Wisconsin Trip
Chris and I took last Thursday and Friday off to tour five breweries in Wisconsin. We had a great time. The first day we went to Huber Brewing in Monroe, Tyranena in Lake Mills, and The Great Dane in Madison. The second day we went up to Steven’s Point and saw the Steven’s Point Brewery and Central Waters Brewing Co.
Huber Brewing is one of the oldest breweries in the country. It was truly an enormous and amazing place. Started in 1848, it has been in Monroe for over 150 years. They are one of the last regional breweries making light lager beers at very reasonable price. I have often wondered how they managed to stay in business. It was clear when we went there that their business is really turning around. Their own brands, such Huber Bock and Berghoff, are lagging, but the recent closure of several other regional size breweries, such as Minnesota Brewing, has increased their contract business.
Big news to me was that Hans Kessler, the great but stubborn German Brewmaster, has retired. The new Brewmaster, Kristopher Kalav, was really pushing the brewery into new directions. They have installed a state-of-the-art canning line, that lets them do all sorts of sizes of can packages (like 24 packs). I saw plenty of canned beer in the warehouse that was destined for Canada. The have installed some very nice upgrades to their bottling line and brewhouse in the last year. Most importantly, they have gone from brewing once a week(!) to brewing 3 to 4 times a week. A vast improvement. We had an extensive tour. I was amazed at the number of rooms that brewery has ‘abandoned’. It obviously used to produce much more beer. I was equally impressed by the lab and the amount of quality control that they put into their product. Thinking about it, I can’t remember ever having a bad bottle of Huber beer! They are done with returnable bottles, selling most of them off to the Steven’s Point Brewery. People just don’t bring the bottles back like they used too, and the brewery was really losing money on it. Hopefully Wisconsin’s oldest brewery will be around for quite a while longer.
Tyranena Brewing Co has only been open since 1999. They have a beautiful facility in Lake Mills, Wisconsin. The name of the brewery (which I still cannot pronounce) was the original name of the lake near the town, before settlers renamed it. They have a 15bbl system with four 30 bbl tanks and one 30 bbl Bright Tank. With this they did 1500bbls in 2003, an increase of 30% from the previous year. They have plenty of room for expansion. Amazingly, all of this beer is made by one guy, Rob Larson. When we arrived he was about to fill several whisky barrels with stout. Just about every small brewery in Wisconsin is now putting their stout and porters in whiskey barrels it seems!
They have a very nice tasting room/bar. No food though. In particular we enjoyed a dopplebock that they had on tap. How I wish I could make beers like that in Iowa! We were just in time, as they killed the last keg of it while we were there. We had a great time talking to Rob, so much, that we had to force ourselves to leave to get on to the next brewery.
This was a dream brewery, just what I would like to have someday. Chris and I tried to hide our envy at all the nice sparkling new equipment! Well, we’ll see how the place looks in 17 years!
The Great Dane is truly a legend of brewpubs. Eric Brusewitz is one of the brewers and he gave us a grand tour. Chris was in the same Diploma course as Eric at the Siebel Institute, so Eric was extra gracious to us, even feeding us dinner.
Once again, I was able to experience something that only the Great Dane can offer, there incredible sampler of beers. Last time I was there, It was 15 beers, but this time, they topped it with 19 four once samples! Just incredible! All the beers where good, but a few really stood out. Their Dunkel Weizenbock, which took a medal at the GABF, was astounding! At 8% ABV, it tasted like chocolate banana wiezen heaven. wow! And there were two cask condition ales to choose from, an IPA and a porter. The porter (called new peculiar) was truly deep and complex. I have never had a cask porter, but I would like to have one again!
But it doesn’t stop there! I also got a sample of their Barley wine, which was amazing, it was bitter, malty and smoky, almost like it was aged in a bourbon barrel.. but it wasn’t!
The grand champion though was what eric called their Barley Port. This was their attempt at making the highest alcohol beer in the world. It was 20% alcohol, and smooth like the finest aged port, but with a distinct malt profile. They made this by boiling a batch of wort for 28 hours!! They reduced ten barrels down to about a barrel and a half, for a O.G. of 56 plato!! Most barley wines start at 19-25 plato, for reference. Oh, and to top it off, they used seven different yeast strains to keep fermentation going, and aged the final product in a wooden barrel.
After the sampler, we had a tour. The dane sells over 3000bbls a year, and is one of the highest volume brewpubs. They can seat over 500 people, including 150 or so in the huge biergarten outside. There little ten barrels system looks very well used. Amazingly they have squeezed fermentation and bright tanks into every corner imaginable. I know I was drinking, but I think I counted four separate rooms for tanks. Also they have their own welding shop, as they are constantly improving things (as well as fixing things). There lastest invention was a hopback for the brewhouse, which I found really cool, as I would like to make one for here. Eric was still experimenting with it.
While on the tour, Eric whipped out some outrageously huge belgian goblets and insisted we try a ‘reserve’ keg of his Trippel, and some belgian strong ale right out the fermenter. They were both amazing. At some point I found myself with full goblet in each hand, and thinking ‘what am I doing?’ Each beer was over 8%! 0_o Thankfully Chris had abstained since the sampler, and we able to drive home that night. The bars stay open until 3 am, and the Dane was rocking on a thursday night, but we had to get some sleep so we could get up to Stevens Point the next day.
I’ll have to finish Day Two later, this has taken long enough to write!