Pink Boots at New Glarus

"Let your dream lead you." ~Henry David Thoreau

July 18: Drove to New Glarus from Middleton. Kirby Nelson was kind enough to lead me about half the way there so I could take the local's secret shortcut. Parked next to New Glarus's horse field where their two Fresian horses were undergoing training to pull a beer cart. (Photo of horses below.)

Assistant Master Brewer Jean Hengstl met me and I shadowed her for most of the day. Jean worked at the old Val Blatz (now Leinenkugels) brewery in Milwaukee about 20 years ago. Then jobs in the brewing industry dried up and Jean used her brewery experience in various food processing jobs. About 15 years ago she overheard some people talking about a new brewery they planned to start in New Glarus, and 5 years ago she went to work for them.

Jean manages all aspects of production, and she had me work with various people throughout the day. I spent an hour or so with Stephen Itzenhuiser in the Brauhaus (brew house). Stephen used to work at The Grumpy Troll brewpub in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, where he was also a substitute teacher. Stephen needed one of those two careers to become full-time and lucky for us, brewing won out. I had a lot of fun discussing how we did things at Steelhead versus how things work at The Grumpy Troll and at New Glarus.

Owner-Brewmaster Dan Carey and his wife, Deb Carey, Owner-Mastermind, took Jean and I out to lunch at Puempel's Olde Tavern in downtown New Glarus. New Glarus is a Swiss-themed town that is cute without being cloying. I didn't see too many tourists, but I hear they are about. (Photo above, L to R: Stephen, Jean, Teri, Dan and Deb.)

Dan wanted to know what topics or themes were coming up for discussion during my tour. Only a few came to mind:
(1) The price of stainless is killing everybody.
(2) The loss/theft of stainless kegs is killing everyone.
(3) There is a lot of capacity being built: I'm seeing new breweries built by experienced 35 year old brewers, and small distributing craft breweries upgrading to 30, 50 or 100-barrel batch size.
(4) Some distributing breweries wanted to know if it was true that brewpub brewers cut corners on quality control because the beer is consumed so much quicker in a brewpub.
(5) Some southwest and midwest brewers wanted to know why west coast brewers are too lazy to filter, and how they managed to convince the public that unfiltered beer is somehow better for you, as if it was whole wheat bread.
I won't report on those conversations here. I'm just reporting that these topics have come up for discussion during my trip.

After lunch Dan and Jean took me on a tour of the new brewery they are building. The buildings' exteriors will show off the New Garus area's farming history and Swiss roots. Inside will be a state of the art 100-barrel brewery. Dan said he's keeping the batch size small at 100 barrels so that New Glarus can continue to produce its huge line-up of beers.

Dan is doing two very cool things in this new brewery: One is that he will be using authentic German open-topped hefeweizen fermenters with yeast-collection overflow tanks. The second cool thing is that Dan shopped around for some beautiful old copper brewhouse vessels, then had his stainless tank manufacturer make custom high-tech stainless tanks to fit exactly inside the antique shells.

Dan is all about tradition but he's not afraid to stretch outside the style box. New Glarus's beer line-up covers one of the broadest spectrums I've seen. (Photo above.) I really enjoyed tasting his "Unplugged" series beers that were aged in Bourbon barrels.

After a full day, Dan gifted me with two mixed cases of New Glarus beer and a bottle each of his two sour fruit beers. Then I drove off to Sleepy Hollow, Illinois (near Elgin) to visit my college roommate from my University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire days.

Drive: Sioux Falls to Herkimer to Chippewa Falls

"Your world is as big as you make it." ~Georgia Douglas Johnson

June 30: Left Sioux Falls and headed east again. Stopped at a rest stop so Jon could make coffee for himself. We'd found some coffee and filters, but no filter cone, so Jon made one out of an aluminum foil mini-bread pan (photos L and R).

We drove straight and far across Minnesota, and I snapped a picture out the window of this old farmer on his antique tractor (photo below).

The plan was to stop in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, and visit both Herkimer Brewing Co. and Summit Brewing Co. Unfortunately we were running short on time, and since it was a Saturday and thus hard to contact brewers, we picked Herkimer Brewing Co. in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Brewer Dave Hartmann gave us directions around the massive construction project in front of the brewpub, and around the corner to a street with enough parking for our rig. This was a high-density urban area so we really appreciated Dave's advance scouting.

Enjoyed Dave's company and his beers, the hot afternoon sunshine, and a tour of the brewery. Herkimer's monoblock system is sunk into the floor, which is why Dave looks like a giant towering over his 8.5-bbl kettle (photo right). They've got a huge basement, which is where Dave sets up the spent grain buckets while the German-style lauter tun rakes the spent grain down the chute. (Sort of over-engineered for a 8.5 barrel brewery.)

Then back on the road to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin where we would be spending the night with MBAA Technical Director Ray Klimovitz and his wife Jan. (Photo at top of page.) Ray and Jan live in a quiet neighborhood that I swear is landscaped by elves. Each house and lawn is perfectly kept up and manicured, all the sprinklers turning on magically at dawn.

Ray invited us down to his basement bar, which doubles as a blackjack table. We admired the beer-bottle-cap wallpaper and the beer-bottle wallpaper trim. Ray's full-sized basement fridge was fully stocked with all sorts of exotic and craft beer, as Ray not only runs the MBAA Packaging Technology Course each spring, he also consults with breweries all over the country. Jon and I picked some Wisconsin beers to sip and Jan joined us at the bar with their dog named Guinness.

Jan and Ray have exquisite decorating taste, and as former Baltimoreans, they have transplanted their fondness for Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia into their decorating scheme. In fact, Jon and I stayed in the "Williamsburg Room," and they have a miniature diorama of Williamsburg in their basement. I had the audacity to ask where the Lionel train and tracks were, because it looked like a train diorama, but of course Colonial Williamsburg represents a point in time well before locomotives.

We enjoyed a lovely dinner on the Klimovitz's outdoor patio. The evening air was cool and refreshing, a few distant pop-pop-pops of early fireworks floated in on the breeze. The dinner of steak, scalloped potatoes and asperagus was as delightful as Ray and Jan's company. After dinner we relaxed over two bottles of New Glarus Brewing's excellent sour fruit beers, one bottle each of Wisconsin Belgian Red (tart pie cherries), and New Glarus Raspberry Tart.

Ray and I had fun catching up on MBAA people and events, and Jon and I had fun getting to know Jan better. It really was a darn nice evening.