If you’ve seen the recent BeerFM promotions, Ray’s has begun their monthly beer tastings in their new tasting and education room. I was able to attend the first one on July 1st which featured Lakefront Brewery president Russ Klisch, no stranger to me. Despite the fact we talk on a consistent basis, I always learn something new from him. This Ray’s event was no different.
We entered the room and people began to flood in shortly after. Each chair at every table had a Lakefront placemat with six four ounce plastic cups on it, all numbered on the printed paper. Russ then walked around putting three different types of malts on each table. No stranger to homebrewing, I recognized them as Pale, Caramel, and a variety of Chocolate malt. The session begun with a quick overview of Lakefront and Russ which moved into the tasting portion. Starting with Lakefront’s White, a Belgian-style Witbier. From there we moved to the Klisch Pilsner, Local Acre, Fixed Gear and Bridge Burner side-by-side, the brand new True Evel, and finished with a surprise tasting of Rosie, their newly released sour beer.
Each beer was accompanied by a little blurb on the style as well as Lakefront’s/ Russ’ take on it. Some of my favorite parts of the tasting included news from Russ that Lakefront will be expanding their Brettanomyces/ aged beer offering as well as adding a beer series titled “My Turn” to their line up.
My Turn will feature a beer from each full-time employee at the brewery (around 19 or so). They’ll have complete control over the whole batch, making it exactly like they want. These beers will be on a three-month rotation so new ones will be available pretty regularly. Russ also stated that he’s in the works of trying to round up every brewery in Wisconsin to brew a wet-hopped beer that will all be released on the exact same day. It seems to be in early stages so far but he seemed very optimistic about it.
Lastly, the thing I found most interesting is that while Russ talked about Local Acre, their Imperial Pilsner beer brewed with all-Wisconsin ingredients, he talked about the hop farms in Wisconsin. Apparently, in the 1800s Sauk County was the highest hop producing county in America! Right now Lakefront gets hops from both Mazomanie, located by Madison and Hortonville, up by Green Bay.
All-in-all it was an incredibly informational session with lots to learn for the new beer lover up to the experienced homebrewer. I enjoyed this event thoroughly and talking to Russ is always a pleasure, as well as event organizer John who I must thank for the event.
If it sounds like something up your alley, Ray’s will be hosting Stone Brewing Company on Wednesday, July 28th. I’m excited for that and I hope to see you there!