If you’ve never been to Wandering Leaf Brewing Co., you’re in for some foliage. With hundreds of live plants, the lush atmosphere makes for a relaxing summer spot. Co-owner Matt Holton studied horticulture and helped create the bright, greenhouse-like atmosphere. Wandering Leaf is family-friendly and even welcomes (leashed) dogs. They routinely host trivia and bingo, put on classes about plants and nature, and have special programming like Brew Babies, where twice a month on Wednesdays, space is reserved at the brewery for parents with young children to meet up and build relationships.
Located in a strip mall with ample parking, the spacious brewery is close to Aldi,, bubble tea shop Tii Cup, and family-run restaurant Soul Lao. The brewery doesn’t have a kitchen, but serves snacks like beef jerky, animal crackers, and popcorn, and allows patrons to bring in food from neighborhood restaurants. It also sometimes hosts food trucks. This week’s trucks include burgers from The Angry Line Cook and Tibetan dumplings from Amazing Momo.
BEER MENU
Wandering Leaf offers a variety of beers, most of which are gluten-reduced. One collaboration with Soul Lao called Super Lao Key is a popular, sticky rice lager with flavors of coconut and pandan. Another, Creeping Lotus, is a triple hazy IPA with flavors of papaya, mango, pineapple, and tangerine. There’s also Bloom. With flavors of cara cara orange, guava, and passionfruit, some consider it the very taste of summer. Darker beers include Hemlock, a dark German lager, and Geographic Oddity, an English porter.
Co-owner Robby Reisdorf says, “We are always striving to make better beer,” and recommends the Helles lager, Ossuary, which won gold for Best German Pale Lager at this year’s Minnesota’s Brewer’s Cup. For non-drinkers, non-alcoholic beer, kombucha, carbonated tea, and soda are all available.
Reisdorf says though the brewing industry as a whole is struggling right now, the community is still so helpful and supportive. “For any problem we’ve encountered, there are many other breweries that have faced it,” he says. “They are willing to give advice and help.”
SUMMER CAMP AT THE BREWERY, ANYONE?
This week, Wandering Leaf Brewing Co. is hosting an adult summer camp. Yes, you read that right. You can relive the best parts of summer camp, without the mosquitoes or bunk beds – and with, of course, beer. Camp-inspired activities include tie-dying, cribbage, friendship bracelet-making, planter painting, and brewery experiences like tours, talks on carnivorous plants (!), a “Bonsai and Beer” workshop, and beer poking – a 400-year-old German tradition that involves plunging a red-hot metal rod into cold, malty beer. The camp is just one of the many engaging activities the brewery continually tries to offer to ensure it is an inviting space.
Reflecting back, Reisdorf says, “There have been a million surprises, challenges, and small victories,” like how people from all over come to the taproom because of their love of plants. What keeps him going is “the community that has supported us.”
