Lake Louie Brewing
Arena, WI
After the owner of the Firm Worm gave us the phone number for Lake Louie when we asked about the brewery, I arranged an impromptu tour with the owner, Tom Porter. We were first greeted, after we turned down the dirt road by the milk pail by Tim Wauters. He said Tom was in the back. Tom showed us around the place and told us how it had started in his garage and how the place had expanded. He let us try some of the beers while we were there. The Scotch Ale was slightly metallic, but other than that the beers were clean, and well done. He is certainly my new hero after allowing us to tour at a moments notice and then giving us a tasting. The favorite of that day was the Pale Ale. I tried others at the Great Taste, and all were clean and nice. In “Cream City Suds”, they list the beers as:
Prairie Moon (Wit), Coon Rock Cream Ale, Arena Premium (Pale Ale), Warped Speed Scotch Ale, Tommy’s Porter, Milk Stout (with milk sugar), Jasmine Beer (jasmine rice), a Belgian Tripel, and then Louie’s Reserve (strong scotch ale).
If you ever are in or near Arena, call Tom and make the trip.
Lake Mills, WI
We received a grand welcome at Tyranena. The tap room taps almost never stopped flowing. We met the brewer, Rob Larson, only briefly, but had a grand tour, and a grand time tasting. I eventually tasted everything they had on tap, and I enjoyed them all. Very few ale breweries in WI, and this one did an excellent job of it.
The beers we had were (I listed styles since I did not get all their names):
Bavarian Wheat, Pale Ale, Altbier, Brown Ale, Porter, IPA, Imperial IPA, Bourbon BBL Brown, and at the Great Taste I had the Oktoberfest. The IPA is called the Bitter Woman, and the Imperial IPA is the Bitter Woman from Hell. The Bourbon was well done and a nice pint.
We were treated like royalty, and I would recommend their beers without reservation.
Madison, WI
I had been to the Great Dane before, and it was certainly a favorite. On this night, I tried all the beers, and they were hit and miss. The winners were excellent, and the losers were, well, losers. My suggesting is 100% to go there, but get a sample before you invest in a pint. Also, be careful of your food choice. One of our party got a lamb dish it would have taken a jackhammer to gnaw through, however the rest appeared to fare pretty well.
Winners on that night were:
Mild Ale, Coffee Ale, Cream Ale (actually this one was outstanding), Texas Speed Bump IPA (cask), Crop Circle Wheat, Wooden Ship ESB (cask), Black Earth Porter (cask), and Old Glory American Pale Ale.
Losers were:
German Pils, Peck’s Pilsner, Emerald Isle Stout (cask), Potter’s Run IPA, and Stone of Scone Scotch Ale.
Winner’s certainly out performed losers!
Madison, WI
http://www.angelicbrewing.com/
None of Angelic’s beers were very good. I drank about half of each of the 5 samples, and left. I would not recommend their beers based upon my experience. My understanding is their taps rotate, so try it for yourself and see.
The beers I had were:
Bacchanal Blonde, Harvest Moon Hefeweizen, Trident Trippel, Believer’s Bitter, and Paradise Lost Porter.
I think the title of the last beer sums it up best…
New Glarus Brewing Company
New Glarus, WI
http://www.newglarusbrewing.com/
I have been a fan of New Glarus since Keith Klemp rolled in at NHD one year with a bottle of Belgian Red. I had since discovered their Raspberry Tart and I thoroughly enjoy both. We had some Spotted Cow with our cheese on the ride back from Cedar Grove Cheese, and it is a very nice Cream Ale.
Deb (we met Dan as well), gave us the grand tour and then treated us like Kings! We had a special tasting of all the offerings and the tour is generally self guided, but she showed us it all. Quite an operation, anyway, on to the beers. While I did not care for all of them, they were all well crafted. Totally Naked just didn’t have enough character to keep my interest.
We tried (or at least I think we did):
Totally Naked (lager with just 2-row), Spotted Cow, Edel-Pils, Hop Hearty Ale (IPA), Native Ale (dark beer), Wisconsin Belgian Red, Raspberry Tart, and Enigma (bourbon Belgian ale).
Later at a restaurant, several of us got some Uff-Da (Bock), it was excellent.
I could have sworn we tried more beers than that. Anyway, all the beers were well crafted, and very drinkable, but the two fruit beers are worth the drive/fly from NC to WI, and at the brewery they are only $7 a bottle!
Mt Horeb, WI
We ate at the Grumpy Troll on the way back from the New Glarus Tour. Their service was a bit slow, but we did have a big group. They stuck us in the alley. It actually was a good location for the group. I tried all the beers they had on tap, unfortunately, two of them were pure drain cleaner.
I tasted:
2nd St Amber, Trailside Wheat, Rye Bock, Trolls Golden Lager and the two stinkers were the How Now Brown Cow and the Grumpy Stout.
I say it is worth it to stop by, the food was good, and the beers were OK. Make it a point to drive down Main Street to see all the Trolls on display.
Middletown, WI
http://www.capital-brewery.com/
We got to Capital, paid for the tour and waited, and waited, and finally Kirby Nelson (the brewmaster) showed up, and we waited some more. Once the tour got underway, it was apparent we were not getting anything special here. It was the same old tour that everyone got. I hate to say it, but after you’ve seen a mash tun a few times, the excitement is gone. The good folks at Capital knew we were coming, but unlike the other places we went didn’t seem to think it was anything special.
All the bottled beers are pasteurized, and on the tour he said he had one of the lagers in a bottle that is about 5 years old and has now become cloudy and he said it has some interesting flavors. Sounds like an infection to me! We went into the unclimatized warehouse where all the Hook Norton beers are stored. It is about 40’ high, but at floor level was over 90ºF. That cannot be good for the beer.
So afterwards we retreated to a corner of the awesome Beer Garten and were given a glass that resembled a toothpick holder and given pitchers of beer to sample. The interesting thing was all the beers we were given were pretty much the same color and tasted pretty close and not very interesting. The one exception was the 1900. A Classic American Pilsner, but he said later that he dummied down the original recipe they found. He changed the corn from grits to flaked and made some other changed. I think the others were the Amber, Brown Ale, Fest, and MaiBock. As I said, they all were pretty much the same color and flavor. No standouts.
Later, Kirby did bring out some Autumnal Fire out of the fermenter, and that was pretty darn tasty.
I suggest you skip the tour at Capital, find out what is on tap, and then either go to the tap room, or the Bier Garten. That was the highlight, not the tour!