My wife and I headed up Friday to a great weekend in Green Bay, WI, and that is hard for a die hard Bears fan to say. We headed out Friday morning with another couple on the way to our ultimate goal of Green Bay, but made a couple of stops along the way. First Stop was Vintage Brewing in Madison, WI http://vintagebrewingcompany.com/. This is a brewery that resurrected the former building that housed JT Whitney's Brewery. Thankfully Vintage is much better with their beer as well as their food! Per our usual, my wife and I ordered a sampler, but they only serve samplers in the amount of 5 and they had 10 beers on tap. Needless to say we ordered 5 different beers. The ones that stood out to me were Sister Golden Kolsch, Pumpkin Disorderly, Dedication and Better Off Red.
The Kolsch was clean, clear and delicious, not much else can be said other than this was a great drinkable beer. The Pumpkin Disorderly was a new idea to me for a pumpkin beer; it was an Abbey Ale brewed with pumpkin and pumpkin spices. It was a nice Belgian abbey beer with a noticeable hint of pumpkin pie. It’s a new idea for me because I have never considered an abbey ale as the backbone for a pumpkin beer, but I will try it in the future. Dedication is a dubbel ale and was very tasty! It was malty, spicy and everything you would expect from a Dubbel. The Better Off Red is a hoppy American Red Ale, which is my favorite beer that they produce. It has the hop charge of an American IPA, but has a noticeable malt that offsets the hops of the beer. I guess the reason I love this beer is that it is basically an IPA, but with the amber malt profile. When you are in Madison go to Vintage as well as Great Dane and Ale Asylum. These are my favorite breweries in Mad Town.
Next stop was Stone Cellar Brewpub in Appleton, WI http://stonecellarbrewpub.com/; cool location with some good beers. My wife and I ordered the usual sampler, which were nine beers on tap with a root beer. The root beer was noticeable because it was a golden root beer, so it did not look like root beer but tasted like one. Interesting give it a try. The beers that stood out were as follows: Marquette Pilsner, English Six Grain Ale, Stone Cellar Stout and Vanishing Vanilla Stout. The Pilsner was clean, crisp and thirst quenching. The English Six grain ale, as it name states had six grains used in it the grist for the beer and it makes a very drinkable beer. Both Stouts are very easy to drink and are nearly the same in character, the only difference is that the Vanilla has pure vanilla added to it. So if you are in Appleton stop by for a beer or two.
We finally made it to Green Bay and went with our friends to eat at St Brendan's Inn http://www.saintbrendansinn.com/. The first floor is a restaurant and bar with the second and third floors as guest rooms. Luckily our friend's sister and husband had made reservations so we were able to go almost instantly to our table. A couple things I noticed right away were that the tables were spaced a ways apart, leading to long wait times for the tables and that the room was very noisy, due to the wood ceiling. We ordered our drinks and food; they had a decent variety of beers imports, craft and domestics. Unfortunately the one I chose had been replaced but the beer list had not been updated. They did have a good alternative. Upon talking with our friends afterwards they had the same concerns about the place as well they were not overly excited about the food quality.
Thus ended day one of the Green Bay trip. More to come.
QC Beerguy
No comments:
Post a Comment