Beer still makes Milwaukee famous
As if warning that hangovers are born in rooms like these, the bass line from the Polka Kings, playing live upstairs, throbbed over the heads of beer tourists in the basement of Milwaukee's Lakefront Brewery.
Upstairs, in the impressive exposed-brick restaurant and beer hall, at least 150 people -- including couples, college students and especially families -- made a cheerful roar over the music as they tucked into a Friday-night fish fry.
It smelled good passing through the room, but in the bowels of the brewery there was work to be done.
While dispersing technical information about hops, yeast and grain, Lakefront tour guide Sarabeth Gidley was also a Santa Claus of beer samples. A middle-school teacher by day, her crowd-control skills no doubt came in handy.
"Anyone already been on the Miller's tour?" Gidley asked. A sheepish few offered hands. "They have a video and they have a lot of stats, but YOU GET ME!" she said. Promising to dance if we sang, Gidley started a tape and pointed to a cue card with a stick.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! Schlmeel, schlimazel, hasenpfeffer incorporated!"
Pub on every corner
Yes, Milwaukee has a soaring Art Museum, fine hotels and historic districts, but along with Tim, an old friend from a shared and sobering high school experience, I knew what really made the town famous. This day was for beer.
The beer is serious at Lakefront, but it keeps the tours light. Founded in 1987 by two brothers who literally rolled their initial limited beer stock out to neighborhood taverns, the brewery now makes at least nine beers, including a tasty organic English-style bitter. Gidley takes delight in climbing up a stack of kegs to sing the "Laverne and Shirley" theme, and in pointing out the original fermentation tanks painted with portraits of Moe, Larry and Curly.
"Hey everyone," she shouts, "Milwaukee has a pub …?"
"On every corner!" responds the tour group in near unison. Apparently it's a local cliche, but with a population of about 600,000, the number of bars -- 500 and counting -- is healthy, according to a Milwaukee tourism spokesman.
Beer baron's home
A tour of the grand Capt. Frederick Pabst Mansion started our Milwaukee beer-study day. German immigrant Pabst began his life in America as a Great Lakes boat captain, but was roped into the beer business by his father-in-law. Pabst built his Flemish Renaissance Revival mansion in 1892 and it's full of creaky staircases and impressive touches. There's an acoustically perfect music nook, a system for piping cool air from a walk-in ice box into the hot master kitchen and a private study with secret compartments.
Born in 1836, Pabst completed the mansion just seven years before he died in 1899, docent Kathy Kilps said. During the 1890s, as Schlitzes married Pabsts, Milwaukee was home to 250 breweries and Pabst's was the largest. Who knew Schlitz was a player in the Gilded Age?
In the captain's quiet study, a slogan near a Black Forest clock reads: "Nothing more precious have I found on Earth than a faithful heart and a quiet mouth." The German-speaking Pabsts had 11 children, though six died in infancy. There were also about 11 domestic servants in the household, but Pabst, who also ran saloons and a large hotel, still considered the home his refuge.
Other elegant touches include whole 17th-century walls imported from Germany and a conservatory attached to the manse that once housed Pabst's World's Fair exhibit in Chicago.
A family foundation has taken extreme care rehabbing the building, which after Pabst's death was home to a succession of Milwaukee's archbishops for 67 years. The foundation uses photos from many of the rooms to restore details (in some cases workers removed 11 coats of paint) and is repurchasing family heirlooms and returning them to their original locations, Kilps said.
Pabst sons ultimately sold the brewery in the 1970s and "the buyer ran it down before Miller bought it out," she said.
Macro and micro
Natural, then, to head next to Miller, where there are free tours and tastings at an 82-acre facility run by the company since 1855. During a one-hour tour, our guide said Milwaukee had all the needed ingredients of a beer-making town: "Grain, water and Germans."
Helmeted workers on break still exude a "Laverne and Shirley" vibe at Miller, where employees produce up to 500,000 cases daily. Nearly half the beer fuels Chicago. Much of the tour involves filing past impressively large distribution and bottling facilities behind high glass walls.
Some of the guides were barely older than 21 and sometimes were a little too full of their own inside jokes, but the facility was impressive and Miller deserves credit for conducting the tours for more than 50 years.
Tours wind past giant copper kettles in the brew house, where it's a stifling 93 degrees and smells like simmering oatmeal. Oh, and you can sample Miller and other beers the company distributes both in an outdoor beer garden and indoors, near the old underground "caves" where beer casks once mellowed. On the way out, visitors check out retro beer truck T-shirts in the gift shop.
From the famous macro brewery, we next headed just outside the city limits to Glendale, home to the well-regarded micro brewery Sprecher. This more intimate tour also ambles through the brew house, through an aging cellar and past the bottling line before finally winding down with a tasting, where as many as 10 beers are available.
Sprecher is an especially child-friendly tour since the company also fire-brews soft drinks. The beer selection in the gift shop is large and the Black Bavarian lager makes a subtle, smooth addition to the home fridge.
Visitors may also tour Lakefront and two lesser-known micro-breweries by boat with Riverwalk Boat Tours. There's no need to worry about driving, and you can relax between breweries while taking in Milwaukee's Lake Michigan skyline. Riverwalk tours last about four hours and are a bargain at $25.
Brats and baseball
If beer is king in Milwaukee, the royal family has to include baseball, bratwurst and Wisconsin cheese.
Our day was too long to include a Brewers game at hyper-modern Miller Park, but a ballgame would make a fitting end to a beer-centric Milwaukee excursion. Tailgating at this park is elevated to a football-like mania.
Bernie the Brewer heads down a slide above the left-field bleachers after every Milwaukee home run. Kids also love the costumed Racing Sausages, who were all over ESPN earlier this year when The Chorizo was added to the lineup.
Speaking of sausages, we added a couple of Milwaukee food institutions to the itinerary, in part because our wives were home putting the kids to bed and we had to return bearing non-beer gifts.
Usinger's Famous Sausage has been making bratwurst for more than 100 years on Milwaukee's Old World Third Street. With marble columns and monolithic counters, the place has the solemnity of a bank. You know this is a downtown institution as you take a number and choose from 70 sausage varieties. Elf murals and a huge diorama of an old German platz decorate the lobby. Low-fat salami might be the only nod to the 21st century here, and the brats are so fresh they practically sit up and say "Milwaukee."
Head down the street for mustard at the venerable Wisconsin Cheese Mart, where you'll choose from 60 varieties. This second downtown culinary gem opened in 1938 and has been run more recently by Ken McNulty, who focuses on Wisconsin cheese and sells more than 100 kinds. McNulty is free with the samples, even of pricey varieties such as banded cheddar, which sells for $22 a pound.
"Wisconsin's cheese industry started in part because milk was so hard to move in the old days," McNulty said. "There's a lot of competition now and business is cutthroat," he said. McNulty offers well-known Wisconsin brands, such as Deppeler's and Stettler's, and also obscurities, such as the last U.S.-made limburger made by Chalet.
McNulty provided a free cooler for the car as we picked up Baby Swiss, Emmentaler, Gorgonzola and Cheddar for the trip home. On the way out, counter man Bas Kuis, himself a Dutch import, said smoked Swiss goes great with beer. While handing out more samples, Kuis noted that Edam and Gouda are two Dutch towns that started making cheese about 800 years ago.
While in the neighborhood, it's an easy walk over to Mader's restaurant, opened in 1902. Mader's waitresses still wear German folk costumes and the food (including Usinger's sausages) is traditional and substantial.
With wood-paneled dining rooms and oriental rugs, Mader's is the place to impress a date. A fascinating wall of signed photos features John F. Kennedy and Jackie, Audrey Hepburn and John Wayne. No less than Boris Karloff wrote that the massive portions "foundered" him. John Candy slashed on his head shot that "portions were too small."
If you go
Milwaukee, Wis.
Go: If you're curious about how beer is made and about its history, or if you'd just like to discover a new favorite microbrew
No: If you can't arrange for a designated driver and your taste runs more to Cabernet
Need to know: Greater Milwaukee Convention and Visitors Bureau, (800) 231-0903, www.milwaukee.org
Getting around: Milwaukee is about 80 miles north of O'Hare on I-94. With all the drinking opportunities offered on a day studying beer, it goes without saying that plans must include a designated driver.
Organizing your day: Plan on visiting the early opening attractions first and then show up for open-ended meals or tours toward evening's end. Sprecher requires advance reservations, so it's a good idea to call about a week ahead of your visit. Lakefront tours are first come, first served.
Lakefront Brewery: 1872 N. Commerce St., (414) 372-8800, www.lakefrontbrewery.com. Tours cost $5 and are offered Monday through Saturday at a variety of times. Visitors must be 21 with a valid ID or accompanied by a legal guardian. The tours at 5:30, 6, 6:30, 7 and 7:30 p.m. are for Friday fish fry customers.
Miller Brewing Co.: Visitor Center and Girl in the Moon Gift Shop, 4251 W. State St., (414) 931-2337, www.millerbrewing.com. The Visitor Center and Gift Shop are open Monday through Saturday between Labor Day and Memorial Day (winter hours) from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and tours generally run from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Sprecher Brewery: 701 W. Glendale Ave., Glendale, Wis., (414) 964-2739, www.sprecherbrewery.com. Tour dates and times vary, so call ahead to make reservations. Adult tours cost $3 including samples and senior and child discounts are available.
Captain Frederick Pabst Mansion: 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave., (414) 931-0808, www.pabstmansion.com. Open Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. Tours cost $8 for adults with senior, child and student discounts.
Riverwalk Boat Tours: (414) 283-9999, www.cafevecchio.com/riverwalkboat/tours. Tours of three breweries on Saturdays and Sundays cost $25. Tours meet at the breweries; passengers must be age 21 or older.
Usinger's Famous Sausage: 1030 N. Old World Third St., (414) 276-9105 or (800) 558-9998, www.usinger.com/info.php. Open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
Wisconsin Cheese Mart: 215 W. Highland Ave., (888) 482-7700, www.thecheesemart.com. Hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
Mader's Restaurant: 1037 N. Old World Third St., (414) 271-3377, www.madersrestaurant.com. Open Monday through Thursday 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
-- Mark Shuman