St. Cloud Commons gets its own beer

Toronto-based Left Field Brewery recently released a beer named for a Huntington, WV ballpark. St. Cloud Commons Pilsner, a limited edition foeder-fermented lager, is now on sale at the Toronto, Ontario brewery. The beer is named for the historic St. Cloud Commons baseball field in West Huntington.

While it has no direct connection to the Huntington baseball park, the brewery is passionate about the sport of baseball and its history.

“Our foeder beer series are almost all named after old and sometimes retired wooden ballparks, as a subtle nod to the amount of time these beers spend conditioning in our oak foeders,” Mandie Murphy, Left Field Brewery’s co-founder, told Brilliant Stream. “Reading about St. Cloud Commons, we firstly fell in love with the name and thought it sounded like it would suit our foeder fermented pilsner, which is equal parts classy and rustic.”

The brewery describes St. Cloud Commons Pilsner as a “balanced, refreshing, rustic pilsner with subtle complexity. The beer was cold fermented with German lager yeast and lagered for six weeks in our oak Foeders. Pale gold and a little hazy, Saaz hops were added to the boil resulting in earthy, hay and bright lemon character, a delicate bitterness, and a dry oak finish.” We love that the brewery recommends pairing it with Loaded Baked Potato and Biscuits and Gravy. They nailed that, right?

St. Cloud Commons Pilsner (5.3% ABV) is available now in 650 ml bottles at the Left Field Brewery retail store, selling for CA$6.42. Anyone making a run to Toronto soon?

Left Field Brewery was established in Toronto in April of 2013 and brews a series of baseball-inspired, distinct and full-flavored beers. Born from a passion for both craft beer and baseball, It was founded by husband and wife team Mark and Mandie Murphy. The brewery garners an overall, very respectable 3.8 average score in Untappd on nearly 100,000 total ratings. with 90 beers logged in.

Every beer that has been fermented in their foeders has been released with the name of a ballpark with wooden grandstands in order to mimic the material the foeders are made of: new American oak. 

Check this link to info about St. Cloud Commons in Huntington. Beyond baseball, St. Cloud Commons was for many years home of the annual Mountain Brewer Open (MBO) homebrew competition run by the Greater Huntington Homebrewers Association. MBO used to annually attract well over 100 entries from homebrewers around the region. Sadly, that event is no longer held.

Left Field Brewery website

Beer photos in article by Left Field Brewery.