Have a Sip: Three of Milwaukee's Lesser-known Brewery & Winery Tours

 

 

As winter approaches, we Wisconsinites are always looking for fun things to do on the weekends that are, well, warm.  A brewery tour or winery tour is a great way to spend the day (you probably have some in your area that you visit).  While you may be familiar with the bigger Milwaukee brewery tours, such as Miller and Pabst, there are many smaller ones to visit.  Here are 3 of them:

 

1) Sprecher

 



You may or may not be familiar with Sprecher.  They were founded in 1985, and are described as the area's first craft brewery since Prohibition.  Located on the north-side suburb of Glendale, their tour consists of a talk about the different ingredients that make up beer, and it's difference from other malt beverages, then a tour of the plant including the bottling and shipping areas, seen below.

 

At the end of the tour, patrons over 21 can sample up to 20 different beers in a, in my opinion, very large shot glass.  Or, if you don't like beer or are under 21, you can sample up to 10 of their flavored sodas.  You can also buy beverages along with shirts, bottle openers, and even frozen pizzas, in their gift shop.

 



 2) Cedar Creek Winery

Cedarburg is a gorgeous smallish city north of Milwaukee that is a great place to visit any time of year.  But during the holidays, it's decked out liked a country Christmas card.  On the north side of Washington Street, Cedarburg's main street, is the Cedar Creek Winery and Shops, which holds a lengthy tour daily.  You start off by watching a video on the history of the winery, then get a tour of the antique equipment they used to use to make their wine, and the casks used to store the wine and other mulled beverages, such as cider, seen below.

Their wine casks are huge, and kept in their limestone-walled cellar, ideal for fermenting and aging their wines to perfection.

When my friends and I visited last year, the tour guide said the casks were large enough that a tall man could stand upright in them, so one of the visitors had to try it:

3) Milwaukee Brewing Company

This brewery tour is by far my favorite of the ones I've done so far.  The brewery is located on the south side of Milwaukee, on 2nd Street, and you can tell the tour guides have a lot of fun and are passionate about their product.  They crack a lot of jokes, engage with the visitors, and contribute a lot to the relaxed atmosphere brewery tours should have.  Head brewer Robert Morton studied at the Culinary Institute of the Arts in New York, and infused their beer with different flavor combinations, usually in seasonal varieties. 

 

The brewers even add fun to the machinery they use:

 



The brewery holds a 5:00 PM "Open House" on Saturdays, where visitors can sample seasonal beers and socialize with patrons as well as the brewers themselves.

 

In addition to these three breweries/wineries, you can find other tours here.

Not Your Ordinary Cupcakes

While I was in Cedarburg over the weekend to attend their 39th annual Winter Fest (which you can read about here), one of the events they had going on was a Cupcake Competition.  If you have been to one of these event in your own hometown, you know how fun and tasty they can be.  I have been to a couple in Madison, but they did not have the level of creativity the one in Cedarburg had. 

There were two separate competitions, an adult one and a youth one.  You paid $5.00 for 5 cupcakes (you could also buy more for $1.00 apiece) and voted on both the taste and the display.  As you can see from the photos, these displays were very inventive.

This display, part of the youth category, featured a different flavored cupcake for each region of the United States.

The Parisian display was also part of the youth category.

I don't know if there was a specific theme, but a lot of them were based on children's books such as Curious George.

Since I only had $5.00 to spend on cupcakes (and not that large of an appetite), I restricted my tastings to the Adult competition.  Unfortunately, I did not get a good photo of the cupcake I liked the best, which was chocolate with peanut butter frosting and filling.  But these bears, which were also chocolate, were quite good as well.

This display, part of the adult category, was based on Willy Wonka.

And this display was my absolute favorite.  It was based on "The Lorax" and their cupcakes had trees made with the cupcake as the base and cotton candy as the branches.

All in all, it was a tasty and fun way to spend part of the chilly day.  If you have the chance to participate in a cupcake challenge in your city (such as the Iron Cupcake), you should.  But bring a friend (or five) to help you indulge.

This post is also my "N" post for Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday.  Click on the link to see more!

Wordless Wednesday: Cedarburg, WI

I'm finally able to participate in Create With Joy's Wordless Wednesday.  Here are some more photos I took of historic Cedarburg Wisconsin while I was there for their annual Winter Fest.

 

More Frigid Fun: Cedarburg Winter Fest 2013

Yesterday, I spent the entire day up in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, to attend their annual Winter Fest.  I had never been to this festival before, but I found out it has been celebrated for almost 40 years.  There were a lot of fun events for kids and adults including a chili contest, cupcake contest (more on that Thursday), wine tasting (Cedarburg is known for Cedar Creek wine), ice skating, hay rides, a snowball fight, and a very unusual parade.

It starts and ends as most parades around the country do, with a salute to veterans and a display by the local fire department.  But, in between, the Cedarburg Winter Fest Parade features bed floats that go on to compete in a bed race on the frozen Cedar Creek. I didn't get to see the race itself since I was scheduled for a group photowalk meetup at 2:00, but as you can see below, they get pretty outrageous, and that's the fun of it. 

The theme of this year's fest is "Winter Safari" so the Crème & Crepe restaurant's float fit in well with crepes running alongside a jeep.

I admit I haven't been to any parades in Milwaukee, so I don't know if this is ordinary, but this parade featured the Miller Park Racing Sausages, Bennie Brewer and the Admirals mascot (whatever it is).

It wouldn't be a festival in Wisconsin without an ice sculpture contest, as you may have seen from previous posts recently.  Most went along with the "Winter Safari" theme, like the hippo above.

And this monkey holding binoculars.

But I think this sculpture was the coolest (no pun intended) of a snow leopard.

And this person was finishing up his hippo after judging ended at 2:00 which gave me the opportunity to photograph it as it was being carved.

Even though it was a very cold day (high of 16 degrees), there were a lot of activities at the Winter Fest to keep people from forgetting the frigid day.  I will have more photos Wednesday of Cedarburg from the photowalk, and then on Thursday I'll have photos from the cupcake contest.  Come back soon!

Wordless Wednesday: Autumn Vibrance

For this week's Wordless Wednesday, I'm posting an old photo but one of my favorites, especially now that this year's fall color is gone. 

Have a happy, safe, and filling Thanksgiving everyone!

Wordless Wednesday: Halloween

Well, I haven't been able to take photos of the great Halloween decorations around my neighborhood since I'm still recovering from the sprained knee I sustained last week.  So, my photo for Wordless Wednesday was taken two years ago outside of a local shop in Cedarburg, WI, 10 miles north of Milwaukee.  Happy Halloween!

Water Photos

This week's "W" post for Jenny Matlock's Alphabe-Thursday was supposed to be about my trip to Chicago on Monday.  It was even going to feature its nickname "Windy City."  However, due to a couple of glitches including forgetting my camera's memory card and, more seriously, sustaining a knee injury on one of the city's many sidewalks, I ended up cutting my trip short and coming home without even visiting where I wanted to go.  But I can walk, that's the important thing, and Chicago will be there when I decide to try and go back.

Well, since this blog is supposed to be about Milwaukee and Wisconsin, it's for the best.  If you would like to see two of the photos I managed to take on my phone in Chicago before my accident, you can go to my other blog, Jay J Studio, here (shameless plug, I know, but I couldn't resist).

But, being a former theatre-person, as we say, the show must go on.  So, I decided to post some of my favorite photos of bodies of water in the Milwaukee area.  The top photo was taken two autumn's ago in Cedarburg, about 20 minutes north of Milwaukee.

I took the above photo last November of Lake Michigan while I was down in Racine.

 
The above photo is of Waukesha's riverwalk, located on the Fox River.

 

The photos above and below are of the Milwaukee River.

 



 

The last two photos feature Lake Michigan in Milwaukee.  The last one was taken inside the Milwaukee Art Museum's gigantic atrium-like lobby, the Calatrava.  I guess it's a popular spot for weddings.

 



I hope you like my water photos.  As a Pisces, I'm naturally drawn to lake and river fronts, and they are great places to take pictures.