Hopalicious - the beer that can make anything palatable!

Disclosure: I am writing about a concert that took place in October, 2010.  It took a while for the wounds to heal .

I have been an "ipod fan" of the Canadian indie band Stars for a while. They seem to sneak onto every playlist I've made in the past year.  I saw they were coming to the Barrymore and got excited.  I talked it up and made my trusty group of indie music fans buy tickets WAY, WAY in advance. Shockingly it was not a sold out concert. In fact when we arrived it was pretty empty.  Should have been a sign.

I'm just not going to mince words here.  Stars was the cheesiest rock display I have ever seen. The level of sappiness only usually achieved in parodies of soap operas (e.g. the fake soap opera on Twin Peaks - "Invitation to Love".  Stars upped the cheese level by throwing roses and rose petals at the audience and overusing bubble making machines. If I closed my eyes I could hear the music I know and they were good.  But when I opened them I just saw a weird little dude on stage playing a mouth organ and a gal who should not wear sequence dresses. 

But you know what?  It ended up being a really fun concert.  And I credit this to the  fact that the Barrymore has Hopalicious on tap! At one point my brave friends Amanda & Rachael pushed their way up to the stage taking me in their wake until we were directly below creepy mouth organ guy. Amanda flirted with him and he winked and tossed her a rose (to dismay of the jealous fans who didn't seem to notice what a cheesefest this scene was).  It was a beautiful moment to behold. We then danced away through the bubble haze to our friends further back. 

Post train wreck concert, I do still listen to them, I just pretend the live band was a Milli Vanilli scenario.  That wasn't really Stars, just some bad Canadian lip syncers. 

Bottom line - when life throws you rose petals and bubbles, have a Hopalicious and all is right in the world again!

Here's some picture to make you jealous that you were not there:

Another fine Madison beer addition - The Mason Lounge on Park Street

While there are many things I do NOT like about Wisconsin winters, I do appreciate that cold blustery evenings encourage meeting up with good friends at local pubs for a good chat. Thanks to my friend Deb for persevering to make an evening happen at the Mason Lounge.

The Mason Lounge is a relatively new place on Park Street that has 19 taps - many of which are Wisconsin brews.  The big beer winner of the night was the Rush River Amber. Rush River Brewing Co. is located in River Falls, WI. They brew four types of beer, all of which are unfiltered and unpasteurized (and delicious). I'd never had Rush River on tap before and I liked it very much. My only issue was that I am not a huge fan of drinking beverages out of Mason jars. Kind of a kitchy detail. 

I liked the ambiance of this bar that felt like a long time neighborhood gathering place. It was cozy and comfortable. There's lots of odd things on the walls - including a fake (but disarmingly real looking) hen under a heating lamp above the bar. I imagine this will be a popular hangout for the Vilas neighborhood people who must be happy to have a nice laid back place to grab a drink after work or on the weekends.

Best Place in Madison to Have a pint of Guinness: The Brocach

I usually focus on Wisconsin beers, but I am going to make an exception to highlight a fabulous place on the Square to stop in on a cold snowy night and have a pint of Guinness.  The Brocach is a great Irish Pub with decent food and great bartenders.  And while the Guinness is not as good as Guinness that comes straight form the source (Dublin) they do a great pour. Plus they always have Powers on hand - never a bad thing!
Every time a snowpocalypse hits Madison I have the desire to head to Brocach to spend some nice toasty & cozy time with a pint and good company.  So thanks buds for braving the elements with me and lets do it again during the next snowstorm!

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Why aren't there more D-Pubs in Wisconsin? Someone please franchise!

A little slice of beer heaven in Oshkosh, WI:

Sooooo - I spent about a week recently in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And a friend of mine, an Oshkosh native, was very insistent that as a beer blogger I simply could NOT leave town without a visit to the D-Pub.   (the Distillery Pub) So my very last night there we made it happen.  And it really was all that was promised. 

The D-Pub's thing is $1.00 pints.  Now hearing that you probably think you get to choose from Natty Light, Keystone Ice and the Beast. Try again - they offer frosty mugs of Fat Tire, Spotted Cow, Spaten, and several others.   Yes - for $1.00!  In these tough economic times this is a huge find.  I chose Fat Tire - stayed true to my Colorado roots.

Plus they have an awesome Native American Mural and decent jukebox.  What more could a gal want?  I've gotta say - thank you Andrew - your beer blogging instincts were dead on.  Any true beer blogger would embrace this place and spread the word.  Hat's off to the D-Pub. When in Oshkosh well worth gathering your car seat change for a delicious frosty beer!

D-Pub in all it's glory:

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Beer, Bikes and Blogging. . .the trek to the Mariner's Inn

Sunday was one of those magical, beautiful Wisconsin fall days. (the kind you wish you could bottle up and crack open when it is -20 below with a windchill)   It was 80 degrees, sunny, with beautiful fall colors.  Not the kind of day to stay inside.  So we beer bloggers decided to take the blog outside. Of course we had to add the component of beer to the plan so we decided to ride our bikes out to the Nau-Ti-Gal. This is a little less than 8 miles away.  A beautiful trek through neighborhoods that runs along Lake Mendota.

When we arrived at Nau-Ti-Gal it was sadly closed.  They have weird "fall hours" - and it closes on Sunday at 2pm!  Super devastating - so we decided to ride a whole block away to the Mariner's Inn. This too was closed.  But as we stood in the parking lot trying to figure out where to go there was a beer miracle and they opened it up and let us in early.  Yeah for Mariner's Inn!

Unfortunately the Mariner's Inn  does not have beer on tap so we had to make do with bottled beer.  They do have a good selection of local bottled beer. It was apparently an Ale Asylum kind of day bc Rachael chose Mad Town Nut Brown and the rest of us had Hopalicious.  Below is the video beer review with a few super exciting bike tricks in the mix.

In case you haven't been to Mariner's Inn it has a pretty in your face nautical theme.  Kitchy with nets, coral, captain motifs and fish tanks all over.  Kind of awesome really. It also has a patio in the back near the docks that is perfect for a day like today.

On the way home Amanda entertained us with her interpretative bike dancing. You might recognize her, she is the recipient of this year's Rising Star award. We took a family circus style route home, stopped by the Governor's residence and rode our bikes out on a pier. We even saw some wildlife (see pics below).

A lovely way to end the weekend!

Here's the pics:

Here's the video beer review:

Beer Bloggers get high cholesterol at Baumgartner's in Monroe, Wisconsin

One day last week, my in-state travels brought me to the town square of Monroe, Wisconsin. And on that town square is quite a Wisconsin beer & cheese treasure: Baumgartner's Cheese Store and Tavern.  Baumgartner's has been open since 1931 and holds the title of Wisconsin's  oldest cheese store. They also feature locally brewed beer on tap. Most of us sampled the New Glarus' Staghorn Oktoberfest.  Which I have to say is excellent this year.  We may have to take some beer bloggers out to the newly expanded New Glarus brewery soon just to do a feature on this before this brew is gone for another year! But back to Monroe. . .

As you can see from this photo, one common side effect of going to Baumgartner's  is a bad case of giddiness.  No - this jubilant fellow has not had too much Staghorn to drink - he's just really, really excited about his cheese slab & ham sandwich (with a side of cheese - I am NOT kidding) and homemade chili.

There is just soooo much to look at in this place.  There's the awesome Beer v. Champagne war mural above the bar.  Beer is kicking some serious champagne butt  -  in case you were wondering. There's also money tacked to the ceiling from a fundraiser and a cool push-pin map that shows where people have visited from around the word.  I noticed that Laredo, Texas was not marked - come on Laredoans - step it up, stop drinking that swill down there and come wash down a slab of fine Wisconsin cheese with even finer Wisconsin brew!!!! 

Bottom line - Monroe is a cute town with a real Town square (just like Stars Hollow).  Baumgartner's is an awesome place to stop and eat your weight worth of cheese and have a couple local beers.  Did I mention it is shockingly affordable?  Look at those prices!

Baumgartner's Awesome mural:



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