We were in Fargo in late August 2020, as part of Big Trip #3. Read about our second visit in 2022 here.

Fargo is a fun town! We mostly went for the beer, which will surprise no one. J has lots to say about that below. But we also enjoyed our riverside campsite in a huge city park, and exploring the surprisingly hip little city.

Campground

We stayed at the Lindenwood Campground, in the slighly mosquito-y, enormous, leafy, and popular Lindenwood Park, with water and power hookups and a view of the river. We’d stay there again.

Non-beer stuff

There’s really not much non-beer stuff to report. This was a very beery stopover, but we did our best to cram in some sightseeing and exercise.

Fun things to do in Fargo

Pack your bike or running shoes, because Fargo is near a fantastic network of rails-to-trails pathways in Minnesota–the state has over 2000 miles of rail-trails! We stopped for a run through farm country on the flat Lake Wobegon Trail followed by a picnic in tiny (and easy to park in) West Union, MN on the drive from New Ulm. Another option we considered was the Central Lakes Trail, which connects to the Lake Wobegon Trail and runs for 55 miles along I-94 east of Fargo. We were thrilled to have such easy and scenic options for stopping along the way.

My favorite non-beer thing about Fargo was hunting for the murals scattered around town. We combined mural-hunting with a self-guided historic downtown walking tour, starting with coffee at Young Blood, a neat spot buzzing with cool kids at the outdoor tables.

Check out the Red River Market downtown on Saturdays to restock your trailer with produce and local goods.

Not so great things about Fargo

Sure, we were only there for a couple days, but we could not find good food! We had high hopes for the following restaurants, but were underwhelmed by each:

• Vinyl Taco (J said he had maybe his worst taco ever!)
• Sol Ave Kitchen (best of this bunch)
• Everest Tikka House (from the farmers market)

The only other restaurant in town that interested us was A&E Liberian Restaurant, but we ran out of time. We’re pretty sure we’ve never had Liberian food!

Beer!

Take it away, J:

The manager of one of our favorite beer bars in Virginia has a minor obsession with Fargo-based Drekker Brewing Co. As such, we’ve been enjoying their hazy IPAs for about a year at this one spot, although we’ve never seen it elsewhere. Needless to say, Drekker was a destination for us and it did not disappoint; we wound up going there both of our nights in Fargo.

Housed in an old machine shop on a large property with a sizable and serene outdoor patio, Drekker was pouring seven (!) delicious New England IPAs when we were there plus four amazing sours and a handful of porters, and lighter-type beers that we didn’t try. We sat on the patio both nights – one with Bugsy – and brought in carry-out dinner the second night as Drekker doesn’t distract itself with food. We tried and loved all of the IPAs and sours (Lauren here: at the end of my stream-of-conscious Drekker notes full of superlatives and exclamation points is “I guess I’m a sour girl now”).

While setting up the Airstream in the park, we met a recently retired Delta Airline pilot who, in addition to Drekker, recommended Junkyard Brewing in Fargo’s sister city of Moorhead, MN. Junkyard looked like an awesome spot to enjoy a beer – with a cool old divey feel inside and a nice patio overlooking the road outside –  but in the Covid world they were only doing crowler sales to go. We thought it was a good sign that there was a line to buy their beer early on a Saturday afternoon and we picked up 4 crowlers, 2 sours for L and 2 New England IPAs for J. We didn’t wind up drinking them until we were well out of Fargo, but loved all four of them; almost as good as Drekker!

While in Fargo, we also found the time for a couple of pints at Fargo Brewing Company and found them adequate, but not in the same league as Drekker and Junkyard. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to try two others that we had on our list, Drumconrath and Swing Barrel, but will do so on our next trip. Drumconrath is located in Drekker’s old tap room in downtown Fargo, with no outdoor seating, while Swing Barrel is, like Junkyard, in Moorhead. The greater Fargo area has three other breweries that did not make our list.