers competing to win cases of the vineyard’s finest wine. Join the fun at Saint Croix Vineyards in Stillwater, Carlos Creek in Alexandria, Crow River in Hutchinson and Morgan Creek in New Ulm.
With the surge in local breweries over the past several years, the number of Minnesota-made Oktoberfests, pumpkin ales and other autumn brews has grown right along with it. From the state’s oldest brewery (Schell’s) to some of the newest, fall beer styles can be found in nearly every taproom, brewpub and beer-conscious restaurant as soon as the calendar turns to September.
Those looking to sample fall beers from multiple breweries in one place can check out events including the Tapped & Uncorked at the Roseville Oval; and Autumn Brew Review in Minneapolis.
Settled by German immigrants in 1854, New Ulm is home to Minnesota's largest Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Celebrations
For a more traditional fall beer tradition, restaurants and breweries around the state host Oktoberfest celebrations modeled after those in Germany, featuring the requisite polka bands, lederhosen, bratwurst, giant pretzels and steins of beer. The quintessential celebration in New Ulm takes over the entire town for two full weekends in October.
Other Oktoberfests take place at Gasthaus Bavarian Hunter in Stillwater, Voyageur Brewing Co. in Grand Marais and Ruttger’s in Deerwood.
Erica Wacker is a Midwesterner through and through, growing up in Illinois, going to college in Wisconsin, and settling down in Minnesota. She loves to run, travel with her family, and go to concerts to relive her youth.