The brews from Green Bay

We really haven't explored too much of our newly adopted state, pretty much drove to Madison, then drove to and from Chicago. We've seen the interstate and maybe like 2 suburbs of the capital. Given that its autumn here and we've heard that there's some color up here, we took off to camp in the touristy Door County area to see some pretty leaves. Of course, I had to find a brewpub somewhere along the way to try so hello to Titletown in Green Bay and Packer country. Other than being a brewpub, Titletown is right on the tracks in downtown GB, and the big pub also has a big menu that I imagine anyone can find something to eat from the pub burgers to pizza to walleye and other comfort entrees.

Drew ordered the Bamburg brew, a rauschbier style with almost no head. The taste I had was pretty nice; smoky flavor but not overpowering, drinkable, medium to heavy mouthfeel, caramel aftertastes with very little hops. The color was nice and dark, I will mention that it felt almost sweet. Undecided so far, I had a taste of the Mulligan brew and the Pullman porter. Mulligan brew was a dark red pour with a little light head, light-medium mouthfeel, an amber ale with a whole bunch of stuff thrown in. Tasted slightly sweet malt, then citrus/pine, then the hops hit me and I thought they were a bit out of place. The porter was a pretty boring example- no real depth and the bitterness didn't really balance with the malt. So I went with the Bamburg based on taste and my food.

Onto the food; as we tend to split lots of stuff, this time we split a bison melt and an elk burger.Onto the food; as we tend to split lots of stuff, this time we split a bison melt and an elk burger. The elk was crazy greasy, had chipotle mayo adding to the messy, canned jalapenos, and onions, cheese etc. I liked the first couple of bites, but it was way too greasy and I would have been ill if I had eaten the whole thing. Slightly spicy (by Wisconsin standards), the sweet potato fries were a decent balance to the spice and grease. The bison open faced melt was less greasy- nice and chewy with melted cheese, onions, and mushrooms. We'd get that again, but the elk almost immediately came back to haunt us as we sat at the beer drinking more beer to burp it up.

Drew also ordered the beer and cheese soup, made with the honey ale, this soup was very thick and pretty tasty. Full of beer cheese goodness. Drew also later ordered the 400 honey ale and I tasted it too: pretty sweet and tick, not as thick as mead or as sweet as cider but pretty girly, also very very drinkable. I'd hit that for a bbq or anything vaguely sweet and meaty.

Great Taste Part 2 of 3

Imagine all that beer in only a few hours! Decisions, decisions. Plus, I knew I only had a small window of time before I would have had so much to drink the whole notebook thing would go out the window. So would my taste, that is the time when I can drink crap like PBR.

Onward!

As Florida (from whence we came) is full to the brim of scary tourist traps- the Mouse being the big one- we are used to the things coming out of tourist towns to suck. And be really expensive.

Moosejaw, out of the Dells, seemed to be better than the average beer. Maybe because even in Wisconsin we are not going to fuck around with beer? The apricot (style unsure) was spicy, cleansing, hoppy, and fruity up front. This was no Dogfish Head Aprihop, but it was a nice breath of fresh air on the warm day. The trippel I also tasted, damn I am a sucker for Belgies, was the usual yeasty, quaffable, big-avb. It was kinda "meh"- no real depth, a xerox copy. If we do get the urge to visit the Dells for some indoor water park, mini-golf, or Indian casino action- we'll stop by.

Not only am I a sucker for Belgies, but I'm also a sucker for odd ingredient beer. Seaweed, pine, heather, juniper, peppers....anywhoo Kuhnhenn was not originally on my list but one of the guys we were talking to in line told us to stop by. Holy crap I want to drive way the fuck out to Detriot and have more of their beer. They seemed to do alot of the "ancient" recipes with bizarro ingredients. The heather ale had the mulling spices, honey, almost wine taste to it. Coating mouthfeel, just on the good side of cloying. I like these guys at times, but it may be too sweet for others. Drew tried an interesting brew that he rushed over to have me taste too. I think it was called the 'Sahti' and it smelled strongly of juniper, clove, pine/spruce, and cardamom. All the crazy flavors seemed to work together, it was such an interesting taste (no hops so I'm pretty sure it was an ale) that I'm not sure I could pair it with food- nor do I think I could drink more than one. I get the feeling that they try odd beer flavors often, we missed their legendary creme brulee sadly.

For beer geeks out there, apparently Twin Cities brewer Surly has some sort of cult following or at least some beer geek cachet. Yep, we got Surly. At the booth itself we tried the Bender; a drinkable brown that had some malt, oatmeal, fruit and spice. Just my kind of drink for most of the year with its crisp mouthfeel. Also tried the Coffee Bender: are coffee beers done yet? This one was a typical example, decent but I think I'm over the coffee beer thing in general so if YOU like coffee beers- this is nice.

Next entry: The real ale tent and all its goodness. And a couple more beers with slightly slurred notes and a slightly slurred memory. I will also share in some non-beer related catty observations.

Back with a Great Taste: part 1 of 3

Sorry loyal reader(s), we've been lazy. Frankly moving to Wisconsin (aka: land of beer and cheese) has been so overwhelming to our collective palettes that there is almost too much to write home about.

Let's talk the biggest deal we've lucked into so far here: The Great Taste of the Midwest. Only 5000 tickets which you can either hope you are lucky enough to get through a mail lottery, or you can tailgate starting at 3am outside of Star Liquor (which we actually did walk by one spring AM wondering why people were in line for the booze shop). We got ours because one of Drew's science people had some spares since some people moved. Score!

We took the drunk bus down to stand in a huge-ass line. You can tell the Midwesterners as they already had brats grilling and were outfitted with comfy chairs. I swear these people treat tailgating like boy scouts- always prepared. Once 1Pm hit, the line moved pretty fast and I was able to have a taste in hand by 10 after.

A night or two before, we had been able to scope the online list and make a list of who we wanted to taste, so thus armed with a list and my trusty booze notebook- off we went. Below are my notes for the fateful June day, as the day wore on I made less intelligible notes so I'll have to rely on a sketchy memory along with my scribbles.

First scheduled stop: Founder's for the bourbon barrel-aged porter pouring. I am a fan of their Dirty Bastard scotch ale, so I wanted to hit them up for more stuff. By the way, bourbon barrel would be the theme this year, if I had a dollar for all the ones I had tried; I'd be both drunk and rich. The Founder's was a strong porter, almost imperial in its alcohol flavor, smoky, slight bourbon aftertaste only, and not at all sweet. It was a strong B.

Next on to some Viking. The innovative Mjod mead style ale was a stomach warming, semi-dry, honey and clover flavored bit o nice. Spicy finish making it a nice winter warmer. The Hot Chocolate had a bit of a spice in the back of the throat kick that was a bit much for the nice warm day; not impressed but it was brewed with fair trade coffee so thats cool. Lime wheat- seriously? Corona? How is that Viking? Drink up fratboys, I'll stick to the Viking seasonals inspired by cold weather, not spring break.

On to a palette cleanser: a herby/citrus organic wit by Lafayette. Cool drink of beer.

Dragonmead: frankly the booth looked cool as hell, so I went for the trippel. It smacked my ass with abv and there was a distinct sour taste (not a Flemish sour kinda taste) over the usual citrus/banana/clove flavors. Eh, I'm spoiled for trippels- this was no St Bernardus.

Having had the farmhouse French style from Two Brothers before and enjoying it, we tried a very clean and crisp Dog Days lager, and the Cain and Ebel IPA which were both decent examples of said styles- but frankly I never get worked up over an IPA. Solid selections.

The insane line at the 3 Floyds booth made me think they were pouring something really special. Alas it was scheduled for later or all the good stuff was in the Real Ale tent (oh I'll get to that tent don't worry). Had the Gumballhead wheat, basically it was a typical summer wheat. The Alpha King was a bit more interesting, hoppy and grassy but with actual malt flavor, an IPA I could drink more than once. Why the hell was there such a long line, we didn't get it.

Part 2: the best shit. evah.

Do *not* piss off the surrealist artist

Having a tiny craving for Mexican food, we headed on downtown to a trendy, cleaned-up kinda place that advertised creative Mexican cuisine. Frida should have been cool. It should have had decent food. A place named after a famous surrealist should at least be inventive. Right? Am I taking crazy pills?

The first clue was the fact that my margarita was poured out of a slushy machine. They didn't even make it? Tequila, orange flavored booze, lime, salt- DONE. Its not like I ordered the poma-tini with a twist of green tea flavored granita. Holy crap, a slushy machine?? Maybe it would be good, maybe they have a secret surrealist painter recipe. Nope. It was too sweet and too watered down. Perfect for half off specials and 'girls night' drunk fests, maybe the top shelf ones are actually made by real people.

The guacamole was just fine, and the usual chips and salsa were fine too. But the entrees....Drew had the seafood enchiladas with a creamy red pepper sauce and cheese. I had the mixed plate- pulled pork taco, cheese quesadilla, chicken enchilada with ranchera sauce.

Another bad sign: Upon seeing Drew's food, I asked if he ordered cheese whiz.

We actually split everything hoping that we wouldn't miss anything good. My pulled pork taco was dry on one side, and fell apart with moisture on the other. How can you mess up a cheese quesadilla? It was fine. The chicken enchilada was not too dry or too wet, it was just fine and exactly like any other one I've had. Drew's seafood enchiladas were odd in that we cannot identify a single bit of seafood in the dish. We are pretty sure it was there, but who knows what it was. The 'cheese whiz' looking sauce quickly dried and thickened into a gelatinous mess of off putting cheese/whatever. It tasted like cheese and fat, basically.

Overall, no thanks. If I wanted the same old tacos and fajitas with my large crappy margarita I can go to any number of places that are cheaper, there is no wait, and they have sombreros hanging on the walls. There is plenty of room for that, I'm more mad at Frida because I was hoping for creative, at least one or two things that were unique and/or high quality. I couldn't even discern a regional theme. Frida did have some revenge on us later that evening however, perhaps her spirit visits fire upon those who eat in the crappy restaurant that bears her name.

Hitchin' a Ride on a Crazy Train

Generally, when I think dinner theater I think of that scene in the movie Soapdish where a sad former soap star is reduced to playing Willie Loman to the gray and gumless all to the sound of silverware clinking. I thought that a murder mystery train ride in Southwest Florida might make for a calm night with some ok food and a nice murder. A hokey play title complete with hokey but cutesy characters, check. Five course meal, check. Me being the youngest person, check. near barroom brawl complete with bravado, check?

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, but neither does one expect a train ride to nowhere to host a group of about 12 40-somethings who were drunk when they came on board, then proceeded to chug down more crappy beer and wine, break into bad song (thanks ladies), then get belligerent when an older lady shushes them. It was largely the fault of one of the 'gentlemen' who seemed unable to moderate his voice or machismo. The shusher's son tried to break it up when Tourist McAmateur started in on the whole "We are just having fun, you must be a tight ass and hate yourself", then the drunk male posturing began. The poor staff hadn't seen anything like this, they kept popping their wide-eyed heads in but were in no state to stop it. Finally some wives, girlfriends, etc, stopped it. Then the naysayers moved cars and the rest of us had to deal with the continued bullshit, that was now tinged with the flavor of bruised ego. I kept hearing mutters of "he wasn't so big", and "we've got your back". Holy crap crazy people, if you need to spend your vacation shitfaced during dinner theater on a train; maybe you need to reconsider what you do on vacation. Or maybe I'm a tight ass and hate myself.

So the food: cheese spread and crackers with fruit. Followed by a creamy potato leek soup that was quite fatty but the size was small enough that it was just right. It was gentle and lovely. The next course was a salad; the general cucumber, grape tomato, greens type. The greens were not iceberg which was an unexpected plus, they were a spring greens mix. The drawback was that the tasty sesame oil oriental dressing was applied too liberally to the salad rendering me unable to finish the stronger tasting greens. The menu had a typical selection of a choice between beef, chicken, and fish. I chose the salmon with a light champagne dill sauce. The salmon was fine, the sauce not too overbearing. The rice dish and peas/carrots mixture tasted of the freezer or the box. A small chocolate mousse in an edible chocolate bowl topped off the meal.

Overall, the meal was better than expected for a dinner theater train. While the menu was not inspired or interesting; it was well done and I would recommend it. They also did have a kitchen on the train, likely helping the meals quality. As the staff told us that a situation like this had never arisen before, I think that maybe I was lucky in getting two shows for one on the crazy train.

Holey dough filled danger Batman!

Bagels. Schmagels. Growing up in the South I had grown accustomed to bagels being chewy, fairly flavorless pieces of dough whose sole purpose was to civilize the consumption of cream cheese. After all, spreading cream cheese on a bagel is certainly more dignified then burying one’s face in a tub of creamy evil and going to town. However, during a brief visit to NYC in the spring of 2000, I learned bagels did not have to be bland, with hard exteriors and gummy interiors but could be just as good as the cream cheese that comes on/in/with it. Unfortunately, these bagels were hard to find even in a major metropolitan area like Atlanta. All too often the bagels needed serious toasting to eliminate the gumminess and stale flavor. When we moved to Madison I heard some locals praising Gotham Bagels , but assumed I would still just be keeping my face out of the tub. I was pleasantly surprised to find this not to be the case.

From poppy seed to everything, their bagels have a firm, almost crunchy exterior, with a tasty, chewy, but not gummy interior. These bagels require no toasting and are so fresh and warm first thing in the morning that they’ll melt the cream cheese a little bit, which is so good it makes me want another. Speaking of cream cheese, the folks at Gotham typically have 5 or 6 cream cheeses available but stick to the plain or salmon cream cheese. The other spreads are not bad but don’t really add anything to the experience. While the plain cream cheese is fine for a normal breakfast the salmon cream cheese is a delicious smoky, salty, decadent treat for special mornings. In addition to great bagels they feature Fair Trade coffees which they actually know how to brew properly. Gotham also has a number of deli items and sandwiches which hopefully I’ll get around to trying, but for now I still can’t get over how good these bagels are. In a world of Einstein’s and Panera’s it is good to see a place like Gotham raising the bar…and besides its named Gotham. How cool is that!?! -Drew

First Impressions: Madison

Ah Madison, Wisconsin: land of cheese. And beer. And large gray snowdrifts leftover from the fabled 'worst freaking winter' evah. Its been one whole week since we've set up house (kinda) and wandered the town searching for food.

Weary Traveler: Our pick so far for best stumbling distance pub. Small but local craft beers on tap, the Lake Louie stuff is awesome (the scotch ale is dreamt about already); and the food is pretty above average. The goulash had some incredibly good quality beef chunks in its tasty goodness, the ahi tuna and reubens were also of equally good meat-quality. No cheap crap here. The menu is not terribly diverse or inventive, but the weekday ambiance and cool bar-sitting factors make this one a contender for us.

Great Dane Pub: Very tasty beers at this brewpub, the stouts and cask conditioned ales are big winners, but the porter was much too bitter. We shared the eviiiiil mac -n-cheese and a salad initially; very good move on our part as the mac n cheese is super fatty and rich. The second trip at the much better downtown location had use trying some faux-mexi dishes which later...errr...backfired on us. I personally was pretty much more interested in the beer, and I was not disappointed.

Angelic Pub: While they don't actually brew beer on site anymore, the Ale Asylum stuff was pretty nice. The Big Slick stout and Nutbrown Ale were both pretty nice, and the taps are fairly diverse with odd inclusions like Miller and Chicago's Goose Island along with the local stuff. The bar is huge and full of very very bad girly liquor; causing me to imagine that this place so close to campus is serious amateur hour on weekend nights. The beer-cheese-sausage soups was very rich and filling, and the local veggie burger with unique pub fries was the perfect thing to split for a filling but not overly fattening lunch.

Blue Plate Diner- In one of the older neighborhoods down the road, Drew picked out our very first breakfast experience in Madison. Cute diner with plenty of veggie selections (duh its Madison) and freaking MALTS!!!! The gluten-free nut milk french toast was rockin, fresh bananas to top off the most interesting tasting 'fronch toast' I've ever had. It tasted strongly of cinnamon and the nut milk gave it a tart flavor that cuts the usual cloying sweetness of french toasts. We also split a homemade corned beef hash with scrambled eggs and a decent biscuit. I've never had hash that wasn't formerly surrounded by steel, so this real beef freshness was a treat. The coffee was not bad either, a real plus considering that most breakfasty places in ATL had shite for coffee (burned grinds Pastries a go-go I'm talking to you!).

Himal Chuli- Small cash-only Nepalese place on what I consider the most tragically hip (or hippie?) street in Madison. Never having Nepalese food, we found out it is very similar to Indian food and we just had the daily veg tarkara with warm, thick roti bread. The cauliflower and eggplant tarkaras were full of coriander, garlic, and tumeric in this tasty Nepalese style curry. We also had the chiya (tea) to round out our nice veggie lunch.

So while Madison is totally awesome for veggie/vegan/whatever dietary restrictions you have: so far, I've been enamored of the super fresh, quality beef. Sure, I could have bought swank stuff in Atlanta anytime, but for the local pub to have better tasting beef than other comparably priced places is a cause for me to eat a little more meat heavy.

*photo courtesy of cooltownstudies.com