We have been hoping to go on the New Glarus hard hat tour, but never seem to be able to plan that far ahead (they are sold out until November). SWMBO sent an E-mail to New Glarus last Monday asking if they ever had cancellations and the girl said we would be put on the waiting list. We got a message on Friday AM that if we could get to the brewery by 1:00 we would on the tour! We made it with time to spare.
This was by far the BEST tour I ever been on; it was 3 hours long with one of the actual brew masters leading the tour, so he really knew his stuff. We spent most of our time in the old brewery where they still run the limited edition beers and learned a lot. Then we went over to the new brewery we spent about half an hour talking with Dan Carey (he and his wife Deb own the place) and got a real flavor for why the do things the way they do. I found out why they don't sell outside of Wisconsin: because they don't want to....they want to stay focused on Badgerland and don't want to turn into BMC. Also learned that with the exception of Spotted Cow, all of their yeast is regular commercial yeast, the regular ales use mainly 1056, which I was surprised at.
It was a really great tour. Beer and cheese tasting at the end. All local artisan cheeses...I finally got to try Limberger, and I actually liked it.
This was by far the BEST tour I ever been on; it was 3 hours long with one of the actual brew masters leading the tour, so he really knew his stuff. We spent most of our time in the old brewery where they still run the limited edition beers and learned a lot. Then we went over to the new brewery we spent about half an hour talking with Dan Carey (he and his wife Deb own the place) and got a real flavor for why the do things the way they do. I found out why they don't sell outside of Wisconsin: because they don't want to....they want to stay focused on Badgerland and don't want to turn into BMC. Also learned that with the exception of Spotted Cow, all of their yeast is regular commercial yeast, the regular ales use mainly 1056, which I was surprised at.
It was a really great tour. Beer and cheese tasting at the end. All local artisan cheeses...I finally got to try Limberger, and I actually liked it.
