Minnesota's first commercial brewery, the Yoerg Brewing Company was founded ten years before Minnesota became a state in 1848. It was one of the cornerstone businesses that helped build the city of Saint Paul.  Anthony Yoerg was the first in the Midwest to produce his beers Bavarian style (in caves along the Mississippi River downtown Saint Paul) and they were the main reason Saint Paul breweries were as revered as those from Milwaukee, Chicago and St. Louis before Prohibition. The brewery closed in 1952 when the last surviving Yoerg son passed away and the brewery was crippled by a historic flood.  In  2016, the Yoerg Company was brought back to life, and here is their story.

A visit to the Yoerg Brewing Company is like taking a Time Machine back to the 1940s and '50s when the local 'Saloon' was the 'Cat's Meow'.   Located on the Historic Dayton's Bluff hillside just outside of downtown Saint Paul's 'Lowertown', The Yoerg Brewing Company has returned.  We are brewing the legendary Yoerg Beers on premise as well as working with some of the finest, and rarest Old World European Breweries (in many instances, Yoerg is the only place serving their beers in the Midwest).  A superb wine by the glass program with 18 unique, artisanal wines under $9.00 a glass.  We also have a splendid food menu of old world treats;  Bratwursts from the legendary Usinger's in Milwaukee, a wonderful selection of pub pizzas, charcuterie plates, pickled eggs,  soft Bavarian pretzels, Dutch Pretzels (hand rolled) and an atmosphere unmatched in the city.   We've been called "the most photogenic" pub in the Twin Cities for good reason.  There really is nothing else like it.

The Yoerg Brewing Company also holds the distinction of being the finest European beer bar in the State of Minnesota (if not the entire Midwest).  Outside of our wonderful Yoerg beers we produce on premise, we also carry close to 250 different beers from the old world (with a large emphasis on Belgium and Germany).  NO ONE has a larger selection of Monastery beers IN THE COUNTRY than we do, and every beer you order comes in a glass direct from the brewery (or Monastery).  And when you combine our "one of a kind" ambiance, there is no better place to sit and have a beer than the Yoerg Brewing Company.

We hate $15.00 glasses of wine.  Mainly because we know we can find a wine just as good, and sell it for half the price.  And that's what we do.  We search the globe looking for these great wines, and everything we offer by the glass IS UNDER $10.00.  France and Italy will always dominate the "by the glass"  list, with Spain, Portugal, South America and our West Coast getting their share as well.  Please see our current list on our 'Menus' page.  We also offer over 50 wines by the bottle.

Aside from having the finest selection of German beers in the Midwest, we also have the finest selection of world class, elite German Rieslings in the Midwest.  These are the estates we all hear about 'that you can only get in Germany'.  Officially, German Riesling royalty. Here is a literal 'who's who' of Germany's greatest and rarest Rieslings.

Germany has had Pinot Noir (called Spatburgunder in Germany) planted almost as long as Burgundy France itself, but with the dominance of Riesling in the country, they just never took it seriously.  The grape was mainly used for Roses and light, fizzy reds over the generations, but that's all changed over the last 25 years.   A new generation of winemakers knew these Pinot Noir vines were old, and planted on great vineyard sites, so why couldn't they produce wines that would rival the great Pinot Noirs of Burgundy?  Well, that is what has happened.  We are now seeing a new breed of  Pinot Noir coming out of Germany that is rivaling the great wines of Burgundy and they are selling for a fraction of what great Burgundy sells for.  Here at the Yoerg Brewing Company, we have assembled a great selection of these new, groundbreaking Pinot Noirs, and simply can't recommended them enough.  They are all extremely limited in production since they are mostly produced in 150-200 case lots, but if you are a lover of great Pinot Noir, these are must tries.

The Yoerg Rathskeller at the Brewery

The Yoerg Brewing Company: 1871 - 1952

The Yoerg Brewing Company: 1848 - 1870