West Seventh : Featured Stories

Despite our love of micro-brews, many of the ingredients in our favorite beers haven't been sourced locally. That's changing as brewers tap into the local farming movement in their communities to add more fresh flavors and ingredients.

Summer in Minneapolis-St. Paul is all about getting out and about. Here are 10 homegrown apps to help you make the most of your summer in the cities.

A look at four heritage restaurants in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, their origin stories, their participation in their neighborhoods, and why their loyal patrons—and new generations of diners—keep coming back.

The Makers Coalition is supporting a new generation of industrial sewers and the local makers movement. The coalition brings together 60 businesses, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, and service providers to fulfill its mission: To bring back industrial sewing skills, which largely disappeared in America decades ago.

Get ready for some changes in our already-stellar park system that will expand your ideas about recreation, ecology, and economic development.

This week: a heads-up about a July class in the University of Minnesota's extension division that will fill you in on the local craft beer revolution--it's origins, its economics, its varied business models, and more. Requirements include the actual consumption of product.

In A Line or Two, I share some of my discoveries and enthusiasms as I make my way around the Twin Cities--call it an editor's-note-as-blog-entry. This week: A web site that makes hiking through our towns an exercise in historical imagination.

Managing Photographer Bill Kelley--a knowledgeable home-brewer himself--explored some of our local microbrew establishments to see just how these alchemists turn grain into drinkable gold. Here's his visual record of the process.

When it comes to dining-and-drinking venues, there's atmosphere--and then there's atmosphere. Some go the extra mile beyond a good color sense and a lively vibe to actually spirit you away to another place or time, real or imaginary. Herewith, a slide show of four of our favorite local places to escape the here-and-now.

Sure, bikes are big in the Twin Cities--but the people who ride one-wheelers here may be even more intense, if that's possible. In fact, our towns are a world center of unicycling; all twelve of the unicyclists rated highest for riding skills--the black belts of the sport--have belonged at one time or another to the Twin Cities Unicycling Club. And just in case you think it's all about trick riding in parades or at the circus, meet the folks who ride fat-wheeled 36-inch unicycles to work--in winter.

There's art happening in Saint Paul's oldest neighborhood, the solidly blue-collar West Seventh, and it's revitalizing the area without gentrifying it. Creative types love the big houses and exhibition spaces that are available, and they're determined to remain good neighbors to the immigrants and old-line St. Paulites among whom they live.