I visited the Milwaukee Brewery (Downtown Milwaukee location) and Ale House this evening and I had absolutely amazingly lucky timing...
I started checking out the shiny, stainless steel brewing kit through the viewing window and someone said "want to check it out?". -The brewer was just finishing up a hard days work and invited me to come inside and "check out this bad boy" as he put it.
They had a 15 barrel brew kettle, a custom-made randall that was made from a modified stainless steel old milk vessel, 3 30 barrell fermenters, 30 barrell HLT, and all sorts of assorted brewing "goodness."
The brewer had just pitched 5 gallons of yeast into one of the fermenters and was hooking up the blow-off tube for his 4.7% honey ale. It was REALLY, REALLY cool to be this close to the brewing equipment and get to touch them and ask any questions I had (I embarassingly mistook a thermowell thermometer coupling for the glycol line to the glycol chiller (which was strangly up stairs), but it was just too cool being there to worry about that too long.)
I took a look at his brewing sheets; really a simple recipe for the honey ale, 2 row, carmel malt, and honey (not sure what else I would expect). We chatted about beer for a bit as he turned off the hose to the HLT and finished closing up the boiler and cleaning the exterior; all-in-all a great evening. (He let me know that the master brew and the other two brewers would beat the other Milwaukee brewery tommorrow night, unfortunately I'm heading down to Chicago tomorrow night.)
-I skipped out on going to the "Horney Goat" brewery later (had to pack) and headed to the restaurant for dinner and a taster tray of beer.
I tried the "Downtown Lights Honey Ale" (the beer I "saw" in the fermenter), the "Solomon Juneau" -essentially a Czech Pilsner recipe fermented with a neutral ale yeast (lightly dry hopped with Saaz), the "Pull Chain Ale" which was really orange and extremely cloudy for an ale -looked exactly like a bavarian weizen but dry hopped with Cascade and East Kent Goldings, "Louie's Demise" malty red scottish ale a little sweet and malt forward brewed with German Perle and Tettnang hops (I'd guess early in the boil as there was little hop aroma) it had a slightly bubble gum yeast flavor, "Sheepshead Stout" an oatmeal stout made with 9 different malts it was still slightly sweet and served on nitro and really not very roasty; more like a robust porter than a stout. I also tried their two speciality beers:
a "Belgian Double-spiced Ale" it was a DARK red and really had a lot of strange spice flavors; too much in my opinion. The final beer that I tried was their Vanilla Cream Ale; it TRULY tasted like Cream Soda and really didn't taste much like beer (quite dangerous).
-The "Pull Chain Ale" was my favorite, closely followed by the complex "Louie's Demise" (the "Solomon Juneau" was quite dissapointing, though; I didn't finish it).
This was an utterly amazing day for this beer tourist; one that I will remember for a long time to come. I'm heading to Chicago tomorrow but I'm slightly sadened that I didn't have more time in Milwaukee as I didn't get to visit even half of the breweries that Milwaukee has to offer. I also wish I had a chance to head to Madison, Wisconsin so that I could complete a full tour of the "Beer-muda Triangle" of Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison, as it's called here...
If I had another week I'd also hit the "Great Lakes Micro Distillery Tour" and the "Discovery World Museum Beer Archaeology Exhibit"$$ both of which are here in Milwaukee. (I'd also visit Pabst even though I REALLY don't like their beer (blue ribbon or not)...)
If you're in Chicago, make sure that you save some time aside to head up to Milwaukee! (1 hour and 15 minute drive)
Adam
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