Spring hits in Wisconsin in a very welcome way.  After the brutal winter that we lived through in our area we needed Spring desperately.  Over 100 inches of snow was a hard memory to shake off, but somehow we managed to do just that. 

This process was helped along with a Spring Tradition of ourse - the enjoyment of a Hacker Pschorr Dunkel Weissen, a plate of artisan Wisconsin cheese, and farm fresh radishes.

A quick perusal of my blog stats tell me that many of you are hitting this blog right about now searching for tickets to the Great Taste of the Midwest.

Pardon me for a moment while I rant.

I will never again purchase tickets to another Great Taste of the Midwest. I won’t even use tickets if they were given to me for free. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to go to the Great Taste of the Midwest, even if you paid me.

Whew. I have that out of my system now. Perhaps I can address this issue in a purely intellectual sort of way.

The Great Taste of the Midwest used to be like Christmas to us. The first one that we attended (I believe it may have been the second one ever) was held in the Capital Brewery warehouse, with maybe 400 people and not so many breweries represented.

We stuck with this event for many years through thick and thin, laughing as tickets became harder and harder to come by, and saluting the Madison Home Brewer’s Guild on their success. We followed the event from venue to venue. We were intriqued when it settled in Olin Park. Of course, that’s when it started to go to pieces, the victim of its own success and its own arrogance.

And arrogant it did indeed become.

Last year, the ticket policy became ludicrous. In order to get tickets, you basically had to skip work, stand in line, get a “right to purchase tickets” ticket, then go back later in the day (again missing work) as the tickets went on sale.

The amazing development last year was that many of the venues trusted to sell the tickets to the public released the “right to purchase tickets” ticket to their regulars, long before these pre-ticket tickets were available to the public.

So, let’s say you were a die-hard, and you decided you were going to wait in line early, get your pre-ticket ticket, and then come back and purchase your ticket. Well, SURPRISE! Guess what! The pre-ticket tickets were gone before they were supposed to be available.

Does this sound like sour grapes? Let me hasten to assure you that this is far from the case. I had many a person approach me to see if I wanted tickets. But by that time, I had such a bad taste in my mouth over the arrogance, the abuse, and the ridiculousness over the ticket policy that I vowed that I wouldn’t set foot inside these beer tents again.

So, I urge you all to join me in this boycott. Get together with your friends and plan your own event. You can all bring your favorite unique six packs to try. Hold your own private Great Taste Festival in August, and then attend the Quivey’s Grove Beer Fest in the fall, when the temperatures are cooler and the attitudes are more palatable.

I would say that I would hope that the organizers of The Great Taste will once again get in touch with the philosophies that once went into making this the premier beer tasting in the Unites States.

But, frankly my dears, I no longer give a damn.

A quiz for you:

The people in this photo are lined up for:

A. Bruce Springsteen tickets
B. An audience with the new Pope
C. The new Star Wars flick
D. None of the above

If you guess D, you would be correct. These people are lined up for something far more important than any of the reasons listed (well, except maybe the Springsteen ticket choice…)

(Forgive the photo quallity – it was taken with my camera phone!)

These people are lined up for tickets to the Great Taste of the Midwest!

Each year, the tickets to this event get harder and harder to come by. When we first started going to this, somewhere around 16 or 17 years ago (Yikes!), it was held in one of the local microbreweries, and drew maybe 400 people. Maybe. Now it is held at a large park, and 5,000 tickets sell out immediately.

They got a little smarter this year. They limited the number of tickets per household to 4. That helped with the demand a bit. However, as we standing in line, word had it that at least one of the locations that were selling the tickets had already run out.

We got to our location 45 minutes early. There were already around 100 people in line ahead of us. As another couple hundred people joined the back of the line, the temperature dropped and it began to snow. Lovely.

All told, we waited in line for 1 hour and 45 minutes to buy 4 tickets each. We were frozen by the time we got the tickets, but the crowd was fun (of course they were – they were beer drinkers, after all!), and it will all have been worth it come August.

First Lunch On The Deck

We had our first lunch out on the deck of our new house! This was also the first use of the new patio table and the first beer, sausage, cheese and radish lunch of the season. It was a perfect day for all of these firsts, particularly as the temperature was hovering around 65 degrees outside.

The pupster hung out and gave us some “puppy eyes” until we caved in and gave her some cheese and sausage. She thought that she had hit the jackpot when she discovered that we not only had cheese and sausage, but that we had cheese with sausage in it!

She didn’t get any beer. We don’t share our beer.

Today is the big day! Capital Brewery Autumnal Fire goes up against Sprecher Black Bavarian in the Real Beer March Madness head-to-head competition!

If you haven’t tried Autumnal Fire, you will just need to take my word for it – it is, in my opinion, the top beer in the world! (And I’ve tried a beer or two in my time!)

Vote here!

It’s March Madness! And I am certainly not talking about basketball, though the Badgers have made the Sweet Sixteen.

I’m talking about beer.

Each year Realbeer.com hosts a “playoff tournament” of notable American beers. 64 notable American beers to be precise. Readers are presented with a choice of beers along the way and are asked to vote for the one they’d like to drink – NCAA tournament-style.

Today two personal favorites were up for votes in separate brackets. Capital Brewery’s Autumnal Fire took on Rogue Dead Guy Ale. And Sprecher Black Bavarian took on Anchor Steam.

Both won their brackets and advance to compete against… (gulp)… each other.

Now, I like Black Bavarian. I used to drink a lot of it. It is a very nice, dark, heavy lager with a lot of malt flavor. I used to say that it was one of the best American beers. One drawback to it was that from batch to batch, there seemed to be some quality inconsistencies.

But the along came Capital Autumnal Fire… deep, rich, malty, intense. I’ve already waxed poetic over Autumnal Fire, so I doubt I need to tell you where I stand with this next bracket between these two beers.

The matchup comes on March 28th. I suspect Black Bavarian has better distribution and wider name recognition – which is why I’ll remind you all on that day to vote for the best, not just the best known – Autumnal Fire.

Capital Brewery Maibock

We have a fondness for bock-style beers. I suspect that this has been greatly encouraged by our close proximity to Capital Brewery, in Middleton, WI.

For those of you who are not blessed to live near Capital Brewery, you have my sympathy. Year after year, Capital Brewery, lead by Brewmaster Kirby Nelson, brews the most impressive, awesome, incredible award-winning bock-style beers in the world. No, seriously. In the world. Take a look at the list at the bottom of this post if you don’t believe me. It’s inspiring.

Captial Brewery hosts a Bockfest in late February year after year, complete with Kirby climbing up onto the roof of the brewery and throwing fish down upon the crowd. Yes. Fish. While that might be a bit thought provoking in and of itself, imagine Kirby on the roof throwing fish at the crowd with a broken leg. That was a memorable year, to be sure.

Each year we await the Maibock season. Served on tap at locations around Madison, this beer is terrific. But it has nothing on the Capital Blonde Doppelbock. This beer has to be experienced to be believed.

And as the summer winds down and fall chill starts to fill the air, it heralds in the tapping of the best beer in the world, Autumnal Fire. Here’s what Capital has to say about this amazing beer:

A blazing rich beer, this is a doppelbock based on an Octoberfest personality. Warm and intriguing, the perfect “Brandy Snifter” beer.

We often take our good fortune for granted. But I can tell you that we never take Capital Brewery Bocks for granted.

And here are their awards:

Capital Brewery Maibock Awards:
1991 Chicago Beer Society (Gold)
1996 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (85 – Silver)
1997 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (90 – Gold)
1998 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (88 – Silver)
2000 World Beer Cup (Silver)
2002 World Beer Cup (Gold)
2002 North American Brewers Association (Gold)
2003 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (90-Gold)
2003 North American Brewers Association (Gold)
2004 North American Brewers Association (Silver)

Capital Brewery Blonde Doppelbock Awards:
1996 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (85 – Silver)
1997 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (91 – Gold)
1998 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (97-Platinum)
2001 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (96-Platinum)
2002 World Beer Cup (Gold)
2003 North American Brewers Association (Bronze)
2004 North American Brewers Association (Gold)
2004 USBTC Grand Champion

Weizen Doppelbock Awards:
2001 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (92 – Gold)
2002 North American Brewers Association (Silver)

Autumnal Fire Awards:
1997 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (93 – Gold)
1997 Chicago Beer Society International Tasting – Award of Merit
1998 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (93 – Gold)
2001 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (92 – Gold)
2004 North American Brewers Association (Gold)
2004 Great American Beer Festival (Gold)
2004 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (93-Gold)

Dark Doppelbock Awards:
1995 Great American Beer Festival (Bronze)
1996 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (88 – Silver)
1997 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (87 – Silver)
1998 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (89 – Silver)
2001 Beverage Testing Institute World Beer Championships (94-Gold)
2002 North American Brewers Association (Gold)
2002 U.S. Beer Tasting Championships – Best of the Midwest
2003 North American Brewers Association (Bronze)

From USA Today: “In an effort to revive flattening sales and attract new drinkers, Anheuser-Busch (BUD) is unveiling a new concoction

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