One year later...

Jolly Good Fellows has reached its first birthday and for awhile I toyed with the idea of a big, convoluted post to celebrate the occasion but I think I would rather just say thank you.

Thank you to Sarah, Brian, Dan, Jeremy, Rudy, and Craig for being part of this, contributing, and providing counsel when I needed it. You are all awesome beyond measure.

Now this is a birthday cake!
(Original here)

Thank you to everyone who has read an article, commented, shared us with their friends, listened to us, provided advise, took the time to speak with us, welcomed us into their brewery, allowed us to attend your festivals and events, smiled for photographs, and shared a pint or two with us. Without your support we wouldn't have made it this far. 

We have come along way in a year and have told some good stories, but there is still much work to be done and many more excellent beers and beer stories to discover.  Jolly Good Fellows is just the type of site to find them!

Thank you and may you be privileged to drink excellent beer!

Skye

What's a Belgian (Style Beer)?

It’s Belgian style month here at Jolly Good Fellows and we have been stoked to find all sorts of cool choices to sample.  While Skye has been working hard to figure out a way to do some cool comparisons of original to adapted Belgian styles (hey come on, he gets to drink more beer that way), I thought I would go a little different direction and quickly look at what it means to be Belgian. 

This is a sampling of a few just from Belgium.
(Original here)

Belgian style beers seem to be all the range.  A quick research trip to the local Total Wine outlet offered ample evidence that everyone seems to be brewing a “Belgian style” something.  So, again, what does it mean to be Belgian?

Now before you start worrying about who are the Walloons or the entry of the British into the First World War as a result of the Germans swinging through Belgium, we aren’t going there.  No discussion of Leopold II and the Belgian Congo.  No chocolates, no diamonds and no EU politics.  Nope, not this time.

Belgian-style beers are closely linked to the seven Trappist monasteries that are engaged in commercial brewing.  Six of these are in Belgium and one is in the Netherlands.  They were originally occupied in 1836 as the monks left France in the face of the Revolution and began selling beer in 1861.  The Trappist monks are part of the Order of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance and follow the Rule of St. Benedict.  The order was founded in 1664.

As part of the Rule of St. Benedict, the Trappist monks are allowed to sell goods to the public to support their order.  Since they have not taken a vow of sobriety, this includes their now famous ales.

Now how does this relate to Belgian style beer?  Well, Trappist is not a style, but a term of origin as only the seven Trappist monasteries are allowed to use the name or permutations of it.  (Same idea as Champagne – only sparkling wines from that region of France can be called champagne.) So by referring to “Belgian style,” commercial brewers can brew in a style similar to the Trappists, but not infringe on their intellectual property rights.

The current Belgian Trappist producers are:

• Achel, sells Blonde (8% ABV), Brune (8% ABV), Extra Blonde (8% ABV), Extra Brune (8% ABV).
• Chimay sells Red Label (dark, 7% ABV), White Label (Blonde/Tripel, ABV 8%) and Blue Label (dark, 9% ABV).
• Orval sells a "unique"^[5] dry hopped 6.2% amber beer.
• Rochefort sells three dark beers, "6" (7.5% ABV). "8" (9.2% ABV) and "10" (11.3% ABV).
• Westmalle sells Dubbel (7% ABV) and Tripel (9% ABV),
• Westvleteren sells Green Cap or Blonde, (5.8% ABV), Blue Cap (dark, 8% ABV) and Yellow Cap (dark, 10.2% ABV).

Now Belgian brewing is certainly broader than just the Trappist examples listed above, but given the rise of these breweries in and around the time of Belgian independence (1830), their seems to be a close tie. 

My 5 Favorite Beers of All Time

When we agreed to do our five favorite beers of all time, I thought that this could be really hard or really easy.  Who is going to challenge me if I just list five obscure beers and provide some boilerplate descriptions?  Really, at a minimum I come off as pretentious and at a maximum I might even become insightful and illuminating.  Is it honest or ethical?  No and I would be losing the trust of my buds on this blog and that would SUCK.

So now we are back to being honest about it.   But five all time favorite beers?  Frankly, my beer memory doesn’t go back much further than a couple of weeks.  Perhaps I am drinking less than memorable beer?  Perhaps I am doing my drinking in the moment?  I have a feeling it is somewhere in between.

(Original Here)

Now as a child of the late 60’s and 70’s, I was being reared squarely in a time of beer paucity.  In some ways, beer was more about the emotional attachment to the moments that surrounded its consumption than the consumption itself.  So the first of my all-time favorites is Olympia.  A mouthful of cold Oly with my Dad in our yard is a favored memory and thus a favored beer.  A close second is what became my Dad’s signature beer when he upgraded his own beer game – Henry Weinhard’s Private Reserve.  It doesn’t make my list, but opened the door to experimenting beyond the light pilsners of the day.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is the second beer on my list.  The 60’s and 70’s may have had a dearth of quality beer, but that situation began to change for me in the late 1980’s when I came of age.  To facilitate that transformation, we head to Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, CA (Go Bears!) and Raleigh’s[1] with their Beers of the World promotion.  Get your card on your first visit and when you completed getting all of the beers on the list stamped, you got the free t-shirt.  (Always amazed me how a university education was powered by beer, pizza and t-shirts.)  The first beer on my list – taken in the company of my good friends – was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  I still have the glass.

My next beer on the favorites list is Spendrup’s.  It’s a Swedish beer, the kind of beer that compliments a long refreshing sauna or ordered in a pub with friends on a Friday after work.  Simple, tasty, a pilsner with a high sociability factor.  Good times, good beer.

Now Yuengling is our regular household beer, something that we buy in cases from Costco.  A nice everyday beer, OK when a bit warm, better as it cools and best when it is cold.  You would think that this would make it automatically on the list, but this is one time when familiarity breeds contempt.  Great for everyday, but it just doesn’t stand out on its own.  I’ll be drinking it for a long time, but not an all timer.

In 1996, I took a business trip to US European Command in Stuttgart.  After a great dinner out, we retreated to the hotel bar for a final beer before heading for bed.  We had been at a brewery and sausage palace with several excellent beers.  However, the one beer that stood out for me was my first hefeweizen or weissbier.  I don’t remember the brewer, but it was full bodied, filling and satisfying.  Truly bread in a glass, served a 0.4l at a time.  It ranks as an all time favorite.

Now for the final beer on the list.  One that I thought was going to be more of a novelty when I got a hold of it, but found that it had a hook that was refreshing and satisfying.  It’s a chocolate stout.  Thick, full-bodied, chocolate like flavors coming from the roasted malts rather than chocolate itself.  Chocolate may be a misnomer, but it’s a great description of the flavor bouquet. Bought my first at Total Wine and plan to go back for more.

Ask me again next month, you may get a different list, but it will be an honest answer to the question.

---

[1] Raleigh’s was destroyed in a fire in November, 2011.  Dozens reported homeless.

The Moose is Loose!

I have never really considered myself a “dark beer guy,” but with the coming of Winter and the onslaught of my wife’s awesome Swedish Christmas foods, it felt right to move my tastes to the right on the “beer-o-meter” and go more noir.  Rather than just pick a single beer, I decided to go for a threesome of “winter warmers” and then took the middle beer in the group to write up.  Sierra Nevada “Celebration” and Brooklyn Brewery’s “Black Chocolate Stout” bracketed Saranac Big Moose Ale.

Before we get to the beer, though, a couple of thoughts on Saranac.  Brewed by the Matt Brewery in Utica, New York, which has been in business since 1885, Saranac is what I think of as a mid-major of brewers. 

Now, in the pantheon of brewers, you have the majors on one end (Miller, Coors, InBev) and then you have the small craft brewers and large home brew operations on the other end.  As the market for craft and microbrews has grown, the market is diversifying across that spectrum of styles and variety. 

Large brewers have the volume and distribution, but don’t seem to have a lot of diversity within their product because their market share and branding is based in large part on price and a well-established product.  Small brewers may have one or two strong products brewed on a profitable, but not large scale and then a variety of styles that are added to the mix on a seasonal or other periodical basis. 

Within that middle ground you get brewers who have the volume and the consistency of product, but who also invite some experimentation Hence, the label of the mid-major, which is where we find Saranac.  Saranac has moved from the ranks of the micro and craft brewers to brewing on a larger scale while maintaining quality and diversity over a number of years. 

Saranac Big Moose Ale is a smooth very drinkable ale that tends towards the lighter side in terms of its body and taste.  It poured with a nice head, about 3/8” to ½” of fragrant foam with a dark amber color and low turbidity.  It starts out a little bit hoppy and then holds that flavor.  This is the kind of beer that you can drink throughout a holiday party as it matches with a number of different foods. It nicely complimented standard Christmas fair (ham, meatballs, ribs), but wasn’t really up for the stronger tasting fish dishes (pickled herring, gravad lax, and Jansson’s Temptation). The taste stays consistent through the entire glass.  I was a bit disappointed in the lightness of the body, expecting something more robust based on the color and aroma. It definitely worth a return visit, expectations appropriately set and thirsty in tow.

From the Brewer:

“Saranac Big Moose Ale is an American Pale Ale with a kick.  The medium-bodied malt sweetness is balanced by a nice crisp bitterness from hand selected centennial and cascade hops.  Look for a vibrant citrusy hop aroma that will leave you craving another swig!”

Skål.

To the Lab! - 53 Degrees or Bust!

Iced mugs may be awesome, but only for 
American macro lager
http://thedailyeater.com/2011/ 1

OK, just to be upfront, this will not be a piece on the relationship to beer to the setting of the US-Canadian border, though I am sure a fair amount of beer was consumed prior to, during and after the negotiations.

One term that we regular relate to beer is its temperature – it has got to be cold. An ice-cold beer on a hot day is definitely refreshing. I remember floating down the American River in college with a keg of Budweiser lashed between our three rafts and remaining just the perfect temperature all afternoon, despite the warm August weather. Several macro breweries, notably of late Coors, have made a lot over the temperature indicators on their packaging so you know when it is cold enough to drink. Colder, they would have you believe, is always better.

Now this can be taken to an extreme. I remember being at my mother-in-law’s house in Sweden and we left a few beers outside overnight. A frozen beer is not a pretty sight, especially after it has cracked the bottle and popped its own top. We shouldn’t abuse the alcohol. At the same time, I don’t serve beer with ice – that would water it down as the ice melted. So we don’t want to freeze our beer[1].

If beer has been brewed for 8,000 years and we have only had reliable artificial refrigeration since 1756, then an ice-cold beer served in the 30s (single digits for you devotees of Anders Celsius) is a relatively new phenomenon.[2] Cold is key for three reasons, though there are probably more.

The first is that it helps to keep the beer preserved over longer periods of time.

This enables both longer local storage and the ability to transport it over longer distances. The second is to enhance flavor and drinkability in warm weather. In warmer areas, the lack of refrigeration required other techniques, such as actual chemical preservatives, such as formaldehyde, being added to the brew. This skews the taste.  Third, is that lager style beers, the most popular in the world, are better cold.

But for the most part, anything above freezing should be good, right? In a discussion in the pubs one evening, I heard it told that one particular establishment was unsuitable because it served its beer, notably Guinness, too cold. It was the first time I had heard such a thing – how could a beer be served too cold?

Canoe beers[3] were served cold to mask their lack of flavor and body, but headier and older brews needed to be served quite a bit warmer? A little more conversation revealed that the preferred temperature was 53 degrees Fahrenheit or about 12 Celsius. So what is so special about 53 degrees, I asked, and no one really knew.

The answer can be found in doing a little digging – literally and figuratively.

Once upon a time after beer was brewed and put into barrels, it, like many other ancient beverages, was stored underground. At a depth of about 10 feet (about 3.3 m) beneath the surface, the temperature of the Earth is a roughly constant – you guessed it – 53 degrees Fahrenheit. This enabled beer to be served “cold” through the summer and prevented it from freezing during the winter. Beers with an older heritage had evolved over time to be served at the warmer temperature. The colder temperatures tend to mask the more complex tastes in heartier brew types. As a beer warms up, particularly in these styles the complexities start to reveal themselves. This is a good thing.

So the next time you wander into a new pub and you want to take the measure of the place, order up a Guinness and check to see if it’s the right temperature. It should be 53 degrees or it’s a bust.

---

[1] There is an exception to this, Eisbock, which undergoes freeze distilling to ramp up the alcohol content in the beer. Please, please do not confuse this with the iced beer fad from the mid 90s.

[2] Though roots of this stem from the establishment of the Reinheitsgebot in 1516, but that is a discussion for another time

[3] Canoe beers refer to brews that are similar to making love in a canoe – very close

to water.

Our top 5 best beers of 2011

It is New Years Eve, the last day of 2011. This year has been a lot of things to many people, but for beer drinkers it has been a pretty decent year.  All this week we have been reading the best/ worst articles floating around the news and the internet.  We decided to compile one of our own from the best of category. As stated before in this blog, beer is subjective. Like food, it has memories that go with it and make it special, time and place become important. The beer experience is enhanced by the surroundings, the people, and your state of mind. With that in mind we each tackled the answer slightly differently.  

Brian Smith

Westvleteren beers are considered
some of the best in the world...
we didn't have any of those this year.

The first beer on a long vacation (This time it was an Old Dominion Aviator Amber)

Dark Helmet Schwartzbier at Titletown Brewery in Green Bay, Wisconsin

New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale, now readily available in northern Virginia.

Samuel Adams Winter Lager

Yuengling Traditional Lager, the house beer of the Smiths.

Jessica a.k.a Loverfishy

Red Eye Almost 100% Organic Pumpkin Ale. Pumpkin pie spice and aged over graham crackers (like their holiday ale was too) Pumpkin pie in a glass…I don’t even like pumpkin pie, and I couldn’t get enough

Rogue Juniper Pale Ale – Tastes like a pine tree in a glass according to my dad. To me, an IPA addict, that’s a pretty awesome thing. I discovered it at the Chocolate Moose in Ely, Minnesota of all places.

Lagunitas Maximus IPA – My absolute favorite IPA. Not very common in the upper Midwest, I get a bit excited when I luck out and find it on tap somewhere. Super hoppy, but still balanced, and not as much of a pucker-up aftertaste as the other superhopped IPAs.

Breckenridge Vanilla Porter – Yeah, quite a few places make a vanilla porter, but this was deep, rich, and smooth. One of the best I’ve tried.

I have to give number five a non-beer honorable mention to Stranahan’s Colorado whisky. Went on a distillery tour…cool place, and it’s owned by the guy who founded Flying Dog Brewery. The whisky is superb…buttery and smooth.

Skye Marthaler

New Glarus Stone Soup – This is my favorite beer and anytime I can get back to Wisconsin and find it makes me a happy man. I made it back this last May and brought a case back east with me. I don't know if New Glarus will be producing this in 2012 and if not that really sucks. 

Shmaltz He'brew Jewbelation 15 – A revelation and by far the best holiday beer I had. I recently got a second bottle to age out and I am looking forward to Jewbelation 16. I shared this with my father-in-law over Christmas.

Bruery Coton – Shared this with my best friend Rob back in May. We didn’t know what we had, it was my first Bruery experience, but we enjoyed the hell out that bottle. Maybe I should have aged that bottle but if you can’t share a ridiculously good beer with your best friend then fuck off. Seriously.

Dogfish Head Theobroma – Shared this with my brother Cody and his friend Matt while playing Settlers of Catan in September the night before we went to the Packers - Panthers game in Charolotte. It was delicious and both Cody and I are searching for another bottle of it.

Shiner Ruby Redbird – I drank gallons of this over the summer. I don’t know why it grabbed me like it did, but once it got a hold on me it became my go to summer beer. I still have one bottle left in the fridge that I will break out early next year on a cold winter’s day to remind me that summer does come back.

Honorable Mentions: New Glarus Spotted Cow in the stands at Lambeau Field and the Red Eye Rye Porter at the tailgate earlier that day.  


So there you go, our favorites or "best" beers of 2011. What were yours? Tell us down in the comments!

Beer Links for Boxing Day!

Folks, it's Boxing Day, so don't get too crazy out there in the weird, weird world of consumerism. Instead, kick back, crack open a tasty one and enjoy the last vestiges of 2011. 

Another great Google image search! Original here.

In the News!

Deputies: Man returned to beer after bank robbery (ABC 7 News-Chicago)
Maybe he needed cash to pay for his pint. I love these types of stories, they make great logic puzzles

New law makes for ‘great day’ for Ohio’s craft-beer breweries, owners says (Youngstown Vindicator)
I do like tasting rooms!
Beer goes highbrow with beer sommeliers (Hindustan Times)
I must admit that this makes me a little bit uneasy. Beer should always be approachable.

Christmas Eve family feud over beer ends with man’s neck severely cut (Sun-Sentinel)
Where do I even start with this one...it’s messed up, but the snark at the end is the ringer.

Local identity infused in Schlafly beer, mission (stltoday.com)
Schlafly makes good beer and it is wonderful to see their success in the shadow of a monolith. I hope the succession plan works and the quality doesn’t diminish.

Beer facts (mid-day.com)
We need all the facts we can get around here.

How about beer? This tells when and how it will flow (Pittsburgh Press)
Let’s step into the way back machine. Fascinating article from the end of the bad old days.

Beer Festival excites Uyo residents (The Nation (Nigeria))
I find the beer culture in Africa fascinating, a lot of it driven by vestiges of colonialism.

Top 10 Buzz Brewers of 2011 (Washington Times)
I would have thought Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery would have been on that list. Otherwise it’s pretty solid...bit of homerism at the end.

CSA study says beer brewers adding jobs faster than other industries in Larimer County, Loveland (Reporter Herald)
Beer will see us through these economic doldrums

Beer Baron: Believe the buzz over big stouts (Wisconsin State Journal)
The great white whales of the beer world. They do exist!

Perfect article end our December news links on. We will be talking about stouts and winter warmers in January and February. (Big beers deserve 2 whole months!)

Site News!

We will closing down the year with a final review of a festive beer yet to be selected and maybe some commentary on the side. We will have a beer roundtable of the best five beers each of us fellows have had this year and I swear Brian will have an edition of “To the Lab.” We hope your holiday season so far has been joyous and festive.

As always you can find us on twitter: @beerfellows
See what we are drinking on Untappd: BeerFellows

In which our intrepid adventurers enjoy more beer, watch their teams battle it out, and return home

Game Day

It was all delicious...except the propane. 

Sunday morning dawned cold and clear. After grabbing a quick breakfast down at Luna Cafe in De Pere, (a cozy eatery that made an excellent latte and had delicious scones) we stopped at the supermarket on the way back to the hotel to stock up on food and drink, well aware that everyone else was bringing drink and vittles. The basic items filled the cart fast, hot dogs, bratwursts, buns, chips etc. All was proceeding quickly until I walked into the “Beer Cave” There I spent the next 15 minutes trying to figure out what beer to take with me. (A quick side note on how I buy beer. If in a new area, or someplace I haven’t been in awhile I go out of my way to buy new styles or try new breweries.)

Your fearless author almost
throws out his back
(Photo by Summer Marthaler)

I ended up making two of my own six packs to go along with the remnants of the Capital Brewery Winter Skal and Amber left over from the previous evening.  Six new beers to try (I noahed my beer, grabbing two of each, Lithia Regner Red Ale, New Glarus ChocolateAbbey, Black Top Black IPA, Back 40 Bock, O’so Night Train Porter, and Milwaukee Brewing LouisDemise Ale)

By the time we had arrived back at the hotel and checked out, Justin had arrived. We tossed in his gear in the trunk, piled into the rental and headed over to Lambeau Field. Tailgating at Lambeau is a must for any NFL fan. For thirty bucks we had parking in a backyard mere yards from the stadium, and to top it off parking for most of the rest of the crew showing up. The last time I parked this close to the entrance was in November at the Chargers-Packers game. There I had to have a special parking permit and I was glad I was driving a brand new Cadillac. Here it was open to the masses. 

A motley crew with our token Raider fan

Shortly after we arrived the rest of the tailgating team turned up. First to arrive was Summer and Jake, having driven in from Goodrich, followed minutes later by Davey and Bones. Matt and Ann would arrive later in the afternoon. 

Jake, Summer, friends & Bones

The grill was fired up, the brats were soon on, and the beer started to flow. The first to go was the Rye Porter and IPA that Justin had brought with him from Red Eye Brewing in Wausau. The Rye Porter was fantastically delicious. Soon we were into the bottles of New Glarus and Capital Brewery. Jake and Summer worked on the Miller Lite they had brought, content to drink a beer that was comfortable for them. Between the food and beer, the bean bag boards were set up for some “fierce” competition and general trash talking.

I walked into Lambeau with a mild buzz, a full stomach and over the next few hours watched the Green and Gold dismantle the Silver and Black much to Brian’s chagrin. I kept my whistle wet with first a Miller Genuine Draft provided by Justin, and then discovered that New Glarus SpottedCow was being served at the stadium. A couple of those lasted until the last second ticked of the clock. 

As Brian would say, a pilgrim heading into an unholy land.
(Photo by Brian Smith)

We all gathered after the game, but the energy had drained out, washed away by the excitement and the cold. Brian and I drank the Lithias while waiting for the traffic to clear out, divvied up the remaining beer with Davey, and said our goodbyes as friends and family departed. It was evening when we left Green Bay heading southbound chasing red lights down Interstate 43 back to Milwaukee.

Late that night in the Best Western by Mitchell Field Airport Brian and I ate some wings and fried cheese curds. I washed mine down with a Coke, the alcohol of the last two days finally catching up, my taste buds demanding something different. Brian was resolute and polished off one more beer, this time a Point Amber.

The Seats (Photo by Brian Smith)

The early morning flight on Monday was packed with tourists and business men but still uneventful. The travel had wiped me out, but Brian had to rally and head into work for the afternoon. We brought back four bottles along with some cheese curds from “downtown” Gad, Louie’s Demise Ale by Milwaukee Brewing Company, O’so Night Train, and New Glarus Chocolate Abbey and Back 40 Bock. Two went with Brian, the Night Train and Bock, while I bagged the others. I drank one on the evening I returned. The Chocolate Abbey will be put in the reserve stocks to age for a year.

Brian showed more fight than his team. 

This was an experience where beer played a central role and to me it encapsulates what Jolly Good Fellows is all about. Enjoying beer, both new styles and brands, and those that are tried and true, rekindling friendships and creating new experiences and starting your own traditions. For me being a proud son of Wisconsin, drinking Spotted Cow and watching a Packers game from the stands of Lambeau Field with my friends goes down as one of my all time great beer memories. It was a little slice of heaven.

Thanks for stopping by. 

In which our intrepid adventurers journey to a land of beer and cheese

Brace yourselves folks. This one is going to be long and in two parts.

This is a story about the NFL and beer, two of my favorite things in life. But even before that it is a story about two friends going on an adventure 

Prologue

It started innocently enough several months ago when the current NFL schedule was released. My friend Brian, (and contributor to this site), noted the Oakland Raiders would be playing the Green Bay Packers this season. This is not an event that occurs frequently, every four years to be precise. This time the game would be hosted by Green Bay. Brian, a true black and silver Raiders fan from Oakland, and I initially decided we would have to find a bar or pub to watch the game. As we discussed this problem of logistics the genesis of an idea occurred and it hinged on one important fact. We are "respectable adults" with income.  Why go to the bar when we could actually go to the game instead. It was agreed upon as a worthy cause and we turned our hands to planning this jaunt to the Midwest. 

Saturday

Our final destination

December took forever and then just showed up. An uneventful flight brought us to Milwaukee. A quick conversation with the friendly woman at the car rental got us the wheels for our northward leg up the western coast of Lake Michigan. A stop north of Milwaukee netted us butter burgers at Culvers. We arrived at our destination as the sun was setting, the sky growing a deepening shade of pink.

Green Bay is a pleasant Midwestern town on the shores of Lake Michigan, cut through by the Fox River. Lambeau Field dominates the landscape, the decorations and paraphernalia hammers home the fact that the Green Bay Packers are not only the only show in town but beloved for it. For a lifelong Packer fan though, the trip to Lambeau Field is the hajj to Mecca. Curly and Vince are the saints of Packer fandom standing before the entrance of the one's namesake and where the other fashioned a team and lead them to halcyon days. All fans have their totems, but for Packer fans 1265 Lombardi Avenue is their crown jewel.  

Lambeau Field is a cathedral to Packers football and many Packers fans take pride that they have a stake in the team. The cynic in me lauds the fact that the Green and Gold propaganda machine is in full force to reinforce the believers and proselytize to the unwashed. Even Brian, the diehard Raiders fan, found  it impressive. We meet up with Justin (commenter JZee1) and his family and for ten dollars each we toured through the Packers Hall of Fame, a celebration of past and current glories and Packer greats. A view of the four Lombardi trophies in the sanctum of the Hall of Fame concluded our visit for this day. 

It was dark outside when we walked in.

Instead of retiring to Curly’s Pub, the bar /restaurant located at the stadium, the group headed across town down by the river to Titletown Brewing Company. A former railway depot right located by the still functioning railroad it has been repurposed as a brewery and restaurant. For the last month leading up to this weekend I had been looking forward to visiting this establishment. In particular one beer had captivated my imagination, the RooSession Ale, due to my fondness of English style bitters and I couldn't wait to try it.

When we arrived at the brewery the place was packed with Packer fans and locals, with a waiting time of two hours for eating. Fortunately the bar was open and we quickly sidled up to it and ordered our first round, me asking for the coveted RooSession ale, Brian an Expect the Wurst Amber, and Justin a Hopasaurus Rex IPA. Our barman, sporting a green Clay Matthews jersey, quickly filled several perfect pints with our selections. The RooSession Ale was off a nitro pour, it was creamy, drinkable, with a slightly bitter tea aftertaste. I wasn't disappointed, but it would turn out to not be one of the evenings beer highlights. 

We quickly fell into conversation about the pros and cons of our respective selections, the joy and insanity of hops, and our favorite beers. Eventually a table cleared and we were seated. I ordered an elk burger which would come to haunt me over the course of the next twelve hours, but it was excellent while eating it. The piece de resistance though was the giant baked pretzel. This thing was enormous but still incredibly tasty with a crispy outer crust and chewy inside. Perfect for soaking up the pints we had already put down. 

We didn't quite make it through the draught board, but it wasn't for a lack of trying. Among the three us beer drinkers we did sample most of the draught board. Standouts for the evening included the Hopasaurus Rex, Dark Helmet Schwartzbier and St. Norbert’s Abbey Ale. We departed the brewery with full stomachs and a thirst mostly quenched but Brian and I made one final stop at a small market to pick up to sixers of Capital Brewery’s Winter Skal and Wisconsin Amber to tide us through for the rest of the evening. Game day was tomorrow. 

Welcome to Your Weekend! (Lambeau Field Edition!)

St. Norbert's Abbey Ale at Titletown Brewery in Green Bay

Curly Lambeau points me towards the bar. 

As a Packer fan this was awesome!

Vince sticks around to make sure we don't screw it up.