There's more than cheese in Wisconsin. We visited four microbreweries on our 24 hour visit to Milwaukee. We walked over to the Water Street Brewery - just a few blocks from our hotel. A new twist on the much revered beer can collection, they had entire walls of beer cans. There were actually three panels just like this one. The beers weren't as impressive as the wall. I tried the Pale Ale and Tony tried the Maiback. I thought the Maibock was too sweet but Tony said it was just not as hoppy as advertised. The beers were all very similar in taste. The wings were good.
We headed to Lakefront Brewery. We knew it was just a brewery and not a pub but we read about the famous tours. The place was packed! The tours run every half hour and seem to always sell out. We got there just as the 6:30 tour was taking off but had to wait for the 7:00 tour. We met a great couple of kids who were going to school locally and let us sit at their table. We had a great time talking to them. Mark, our tour guide was a hoot. We got four tastes along the way and got the full tour. It is worth the stop.
We ended the evening at Stonefly Brewery. We ate dinner there and Tony tried a few of the beers. (I was done with beer for the evening). We decided to split appetizers, salad and dinner.The most interesting appetizer was the deep fried bacon. It was served with a homemade stout mustard. We split the spinach salad with chick peas, goat cheese, black olives and tomatoes. It was delicious!
Apparently the thing to eat in Wisconsin on a Friday night is "the fish fry." Every place had "the fish fry" as the Friday night special. Well, we had it and it was incredible. The fish was so fresh tasting and lightly battered. It was served with hot apples and these unbelievable celery root mashed potatoes. It think this is my new favorite fried fish. If you go... ask for Becky. She was our waitress and was wonderful!After a great night sleep and a workout (working off the deep fried bacon!) we went to the Milwaukee Ale House for lunch.
We tried the beer sampler and the chips and salsa.
The Downtown Lites Honey Ale was better than I expected. The Solomon Juneau was "good, very clean" according to Tony. The Pull Chain Pale Ale was, "good, not outstanding" according to Tony. Louie's Demise Amber was good, too. "The malts and the hops are kinda going back and forth. You can taste it. Its good." Tony said. The Session Ale was the Louie's Demise in a Bourbon Barrel. It was very good. The bourbon was very understated but good. The Sheepshead Stout was good, too. It was much more rich than most stouts are.On the way home we stopped at the famed beer bar, The Map Room. It was typical small bar sized, with tons of beers in bottles and about a dozen and a half on tap. Tony tried the Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA and I had the Kulmacher Monchshof Schwarzbier (Black Lager). Both were delicious.
We finished by splitting a bottle of the Harpoon Leviathon Imperial IPA. We started slow at the Water Street but finished strong.
