Find out just what the "legend" is about. For 84 years, the Grain Belt Brewery operated in Northeast Minneapolis brewing up the workingman's champagne for the enjoyment of people throughout the Midwest. Through the years, the company (known as Minneapolis Brewing Company through most of its history and Grain Belt Breweries, Inc. in its later years) saw good times and bad. It survived temperance movements, national prohibition, labor strife and a fickle market. But it couldn't survive the changing times of the 1970s or the ownership of a powerful businessman. The brewery closed in 1975, the Grain Belt brands were sold off, the equipment was scrapped and the historic buildings of architectural uniqueness were slated for destruction -- until community activists stepped in and saved them from the bulldozers of urban "progress."

"You want to know about Grain Belt? Jeff Lonto wrote the book."
--Steve Brandt, Minneapolis Star Tribune, November 5, 2000

"These pages make a great historical package. A tasty read, too. Where's the bottle opener?"
-- The Book Reader, "America's Most Independent Review of New Books," Fall/Winter 1999-2000

"If you collect Minnesota or Grain Belt, don't overlook this affordable history."
-- American Breweriana Journal, March-April, 2000

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