Category: Wisconsin (Page 2 of 2)

New Glarus Brewing Review

April 15, 2015 / Matt / 0 Comments

One of the best things about moving and living in Chicago was the availability of New Glarus beers. During my time of working in southeast Wisconsin, all I kept hearing about was this thing called the “Spotted Cow.” Everyone in Wisconsin seemed to be so proud of New Glarus and love their beers (a gross generalization I’m sure). New Glarus seems to truly be the official beer of Wisconsin. So, of course being a craft beer lover, I had to try a New Glarus; I started with the Spotted Cow and immediately fell in love with the flavors and I tried other options and still enjoyed almost every one of their beers.

When Rachel planned our trip to Madison I got really excited because I hoped we would have time to stop by my new favorite brewery. When she told me we were going there, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t contain myself. The whole way there I was just looking forward to it. I didn’t know what to expect and I wasn’t too sure what it was going to be like, but I didn’t care, I just wanted to get to one of my “Bucket List” breweries.

New Glarus Brewing Co. has been a pioneer in the craft beer industry and has been named one of the ten best breweries in the world on a couple of occasions. And now I was getting to visit them!

So let’s take a look at them according to our Brewery Grading Scale.

Logistics: 3 New Glarus offers free self-guided tours Monday through Sunday from 10 AM to 4 PM. They also offer a “hard hat” tour that is available if you are lucky enough to get a ticket. The hard hat tours are virtually impossible to do because they are only offered on Friday’s at 1 PM and there is a limit of fifteen people allowed on the tour. The benefits are that it is a three hour tour, you can go behind the scenes of both breweries (The Riverside and the Hilltop), and there is a beer and cheese pairing available. The self-guided tour is essentially walking in the hallways of the brewery and observing the different processes through big glass walls. The hard hat tour allows you into those sections and onto the manufacturing floor.

Atmosphere: 4 Most of the people there were from around the area and fairly young. We visited the Hilltop location and upon pulling into the parking lot, I thought we were in the wrong place because it looked like a Swiss chalet. Most breweries are in an industrial park or more rugged looking, so this really turned my world upside down. Everything was new and looked to be celebrating the Swiss culture. The brewery was clean and immaculate. The gift shop was average and celebrated Wisconsin and beer; because of the way it is laid out, if there are a lot of people, the space can get small and tight very quickly. The brewery is easy to navigate, but the best thing about the location is outside with a huge open space outdoors and “ruins” scattered about. The old looking partial buildings were well done and made you feel like you were somewhere else, except for the fact that if you look down from the hill you see the highway but that is beside the point. On a nice day, you don’t want to leave. It would be a great place to have a reception or wedding.

Value: 2 This one is hard because of several factors: if you can do the hard hat tour, it will cost $30, but you must plan accordingly, and I do mean plan! If you just want to go hang out at a brewery and look at some tanks, you can’t beat a free tour. You won’t learn anything unless you have a friend in the business, but that is what you get for the free pricetag. There are a couple of options for actually tasting the beer. You can pay $8 and get 3 samples and a commemorative NG glass. The samples are decent size and will allow you to taste the various beer options. The other option is to pay $8 (for year round and seasonal beers OR $9.50 for fruit beers) and just get a pint of beer, but you get to keep the glass. If you do this, then refills are only $5.50 ($7.50 for fruit beer refills). I do suggest the sample route as you will get to have a wider variety of beers to try.

Beer – Taste: 4 I will not hide anything from you, I love New Glarus and am a fanboy of it. But there are some beers that they brew that are just ok for me. If you’re there at the right time, a great seasonal beer called “Totally Naked” is a must–it is crisp, golden, and delicious with two variety of hops from Germany and Czech Republic. Obviously, the “Spotted Cow” is the flagship beer of New Glarus that is cask conditioned . It sports Wisconsin malts and even a hint of corn. It does have a bit of fruitiness to it and is light and easy to drink.

Beer – Variety: 3 The brewery itself offers the six year-round beers, plus maybe a seasonal and a fruit beer or two. You will find something that you like but if you are looking to try a bunch of different offerings, you may be out of luck. New Glarus does a good job of cycling through beers to keep things fresh while maintaining a standard selection. Sometimes it is just hard to find the other offerings and not many, if any, are offered in the brewery. It just depends on the day you go.

Tour: 3 The self-guided tour is ok. You can see the whole operation but it really isn’t engaging or entertaining. The hard hat tour will require some planning and a lot of help. In order to get on the tour, you pretty much need to schedule it 6 months in advance (At the time of this writing, the earliest available tour is in November and December!). The hard-hat tour is worth it but the price is very steep especially for a group larger than 2. The bartenders/cashiers are really friendly and helpful if you don’t know what to get. They explain things well about the process and different options. If you are just passing by, in the area, or not really a beer enthusiast, save your money and do the free tour.

Other Noteworthy Items: New Glarus does a great job of supporting the local community and the farmers of Wisconsin.

New Glarus is definitely worth visiting for any craft beer enthusiast. The atmosphere is great and the people are friendly. As a side note, on one occasion I was chaperoning a couple of colleagues from England, Belgium, and France and each one fell in love with Spotted Cow. They could not get enough of New Glarus and wanted to take some back. I was disappointed overall in my experience with this brewery because of the tour setup but with them being open and allowing self-guided tours almost all day, that was a huge bonus. If you are looking for a taste of Wisconsin, visit New Glarus and try a Spotted Cow.

Monroe, WI

April 14, 2015 / Rachel / 3 Comments

Matt on the Monroe Square

On our trek to Madison, we detoured through rural northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin so that we could hit up Minhas Brewery. Located in Monroe, WI, we didn’t have detailed plans other than to arrive by 12pm so that we could be a part of the 1pm tour. Thankfully, Monroe was just a couple hour drive from our apartment, so we set out around 9a and arrived around 11:30a. We purchased tickets for the tour and explored the town square of Monroe. Unbeknownst to us at the time, Monroe is a Swiss town (and has the architecture to prove it!), and is the Swiss cheese capital of the U.S.!

Baumgartner’s Menu

Yelp told us that we had to check out Baumgartner’s Cheese Store and Tavern–it is, after all, Wisconsin’s oldest cheese store. Let’s just put it out there (and I think Rebekah will agree with me), that we’re never going to turn down visiting a “Cheese Store”. Baumgartner’s faces the town square and is a charming restaurant that seats about 50 people. The front of the establishment is the “store” with refrigerator cases of cheese and sausage with just a couple tables and chairs. The back of the store serves as the restaurant. Pulling up chairs to the counter, we perused the menu overhead and ordered. Now, if you’re in Wisconsin, it really should go without saying, but at every opportunity, you really should order a cheese plate. HELLO, YOU’RE IN WISCONSIN! So, what did I have for lunch? A sausage, cheese, and cracker plate with a cup of chili. #noshame Matt unsurprisingly ordered a Reuben. We were SO glad we visited–conversation among customers was easy, the food was delicious, and we loved the casual atmosphere.

Enjoying our soda and beer on the Minhas Tour

Minhas Brewery was the primary reason we came to Monroe, and we left happy travelers. The tour was promised to be at least 45 minutes, would include a walking tour through the buildings and production lines, and would include samples of their beers. The tour started with a short video explaining the history of the brewery’s 160 years of operation and various ownership. We were given samples during the video and our guide offered to “fill us up” prior to the walking tour. The walking tour took us through their brewing process all the way to packaging as we learned about the history of the buildings and evolution of the brewing strategies that have employed. We also learned that Minhas makes their own sodas under the label Blumer’s Soda and were educated on that process as well. At the end of the tour, each participant was given a 6 pack to take home–in the beer pack there were 4 different beers, 1 soda, and a commemorative glass; in the soda pack, there were 5 different sodas and a commemorative glass. For $10, this was a great value and such a fun tour: the guide was knowledgeable, the other tour participants were enjoyable to be around, and the beers and sodas were on point. Also to note, you have to check out “The Herb and Helen Haydock World of Beer Memorabilia Museum’ located in the Minhas Brewery gift shop!

I am going to just provide you with a snapshot of our brewery rubric, I think the highlights are captured above to give you a sense of what you’re getting into should you visit Minhas. Check out our Brewery Grading Rubric post for more info on the specific categories.

Disclaimer: for the Texans reading this, soda is synonymous with “pop” or “coke”; I know the exact terminology is debateable, but since we were in the North and it is associated with a label, we’re going to go with the local opinion on the matter.

Madison Trip Overview

April 13, 2015 / Rachel / 2 Comments

Matt and I have a tradition of alternating years that we plan something for our anniversary and birthdays. We’ve done everything from a weekend trip, to a basketball game, to (last year) eating at Wendy’s with our three week old. We both love this because we get the opportunity to surprise each other and not one person always has to be responsible.

For our second anniversary, we were both knee deep in work. Before I started at my full-time job, we had been taking short weekend trips about once every 6-8 weeks, but with both of us working it had become a lot harder to get away. We both desperately needed a change of scenery, even if for just a few days! We both love Wisconsin and the previous trips we had taken there, so naturally when it was my turn to plan, I chose to put together a long weekend trip where we might be able to explore a new area of the state.

Now, you’ve probably already picked up that we enjoy visiting breweries and trying new beers as well as exploring whatever new town/city we happen upon. Originally, I had the idea to drive out to a bed and breakfast that was also a brewery(!); I was SO excited about this. You can imagine my sadness when I researched and found out that it was in a super small town, where by my Google search, there wouldn’t be any restaurants and the brewery itself wouldn’t be open. I tried SO hard to tack this on to either the first night or last night of the trip, but it just did not pan out. So, back the drawing board! Thankfully I found a few great online resources to look up various breweries in southern Wisconsin and came across four different breweries within a couple hours of each other–two of which happened to be in Madison.

Once I figured out where in Wisconsin we would be going, it was easy to put the rest of the trip together. When I trip plan for us, I use TripAdvisor, Yelp, and even city websites to create a list of a handful of places that we might want to visit, this includes restaurants, breweries, museums, local events, points of interest, etc. I try to gather all the helpful information such as hours of operation, address, tickets needed, admission price, and any other helpful information. If I’m feeling really ambitious I put everything on a map so we can easily see what things we might want to do on the same day. We usually don’t set an itinerary unless we really want to see a particular museum and say it is only open on Friday afternoon, then we plan accordingly.

So, some of the things you’ll be reading about the next few days are from this southern Wisconsin and Madison trip. Because of our work schedules, we took three whole days (including travel), leaving on a Friday morning and returning Sunday late afternoon. We decided that we could have easily spent one more day in Madison because there were things we did pass up, but if you’re looking for a snapshot, I think we captured it. Here is an overview of what we’ll be covering the next few days.

Tuesday — Baumgartner’s Cheese Store and Tavern & Minhas Brewery, Monroe WI

Wednesday — New Glarus Brewing

Thursday — Hubbard Ave Diner, National Mustard Museum & Capital Brewery, Middleton WI

Monday — Wisconsin State Capitol & Madison Museum of Modern Art

Tuesday — The Old Fashioned & Marigold Kitchen

Wednesday — Ale Asylum