Peanut butter beer and pop art in MN

Our second home, the Twin Cities of Minnesota, is an accomplished little metropolitan area that I would shower with kisses if I could. Some points of pride:

- Minneapolis and St. Paul have the largest urban sculpture garden in the nation
- Behind Chicago and New York, they hold the third-largest theater market
- No metropolitan area can boast as many Fortune-500 companies
- They have the only full-time chamber orchestra in the country

Etc. etc. These sister cities are an under-the-radar oasis of culture, sport and business in the American Midwest. But I'm going to keep purporting the idea that they're in some cold, remote no-man's land; they don't need to be an LA or an NYC where you pay through the nose for a haircut and can't get a seat at restaurant. 

On our summer trip back to the Twin Cities, we haunted many of our treasured spots, and on one particular night we hit two of the best, with Mom and Pop W...

 

AND

A whole crop of brewpubs and taprooms have sprouted across the Twin Cities, and the Dangerous Man microbrewery is our favorite. Yes, the neighborhood atmosphere is all aw-shucks cozy, but the selling point for us is their incredible Peanut Butter Porter. It's like a dark beer crossed with a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, a lethal combination for my pants size. BW waited in line for an hour one day to buy a growler to share at my sister's wedding, and he relays that it was totally worth it.

Next, we hit the sensational Walker Art Center, one of the top contemporary art museums in the nation. When BW and I started dating, he lived behind the Walker in the servant quarters in an incredible Neo-Mudéjar mansion. I called him one evening and he was headed to the museum, so we chatted while he tried to find my favorite pieces with clues. Si romantique! 

On this particular night, we swung by some of our old stand-bys and then saw the International Pop exhibit, which chronicled the global emergence of Pop art from the 1950s through the 1970s.

You often don't utterly value something until you can't access it anymore. We hope our Twin Cities, with all their art and beer and other wonders, know they're loved.