What's your favorite Wisconsin beer? (Milwaukee, Madison: transportation, pool, dinner)

[kg1701d]

Blueberry Creek Blueberry Ale is amazing, I forget the name of the town its out of (Central Wi, along 94 I think) but its fantastic. Not very many locations have it but Laundry 101 used to have it on tap. Also Spotted Cow is pretty tough to beat.

[JoshB]

Thanks everyone for the names of all the microbreweries and beers. I shall check them out when I turn 21.

Thanks Again.

[missmeggg]

New Glarus Spotted Cow and Totally Naked are my go to beers!

[EnjoyEP]

A few thoughts on a few different points:

>>>>>I am not sure if anyone mentioned this yet or not, but I recently had the Bitter Woman IPA from the Tyranena Brewing Co. out of Lake Mills which was quite good.

In fact, I would add Tyranena beers as a strong suggestion to this list!

Tyranena Brewing Company

>>>>>I had to laugh with this -

Originally Posted by Drover

I'm not a big fan of Point products but I rather do like their Cascade Pale Ale. That's one beer they accidentally got right.

I hear you on Point Drover. Not good stuff. Although I am not certain if I have ever had their Cascade PA...for some reason it sounds familiar, but I can't put my finger on it. However, given your tastes for beer, I am now going to have to try it, and I would imagine that I will agree with you largely about liking it. Although also agree that if I do, it will be that they kind of drunkenly stumbled into getting one right!

(True story: I was living in Albuquerque, NM for a number of years in the middle of this decade. My next-door-neighbor was fairly unfamiliar with Wisconsin, however, he traveled there on business 3 or 4 times. The guy just raved and raved about how much he liked Point beers. Really was perplexing).

>>>>>I would say that overall, my favorite Wisconsin set of beers are SPRECHER beers; Sprecher now kind of gets overlooked by Lakefront Brewing as it isn't as "hip" anymore as Lakefront, but I still side with the good folks at Sprecher. Nothing like a 16-ounce cold Sprecher Special Amber.

Secondly would be Lakefront Brewery...good stuff indeed. Thirdly, Capitol Brewing is very good too.

I have to say that - with the possibility of having rocks and stones tossed at me for saying this - I have always found New Glarus beers to be overrated. Not bad, just overrated. Spotted Cow is the big one down here in Milwaukee and I just don't quite get the Cow...just not my thing I guess.

I really overall abhore Leinenkugels - just cannot stand the stuff. And Miller? Eh. It is what it is. I actually - for cheap, mass domestic stuff - prefer Pabst Blue Ribbon or even Old Style to Miller Lite or MGD. Just not a Miller guy, but really, for a ballgame, etc. - a cheap mass domestic - is there a difference between any of it? They are good for the community and the state, just not necessarily for drinking.

[Drover]

Yeah, Tyranena has some good stuff (in fact I noted that their Rocky's Revenge is one of my two "go-to" Wisconsin beers). Their "pedestrian" products are pretty competent but not outstanding. But mostly they make that stuff so they can pay the bills which lets them make what they really want to make, their "Brewers Gone Wild" series. (If you like Bitter Woman, you should see if you can get your hands on a bottle of Bitter Woman From Hell, if it's still possible to find it. I've got a couple bottles of it sitting around.) They especially knocked a couple out of the park with Who's Your Daddy, a bourbon-barrel-aged high-gravity porter, and High-Class Broad, a brandy-barrel-aged high-gravity brown ale. Unfortunately their "Brewers Gone Wild" series are one-offs that they make once and never make again. I have one single High-Class Broad left in my beer collection. Once I break down and open it, I'll probably never have another one again.

As for NG being overrated... yeah, you should probably have rocks thrown at you. The fact is that most of NG's beers aren't groundbreaking, but rather are quite traditional and staid. BUT, they do those traditional, staid beers better than just anyone currently does or ever has, and that's one reason why they're as respected as they are. So many craft breweries, especially on the West coast, are so into creating new styles or putting new twists on existing styles that it's hard to judge how well they can just make a supposedly simple, traditional beer, because they don't even try. It's harder than it sounds.

That's one thing I admire about many Wisconsin breweries is that, thanks to the deep old-world roots found in Wisconsin that just don't exist out west, they spend a lot of their focus doing traditional styles very, very well, even if they do take detours into experimental territory now and then. Nobody else seems to be even trying to do that.

That said, NG's specialty beers are groundbreaking, particularly those issued as part of the Unplugged series.

[JoshB]

Good Post ^^^^. Drover you should be a critic for breweries.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by kg1701d

Blueberry Creek Blueberry Ale is amazing, I forget the name of the town its out of (Central Wi, along 94 I think) but its fantastic. Not very many locations have it but Laundry 101 used to have it on tap. Also Spotted Cow is pretty tough to beat.

I think you mean BluCreek Blueberry Ale. BluCreek is based in Madison, but their products are contract-brewed in Black River Falls by the the three-brewery consolidated outfit of Sand Creek/Pioneer Brewing/Wisconsin Brewing Co.

[ptroy]

leinie's sunset wheat or miller lite does it for me

[JoshB]

I've been hearing alot about the leines. I'll have to try it sometime. I must say Leinenkugels has a cool billboard on the beltline in Madison if your heading west bound on 12/18. It has a picture of a lake and some leaves changing. Very cool. There commercials are pretty funny as well.

[Drover]

That sign on the Beltline changes periodically -- it usually advertises whatever seasonal beer is on offer at any given time of year. As much as I dislike most of their beers, I have to admit their graphic art is pretty sharp. It captures the essence of Wisconsin pretty well.