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.

Pink Boots at Capital and visit to Lake Louie

"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization." ~Arnold Toynbee

July 16: Drove to Middleton, Wisconsin from Wisconsin Dells and Brewmaster Kirby Nelson gave me a quick tour of his beers in Capital's tasting room. Kirby's been employed there since 1986, after having worked in QC (Quality Control) for G.Heilmann at several locations.

Then Kirby took me to his house where I met his wife Barb. We enjoyed a late dinner and several beers. I am writing this at midnight on June 20 and it's amazing how quickly you lose the details when you can't take notes because you're too busy enjoying the experience. (Plus, at this moment I am surrounded by friendly drunks jamming blues songs in my college roommate's kitchen in Sleepy Hollow, Illinois.)

June 17: The next morning Kirby gave me a tour of the brewery and showed me his fermenters, all named after Frank Zappa songs. Then he set me to work with Patrick Wilke. Pat was quiet for the first half hour, and I just followed him at a brisk pace as he ran around the brewhouse taking care of business.

Pat must have decided I was OK because he got over his shyness and entertained me with interesting beer history, gossip and trivia. Pat knows more minutia about the beer industry and its personalities past and present than anybody I've ever met. (Photo above, L to R: Patrick, Teri and Kirby.) I even got to broom out the lauter tun (photo above).

In the afternoon Kirby took me on a country ride in his fast vintage BMW to Lake Louie Brewing Company in Arena, Wisconsin. Head Brewer Tim Wauters gave me the tour while owner Tom Porter and Kirby caught up. Tim mentioned he'd just read my article about Hiring Brewers and he liked my "1 + 1" theory, of hiring people that are smarter than yourself.

Lake Louie is named after the pond that Tom Porter's uncle dug years ago, where Tom and his buddies used to go skinny-dipping when they were in high school. Lake Louie Brewing has been open for about 10 years and Tom's built it to 4,000 barrels per year. (Tom -let me know if I got this right or not and I'll change it.)
Tom has the lucky situation where more people want his beer than he can brew, so he and Tim just write down names on a waiting list and call the folks when their turn comes up. As Tom says, the "Keg Waiting List" is a great thing to bring to the bank when you are looking for a loan. Lake Louie Brewing just finished its last expansion, and is about to embark on its next expansion. (Photo on left, L to R: Tom and Tim.)

Lake Louie had a milk stout and a porter on tap. Tim grabbed me a sample of their cream ale. Tim is into history, and he explained that he tried to use the ingredients that would have been available in Wisconsin prior to Prohibition when he and Tom designed this cream ale.

Lake Louie has some history connected to Eugene, Oregon: Their 15-barrel brewery originally was in service at Field's Brewing Company. My owners at Steelhead bought the Fields building, inherited the brewery, and put me in charge of selling it. That was back in about 2002 when you could barely give away a 15-barrel brewery so I contracted Ager Tank & Equipment to sell it for us, and Jason Ager sold it to Tom at Lake Louie. What a small world.

Kirby, Tom and Tim are all music geeks and guitar freaks. I was so impressed. Their music conversations went right over my head, but I sure enjoyed that they let me hang out with them while Tom showed off his impressive electric and classic guitar collection and Kirby played with them. (Photo on right is of Tom's "guitar room", L to R: Tom, Tim and Kirby.)

After a video introduction to Dale Watson and his Lone Stars, Kirby and I rode back to Middleton for showers and more beer tasting at Capital. Then it was back to Kirby and Barb's house for dinner.

When you meet Kirby, you will learn what a true son of Wisconsin is. You will probably never meet a more hard-core Wisconsinite than Kirby Nelson. Although Kirby and Barb have a soft-spot in their hearts for Florida, as witnessed by their seashell-studded bathroom wall -- across from the etched framed sign that reads, "Dale Watson Bathed Here."

The true purpose of dinner was so that I, Teri Fahrendorf, former Wisconsite could experience a proper Wisconsin Manhattan. Being an Oregonian since 1990, and a west coaster since 1984, I mistakenly thought a proper Manhattan was made with either Bourbon or Rye, but NO! In Wisconsin a proper Manhattan uses Brandy, preferably Korbel, and Kirby thought this Wisconsin-girl ought to know that!

So that was the focus of our dinner: BFM (Big Fu**ing Manhattans) made by Barb in pint glasses (with lots of ice, luckily) and snacks. Click here for the recipe for a Wisconsin Manhattan. Photo below is of Barb and Kirby (celebrating 25 years of wedded bliss this year) in their kitchen under the Eat, Drink - Be Merry sign. We did. You should too!

Double Trouble! Pinks Boots at Wisconsin Dells

"The main point in the game of life is to have fun. We are afraid to have fun because somehow that makes life too easy." ~Sammy Davis, Jr.

Note the "American Gothic" motif with garden hoe and squeegie above.

July 15: After spending about 2-3 days planning the details of my trip through October 14 and 4-5 days visiting my extended family in West Bend, it then took me most of today to rearrange the entire van and trailer before departure. I finally got on the road at 5:30 pm, headed into the Madison-area of Wisconsin. I arrived in Wisconsin Dells about 7:40 pm, after getting delayed by road closures that I had to creatively reroute around.

Brewmaster Jamie Martin was waiting for me, and she got my van and trailer set up in the back parking lot of Moose Jaw Pizza & Wisconsin Dells Brewing Company. Jamie emailed me back in February, as soon as my post hit the Brewers Forum announcing my trip. She told me she also wears pink boots. Let me tell you, I could not pass that up! I had to visit Jamie and meet another woman brewer who also wears pink boots!

Jamie set me up with a 10 beer sampler tray and explained all of her beers to me. My favorites were the Dells Chief Amber Ale (mellow-no bite), Kilbourn Hop Ale (peppery aggressive hops), and Dunkel Lager (smooth and roasty). We had tons of fun chatting until about 11 pm. Then she told me we'd be mashing in at 6:30 am. Yikes! Time for bed.

June 16: I showed up at 6:30 am in my white jump suit because Jamie wanted to check it out. She said she was constantly getting her street clothes full of yeast and other messy bits, and I extolled the virtues of the Mr. Goodwrench uniform. Not only does Aramark or another linen company do the laundry, but if you splooge yourself during the workday, you can change into a new uniform and look spiffy right away. If you splooge yourself several times a day, you can keep changing into as many fresh uniforms as the boss can afford.

It was really important for me to be present for the entire brew cycle today, because this is the first collaboration recipe of my trip. Jamie had asked me to provide a recipe of my choice. I picked her brain a bit to find out what she needed for her beer line-up, and found a dark beer was prefered. When I pressed further, "Porter? Imperial Stout?" Jamie went right for the Imperial Stout. I designed a recipe and emailed it to her. Jamie made some modifications to make the recipe work better on her system, including the addition of oat hulls to avoid a stuck mash in her tiny mash tun, and a change in some hop choices. We hit our target gravity within one degree Plato. Click here to see the recipe for Dells Imperial Stout.

Five years ago Jamie was a Biotechnology student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. One of her professors was a homebrewer who designed a class yeast project where each of the students fermented a Nut Brown Ale (on the sly because Jamie and other students were underaged). Nobody drank the beer - but they tested for alcohol and all the other goodies in the beer (wink wink). The class target was 4.8% ABV, but somehow Jamie tweeked the yeast and got 5.8%.

Her professor told her then and several times after that, "You need tp be a brewer. You are too much of a wild child to become a genetic researcher anyway." Jamie took his advice to heart and studied fermentation before turning 21. Jamie did her 200-credit internship (5 months) of free labor at Moose Jaw/Dells Brewing. After Dells' Brewmaster made her scrub the copper and plenty of other yuck-jobs, she continued to try to get a paid job in the brewery. She bartended and finally got part-time work in Dells' brewery.

Two years ago that Brewmaster left and Jamie took over Brewmaster duties. Jamie is assisted in the brewhouse by longtime Moose Jaw/Dells brewer and maintenance guru, Mike Balda.

Moose Jaw Pizza is a huge 600+ seat restaurant with a local sister restaurant called Buffalo Phil's with 1000 seats. Jamie and Mike brew beer and tons of soda (16 barrels of root beer a week!) for both locations. Wisconsin Dells proudly proclaims itself the Waterpark Capital of the World. I asked Jamie if any people live in Wisconsin Dells, and she said only tourists. A grocery store would go broke here as everybody in the hotels and resorts is too busy golfing or water-tobaggoning to cook.

With restaurants that huge you need a Marketing Director to get the word out, and Jillian Murphy called the local newspaper, the Dells Events, and told them to "Get over here - we've got two women brewers in pink boots today!" They sent Trevor who took our photo. Maybe we'll even get an article in the paper! (I'll post a link if we do.) Honestly, I'm surprised other breweries haven't called their local news media. A visiting pink-booted Brewmaster on a 5-month road trip is sort of rare in my opinion, and certainly a feel-good story unless you are Mormon.

P.S. Thank you to Moose Jaw Pizza & Dells Brewing Company for letting me plug into their ethernet cable to update this blog and my website, and thanks to Jamie for gifting me a t-shirt.

More West Bend, Wisconsin

"To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides." ~David Viscott

July 12-14: Photo above was taken on my parents back deck. The weather was hot and humid when I arrived here a week ago, but there've been quite a few rain and thunderstorms since then. The weather cooled to the point where we've been able to enjoy meals outside, like the BBQ chicken and corn-on-the-cob dinner above. Photo L to R: Gus, Drew, Drew's friend Cameron, Teri, Mom and Pop.

On Thursday, I drove from one brother's house in Cedarburg back to my parents house in West Bend. Worked on my itinerary and trip planning for a few hours, then went to my brother Gus's house. Spent two nights with Gus and his ten-year old son Drew. Photo below shows Drew and Gus working on Aunt Teri's art project: painting reverse designs on glass magnets.

Drew and I played lots of my card and board games, but Drew definitely prefers the addrenaline rush of video games. He's a master of the fast crash.

I took him to see "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" on Friday, and he wanted a box of candy. Candy! I never buy candy at the movies. I told him, "It's a good thing we love you so much, because we're definitely spoiling you." Then I bought him his box of candy because I haven't seen him since January, and I probably won't see him for two more years. What's a kind-hearted Aunt to do?

A Visit to Milwaukee Ale House

"Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours." ~Mark Twain

July 11: My brother Eric and his wife Marie packed the girls off to a neighbor's until 10:00pm, and joined me at the Milwaukee Ale House at 4:00pm. We met with Brewmaster Jim Olen, who has been working there since the Brewpub opened 10 years ago. Jim and his brewer Robert Morton are especially busy these days. Jim handles brewing at the busy 400+ seat brewpub, and Robert is busy at the construction site of their soon-to-be-opened packaging brewery.

Jim gave us a complete tour of his spread-out brewery in the old Sadlery building. Then he lead us on a tour of his beers, describing the malt and hops and his thought-processes in designing each beer. My brother was very impressed with Jim's friendly manner and candidness. It was a great beer tour. Jim's Solomon Juneau Ale was an interesting hybrid of a beer, in that Jim designed this ale to appeal to the local lager drinkers by incorporating noble and Saaz hops into the recipe. (Photo above, L to R: Eric, Marie, Jim, Robert and Teri.)

I knew Jim only by email and the Brewers Forum, so it was nice to finally meet him. Jim agreed, and was kind enough to point out how much he had enjoyed specific posts of mine, including my recommendation for the book, "The Emperor of Scent" that I posted to the Forum several years ago. Jim also thought it was a good book with an interesting true story and a great theory of our sense of smell.

Gary Luther joined us during the final rounds of beer tasting (photo at left). I met Gary back in 1991 when he was a very experienced brewer working for Miller, and I was a new judge at the Great American Beer Festival. Gary is one of the all-time nicest people you'll ever meet. He was also one of the first "old-style" traditional brewers that embraced and welcomed us new, young craft-brewing upstarts. Gary's semi-retired now. He not only consults with breweries around the country, he collects beer steins, and he is very involved in Milwaukee's future Museum of Beer and Brewing.

I have donated a few items to the Museum from my 19 years as a professional craft brewer, such as my limited-edition (numbered) Craft Brewers Conference speaker gift steins. The Museum is in the fund-raising stage now, but they hope to be able to buy a building soon. It doesn't say so on their website, but I believe they are always looking for charitable donations as well as quality beer and brewing-related artifacts that demonstrate beer and brewing in America. Help them out if you can!

After our little sioree broke up, Eric & Marie and I walked Milwaukee's new River Walk down to Rock Bottom. I say "new" because it wasn't there when I was a kid growing up nearby in Wauwatosa and West Bend. It was nice to see Milwaukee's formerly gritty and industrial riverfront transformed by a pedestrian-friendly walkway and river-side dining.

Rock Bottom was packed at 6:15 pm, so Marie and I commandeered some chairs while Eric waded through the crowd to the bar to get us beers. He came back with plastic cups full of IPA. "Guess what?" He said. "The beer is free until the keg runs out. That's why it's so crowded."

I'd never heard of that before, but apparently Rock Bottom in Milwaukee periodically gives away a keg of beer to its patrons. Hey - I'm unemployed: free is my favorite price!

Then we drove back to Cedarburg and stopped in at the Silver Creek Brewpub. The photo above is of Eric and Marie posing in front of their tanks. No glass partition keeping the patrons at bay in this brewery. However, with limited hours of operation, it's safe to say the customers are safe from idustrial injury as they probably can't watch the brewer during working hours.

I wanted to take a photo of the outside of the brewpub because it is on a creek, but there is no imposing entrance. In fact, you'd hardly know where the front door is. You have to walk around a building on a side street, and then turn left at the creek, following the creek till the path dead ends at a building. Once inside the front door, you walk across a skybridge over a small dam that looks like it once ran a mill. The humidity is great here, as the creek tumbles over the dam inside of the building shell; the creek runs under the skybridge that brings you to the interior front door of the brewpub. It is all smaller and more compact than this description sounds.

We tried a few beers, the Imperial Maibock being the one that stood out for its impressive alcohol level. It reminded me a little of a wheatwine, but with lager yeast and European hops.

My Family in West Bend, Wisconsin

"The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

July 7: Drove from Munising, Michigan to West Bend, Wisconsin. Jon drove and I worked on charting the next few weeks/months of my trip. I am using Rand McNally TripMaker Deluxe 1999. Great software, but it runs a little quirky on Windows XP operating system. I would have bought a new version, but they don't make this software anymore.

My parents cooked up one of my favorite dinners - roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and gravy, photo at right.

July 8: Drove Jon to the Milwaukee airport first thing in the morning, and he flew back to Eugene. (Our little joke is, "Somebody's got to work to pay my gasoline expenses.") It was tough to say good-bye, but nice to know that I will see him again in less than one month. XOXOX honey!

My cousins and their mom were all visiting West Bend this weekend, so they dropped over at my parent's house in the afternoon. Photo above, Top row, L to R: Mike, Kevin, Pop, Beth, Mom, Pat and Tim. Bottom row, L to R: Diane, Teri, Pam, Maggie and Tommy.

They sampled some of the unique beers I've been collecting, and cousin Pat showed off his new Harley Davidson road cruiser (photo below). Get a helmet, Cuz!

Later my brother and his family dropped in for dinner. He and his wife have three girls. The girls and Oma (grandmother in German) and I played a few rounds of Blink and Set (photo below). Amanda and I played Cathedral (photo below left).

June 9 & 10: I am methodically going through my emails one by one. Yup, I am writing all the contact info (or lack of it) that kind-hearted brewers and others have emailed me when inviting me to their neck of the woods.

Then I try to flesh out the sketchy information via http://www.beermapping.com/, http://www.pubquest.com/, or by googling the brewery name, filling out my 3 x 5 cards, each with the State name at the top of the card. Then I try to connect the dots. My goal is to at least try to visit everyone who has invited me, which often means I look at where they are on the map, measure that against my flights to the MBAA Hop Symposium and the class I am teaching at the American Brewers Guild on August 16, and if the brewery is too far off the route, I put the 3 x 5 card in the "Breweries Skipped" pile. I tried!

Luckily, I am fitting lots of folks in. I have such sketchy Internet connections and time, that this is the first day I've really been able to 3 x 5 card the contacts that emailed me after April. My Itinerary is under constant revision for the next week, but after that I hope to have most of July and August figured out.
July 10 & 11: Visited my brother's family in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. The girls and I made pancakes for breakfast (photo on left, L to R: Teri, Amanda, Sarah and Kelly).

In the afternoon we painted Aunt Teri's art project: friendship bracelets (photo below: L to R: Amanda, Kelly, Teri and Sarah).

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.