A friend called me up Friday night and asked if I wanted to go on a brewery tour of Southern Wisconsin the next morning. Here's the result: 578.5 km in a little under 7 hours, with Parker, and four breweries (plus a Heidi Festival).
We started around 9 in the morning from Lincoln Park, and by noon we'd arrived at the New Glarus Brewing Co.. For $6 each we got three, 90 mL samples, a self-guided (i.e., wander and look) tour of the brewery, and (for another $5 each) pint glasses. We kinda-sorta liked the beer (I preferred the Fat Squirrel, my friend the Hop Hearty), but we weren't in awe, so we ambled off to the town of New Glarus just down the hill.
Did you know it was Heidi Festival time? As in, Heidi? After a quick snack of bread and cheese for the humans (and half of a charred hotdog that someone dropped on the sidewalk for Parker), we decided to go. We hope the annual play went well for the kids.
We drove a quick 50 km up the road to Madison and the Capital Brewery, where an actual person gave a group of 25 a 15-minute tour of the facility. Plus samples, some free, some not. The brewery is most proud of its Island Wheat right now, but my friend and I both preferred the Pale Ale, for the simple reason that we both have a hop bias[1].
Next stop: Whole Foods in Madison, where the beer distribution cartels of Illinois have no power. Four six packs and much swapping later, we trundled on to Ale Asylum where we heard they might have dinner. And beer.
It was at this point that Parker regressed about two years and, in the oddest canine freak-out I've ever seen, attacked the hop vine growing along the brewery's patio fence. I think he was just anxious that I was on one side of the fence and he was on another, but at the time he started eating hop leaves I was standing next to him wondering why he was eating hop leaves[2].
Again, my friend and I liked the beers we sampled—Ambergeddon and Hopalicious—and again we liked them differently. What to do? Buy one six-pack of each and swap two of them. Problem solved.
By now it was 7pm, Parker was beyond tired and behaving like a beyond-tired 3-year-old, we were tired, and a thunderstorm loomed to the west. So we headed east down I-94 and got about ten minutes from Madison before deciding, what the hell, Tyranena is just off the highway in Lake Mills, so why not do one more?
Talk about the last shall go first. Mmmm.
For $10, we got a 9-beer sampler of everything they make. We sat outside in a big tent, big enough to shield us from the rain when it finally found us, sipping these delightful beers, while Parker slept almost soundly[3] on the grass next to our table.
We're probably going to go to Tyranena again. They have a do-it-yourself attitude towards everything but the beer, including a grill patrons are welcome to use and a laissez-faire attitude towards dogs and food.
Which beers, though? Bitter Woman Ale, certainly; and Bitter Woman in the Rye, their current "Brewers Gone Wild" selection. We both really liked the Chief Blackhawk Porter and Rocky's Revenge brown ale, with the usual caveats about my friend's IBU floor lying just a scooch below my IBU ceiling. The Stone Tepee left us confused, the Fargo Brothers Hefeweitzen didn't get finished somehow, and we agreed that the Three Beaches Honey Blonde exists only so that people who think Coors Light is beer will have something to drink when they get dragged to Tyranena[4].
So: sometime in July, we're going back on the road. If to Wisconsin, we may again plan to end the day in Lake Mills. Otherwise, it turns out that Western Michigan has a bucket load of breweries....
[1] Actually, I have a bias, she has a fetish. But don't tell her I said this.
[2] Hop leaves aren't harmful per se, but actual hops themselves are very dangerous to dogs. If your dog ever gets into your brewing supplies, make sure you call your local emergency vet line or poison control. If your dog goes on a rampage and eats a few dozen hop leaves without eating any buds, just bring an extra bag on your walk the next morning.
[3] Somehow, though, he managed to notice every bit of pretzel that landed near his nose, almost as if he had an automatic tongue. He wouldn't even twitch his ears or open his eyes when one landed near him, he'd just extend his tongue and the pretzel would disappear. Dogs are amazing that way.
[4] Three Beaches is, however, a real beer, so we did finish the entire sample. It just wasn't our favorite of the nine we tried.