Catching up

Last week flew by and I did not post. Good thing I did very little over this weekend, so I can talk mostly about what we did last weekend.

Emilia and I hosted my roommates for a fun filled weekend in Milwaukee. This worked out well because I do not get to play tour guide very often in Milwaukee. On Friday night we stopped at the opening party at Blackfinn in Brookfield. Emilia is working there, so we popped in for dinner before heading home for some relaxing beers after the long week. Saturday morning we started out at Lakefront Brewery...

It was a great tour and our tour guide was hilarious. Pretty neat little brewmaster's box above the brewery. We all agreed that we need to have one of those in our future. From craft to macro we go as we headed over to Miller.

Hey look! Sausage in the shape of a Miller bottle, why not?

These are the brew kettles and lauter tuns at Miller. Wow. 

 

Old school beer tools down in the old cellars

The tour at Miller was pure marketing, but that did not stop us from having the best High Life I have ever tasted. Then we went over to the old Pabst Brewing building and the Best Place. We missed the tour, but we got to meet one of the owners of the new Pabst project, which is very exciting revival for Milwaukee.

Beard envy, except Ryan he just wants the beer

After that we grabbed a quick snack at Conejito's before going to the Great Lakes Distillery. Yes, this is all still one day. Great Lakes is a pretty small operation, but they are putting out some quality product. We got to taste some of the their recent bottlings that are not sold yet and they are quite good.

Here is their setup including their new pot still on the left. Apparently it is haunted with some type of Tiki curse, so they got a great deal on it. After the tour, we grabbed a quick beer at Sugar Maple while we discussed where to have dinner. We decided on my favorite Indian restaurant, Majaraja. I first was introduced to Majaraja by my cousin over 15 years ago and it still never gets old. After dinner we headed home for one last beer before crashing after the long day. The next morning, we got a late start, but after making breakfast for lunch we headed to the Harley Davidson Museum

 Found my bike! Bad to the bone

 After the museum, we went to the Milwaukee Ale House for lunch. This was the original location for what now is Milwaukee Brewing Co. Next time I will have to check out their production facility.

 I mentioned in my last post that I had a superior Italian Beef than Johnnie's. It was at Joe Boston's, which just happens to be right down the street from our apartment. Walking in you would not know it, but the italian beef was superb. The moist beef really set it apart, along with the fact that despite the reduced quantity of hot peppers, the flavor was excellent and just as flavorful as a sandwich overstuffed with peppers. We also tried the italian sausage, which was good but have to give the edge to Johnnie's italian sausage.

 American Styles tasting on Wednesday. Some heavy hitters in this line up and we walked to and from school with this in mind. We got our steps in for sure.

 Guinea pig for some test beer thanks to Marc. He is a brewer at Goose Island and was part of our class for the last two weeks while they do some renovations at the facility. As far as classes, this past week was really informative, but it was a lot of information. I do not feel great about the test. I really spent a lot of time studying things that were not tested on very much. I really learned a lot, so I am trying to focus on that rather than be focused on my score for this one. We finished off the week with a visit to Revolution.

I have been here a few times before, but this time we got a special tour from the managing partner, Josh Deth, aka "Chairman of the Party."

Here is the bottom of one of their new fermenters. They also put in a brand new brewhouse and a wet mill that will increase their production capacity by a ton. They clearly are the leaders of the local craft beer movement in Chicago, but there are many others that making some awesome beers. My roommates went to Off Color over this weekend and were blown away by their stuff. I have had a few of their beers, but I have to make it down there to check the brewery out. Tomorrow, we are going to Half Acre for a visit as well, so we will get that tour we were looking for after all!