Thanks to the Wisconsin Brewers Guild, Saturday June 26th marked the first time ever that all the brew masters from every Wisconsin brewery in attendance at the Summer Solstice event were all together at one place. It was pretty awesome.

My high hopes for the event were, by and large, met when we got there. Like smart drinkers, we were dropped off in the center of the Bayshore Town Center so none of us drove.. I was under the impression that the grassy center was where the event would be held but the way it was laid out actually worked a little bit better. Two sections of the street through the outdoor mall were completely closed off for the tents. In the center where I thought everything would be was actually a stage with music and tents for guests to sit and relax. The music wasn’t obnoxiously loud at all either which was key. It was laid out very well, save for a few important details that could use reconsideration for future events.

1) The tents were on the east side of the road so all the brew masters, servers, and beer were in direct sunlight as the sun went down. Let not also forget that us patrons were also being fried by the blazing sun. It would have made a bit more sense to place the tents on the other side so everyone would benefit from less exposure. It should be noted that Lakefront had sun screen at their tent which came in handy (only after my girlfriend was already beet red).

2) To allow non-event patrons access through the Town Center, the road was divided in half and public property so attendees couldn’t walk from one side to the other with beer in their glasses. A minor nuisance that is completely understandable. Could it be done a bit differently? Maybe.

3) Children. Everyone loves kids (well, everyone loves their own kids anyway) but they need to go. As quoted from the website, “You must be 21 or older to attend this event. Photo identification will be required at the admission entrance.” While everyone in line did get carded, most of the people I was with, myself included, found ourselves tripping over children and trying to avoid people pushing strollers. If that wasn’t bad enough, I witnessed many couples with an infant or young child while they were drinking. Designated Driver tickets were available but I didn’t see a single person with one of the other wristbands on. Come on people, get a babysitter and leave the kid at home, lets be responsible here, it’s a BEER event, there was nothing for your child to do.

4) The lack of easily accessible bathrooms was near unacceptable. Sure, there were two mall bathrooms available but no clear signage to them. One of the first complaints I heard from the crowd, and heard often was, “Where are the port-a-potties? Where am I supposed to go to the bathroom?” Once it became common knowledge as to the whereabouts of the bathrooms like playing telephone and passing it on to the next person, it wasn’t too bad. But with the location known there was still another issue at hand. Both men’s rooms had one urinal and one toilet in them and the urinal inside the bathroom at the food court section of the mall was “out of order”. Certainly bad timing for that. Despite the grumbling among attendees and brew masters alike, the lines for the bathrooms were never out-of-control. A few port-a-johns would be absolutely necessary in the future though, especially if the crowd grows.

5) Lastly, while a moderately sizable crowd (for the location) seemed to be there (I’m still waiting on firm numbers) a major issue needs to be addressed regarding the timing of the event. Never again should this be put on at the same time as the first Saturday of Summerfest as well as Cedarburg’s Strawberry Fest. That was a major flaw of this event and hopefully it didn’t affect attendance so poorly that a follow-up event next year is out of the question.

Also, I won’t even bother arguing the price point for attendance, a complaint I heard a few times. $50 was completely reasonable for the amount of beer and unlimited food available and anyone that thinks otherwise should double-check what they spend at the bar next time. You’ll get less product for more money no question.

So, with those correctable details disclosed, lets move on to why you should have been there. With more than 100 different beers from 30 different Wisconsin breweries, there was about every style you could imagine available to try. 12 different Glendale-area restaurants provided delectable munchies that were well paired with the food and were available at the specific beer booths which made it even easier. Some specific beer highlights for me ranged from the assertive Whiteout Imperial IPA from Hinterland to the ever-awesome Bourbon Barrel Stout from Central Waters to the unusual but good Sahti, Finnish style farmhouse ale from Vintage Brewing Co. I also enjoyed classics like New Glarus’ Belgian Red, Lakefront’s refreshing Klisch pilsner, and Silver Creek’s strong Imperial Mai-bock.

While almost all the food was sample size, it was substantial and didn’t skimp on flavor. Not only that, but it like the beer availability, it was all you could consume. That certainly helped keep the drunkenness to a reasonable level as well as the buckets of water and large kegs of water brought by Sprecher. (I didn’t see anyone out of control, or anyone even close for that matter but police patrolled the area just in case.) I’ve got to say that Solly’s mini hamburgers topped with sautéed onions took the cake as I enjoyed three of the delicious little patties throughout the fest. Other pairings to note were Auntie Anne’s cinnamon-sugar sprinkled soft pretzel stick with Lakefront’s Bridge Burner and California Pizza Kitchen’s BBQ chicken pizza with Delafield Brewhaus’ Fruhlingzeit Maibock. Coa also had a nice little treat I believe was the Chicken Flautas that I may have to head to the restaurant for. Zambonie’s also made a great little steak nugget with a mushroom that was marinated in Silver Creek’s Imperial Mai-Bock.

The simplicity of a hand-edible object seemed to subconsciously drive me to some places over others despite the presence of tall tables lining the side of the road opposite the beer tents. There was both beer and food I regret not sampling due to trying to enjoy as much as I could in such a short span. Regardless, everything I tried I enjoyed. Nothing seemed out of place or poor in quality which really helped boost this event to greatness.

Aside from the tangibles like the delicious and thirst-quenching beer and tasty, filling food, the brew master interaction was spectacular! Between their presence and the fun, talkative crowd, the whole day was an absolutely blast! From the friendly people from the Wisconsin Brewers Guild at the ticket counter to Jackie and two other people at the media booth, everyone was a pleasure to talk to.

More specifically, Todd and I heard directly from the brew master at the Delafield Brewhaus that the famed Whiskey Barrel Aged Okauchee Scotchie Ale is only brewed every three years. MAN! I gotta wait that long ‘til I can finally try it? We also learned from Russ Klisch at Lakefront that they’ll be releasing a new beer called True Evel in a week or so to support an Evel Knievel exhibit at the Harley Davidson Museum [available now!]. Paul from Central Waters, who received an abundance of our attention during the event, told us that the very anticipated sour brown ale yet to be released is bourbon barrel aged as well. Based on their current line up of fantastic barrel-aged beers, the sour brown should be a must-get brew! Paul was awesome to hang out with as well! Hopefully if you went you had a chance to chat it up with him like we did (thanks Paul!).

Camaraderie didn’t stop there though, as I witnessed both Andrew and Russ from Lakefront stepping into New Glarus’ tent to help pour their beers when the lines got long as well as Russ walking the grounds sampling a few different beers. The brotherhood and respect between the different locations transcends the “rivalry” one might expect.

This event was made spectacular through all the social lubrication we consumed while meeting new people and being complete chatty Kathys! I hope that the event was seen as a success in the business-sense as I feel in any other regard it was fantastic enough to warrant a yearly return. We can only hope that the word of mouth drives more people to a possible following event to promote great beer and food awareness. For a first year not a whole lot had to be improved on. The small things that need tweaking can easily be taken care of for subsequent events to rocket them to complete greatness!

I had a blast and it seemed as if everyone else did. You know it’s been a good time when four hours fly by like it’s been nothing. If you didn’t make it out you missed a good time and will hopefully have the opportunity to attend next year.

-Andy

(Thanks to Chris from Beer Buffalo Lodge for allowing us use of his great photography and for pictures from my girlfriend Trish as well!)

I can’t keep my mouth shut any longer. I don’t like to rant on BeerFM, but this needs to be said: Wisconsin beer drinkers; step up your effin’ game! We’re getting a bad name and I’m sick of it. It seems like the only tastings or events any of the “beer advocates” or “beer geeks” go to are huge to-do’s such as Great Taste of the Midwest and Great Lakes Beer Fest. There is fantastic camaraderie between beer geeks in other states. Where is that for Wisconsin?! BeerFM just hosted an awesome night at Silver Creek a few weeks ago to release their Imperial Mai-Bock, turnout based on invites was sad but we had a great time regardless. There’s the Summer Solstice Beer Festival in Glendale, WI that’s the first ALL WISCONSIN beer festival with over 200 beers paired with same-size samples of food from the Glendale area. 1 person I know is going. Or how about the Beer Fest at Wine Cellar of Wisconsin in Brookfield in a little over a week? I’m the only person I know going.

I’m sick and tired of looking on Beer Advocate’s Wisconsin Beer Calendar to see nothing posted in the events and what’s there, next-to no one is attending. Now, what’s even worse is that I hear rumors floating around about Stone pulling out of the Wisconsin market. That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back; the spark that fueled my rage. I draw the line when a fantastic brewery, for yet unconfirmed and undisclosed reasons, will (possibly) discontinue distributing to this great state.

How could this possibly be? Maybe it’s because they just moved into Illinois and have a much better market there? Or maybe they realized they make no money here because the Joe-Wisconsin-beer-drinkers are too busy drinking ONLY Bud, Miller, and Coors shit!

Come on people. If you advocate craft beer, a) don’t by macro; spend your hard-earned money on GOOD CRAFT BREWED beer, and b) when you know friends that claim to “love beer” and their response to, “what’s your favorite beer?” is “Miller Lite” you should be doing everything in your power to enlighten them to a world beyond the bullshit they call “beer”. I’m not saying these beers don’t have a place in the world, but they certainly shouldn’t command such a disgustingly large percent of  market when there are much, much better offerings available! Wisconsin is known as one of the “drunkest” states based on population and alcohol consumption, but sadly, it isn’t off the type of beer that should be consumed; craft beer. Instead, the majority of sales are from a style that’s a bastardization of what real beer is, only to make the process cheaper and pump out more of it.

When will the Wisconsin beer advocates join the good fight to slay this preconceived notion that everyone here only drinks Miller Lite and finally show people there are people here, in this great state, that love good beer for the flavor, not necessarily for the effect? And more importantly, fight to show other people what flavorful beer can be? Next time you’re out picking up beer, pick up some local beer like Lakefront. Pick up some New Glarus. Hell, pick up some Stone and show support for a great brewery that might not be distributed to this state after summer because we’re too busy drinking beer-flavored water.

-Andy

In the last homebrew article, Getting Ready to Grow Your Own Hops, I explained the process of choosing a location to grow your hops, select your hops, and purchase the rhizomes for planting. Now I’ll walk you through the steps of planting and maintaining your new hops so plan to get dirty! (I apologize this article is appearing so late in the growing season. Hops should have been planted already to achieve maximum growth although they can still be planted now if you’d like.)

Before you dig your hands into the dirt you’ll need a few things to make the process go faster so I’ve created a nice easy checklist.

-Plant food with nitrogen (I used 1 lb. for each plant of Espoma Organic Traditions All Natural Organic Garden Manure)

-Chicken wire for fencing, preferably plastic or rubber coated not bare metal (minimize rust). 48 inches by 12 inches per rhizome/plant, I’ll explain this later on.
-A large spool of twine or string for the hops bines (commonly called vines) to grow on. (Last year I used a 300 foot spool which was more than enough. This year I used something a little less archaic than messy twine.)
-Plastic or rubber coated metal screw hooks (I screwed them right into the side of the house. If you don’t want to do it that way, you may want to look into building a tall trellis.)

The plant food/manure/compost will go inside the hole below the rhizome to feed it while it grows. I used the Espoma Organic Traditions in the hole and later on put Scott’s Bone Meal around the plants on the surface. You’ll want to keep nitrogen in the ground for the growth of the hops which is one of the main reasons for the compost.

If you’ve got nice soil you won’t really have to worry about tilling it. I just “tilled” with a shovel in the areas I was planting in. Dig each hole about 12 inches down and 8 to 10 feet wide. If you’re planting multiple hops dig holes of the same variety 3 feet apart. If the plants are different dig the holes 5 feet apart. This is so that the plants don’t grow together. Pile in some of the compost or plant food, about an inch or two will be fine. Fill the rest of the hole back in with soil leaving about two inches of room from the surface. This is where you’ll plant the rhizome. Make sure that any rootlets coming off the rhizome are facing downwards. Fill the hole back in with soil and lightly tamp it down then finish by covering the top with a light hand of mulch. Now you’ve got your rhizome planted. Mark it’s location with a plant marker or small stake. Try not to actually mark the rhizome though. Water the spot but take care not to create standing water. If drainage is a concern the rhizome can be raised up higher and planted in a little hill.

Now that you’ve got your rhizomes planted in the ground (hopefully you marked where they are) I’m going to explain what you’ll be doing with the chicken wire.

Hops are perennials which means once you plan them they come back year after year. In the spring when they start to grow, animals like rabbits like to eat the young shoots, so this chicken wire will be used to make small circular fences around your precious hops.
If this isn’t a worry for you, you can skip this step, however with the way I set up my twine for the hops to grow on, the fences are an absolutely necessary integration.

With that said, take your spool of chicken wire and cut it into 48″ by 12-15″ strips. If you cut close to the far edge it’ll leave individual piece of wire sticking out (careful, they’ll be sharp). You can use these as fasteners to hold the ends together. Bend all of them to create little hooks but don’t clasp them together yet. Curl the chicken wire so it creates a circle. Join the two sides using the bent ends and clasp them all the way down. Now you’ve got s small little fence to keep critters from eating the young shoots as they emerge from the ground. Take these fences and place them on the ground so that your marked hop is directly in the center. I buried the fence to keep it stable for reasons that will be come clearer later. To do this I turned it in a circular pattern back and fourth to create a groove in the soil. Once that groove was created I removed the chicken wire and dug a circle trench for about an inch of the chicken wire to drop in to. Place the fence in this trench and fill it back in so that the fence is buried and stable in the ground. Now you’ve got your hops planted and a fence to protect them.

The last step is to string up the twine for the hop bines to grow on, and grow they will! The height that they’ll be able to grow depends on your own situation so I’ll just describe how I managed my hops. I picked a height based on how much I thought they’d grow from what I read. No matter what you think, they’ll grow taller than you guesstimate. I found that out the hard way and extended my twine twice last year. I didn’t make the same mistake again this year. I put hooks about 22 feet up on the side of the house (which is still going to be short, but necessary for me this year). I looped and tied one side of the string to the right side of the small fence and climbed the ladder with the spool. At the top I looped the string around the hook a few times and dropped the spool to the other side. At the bottom I looped and tied it to the left side of the fence repeating the process with each plant making sure they’re nice and tight.

This will provide enough for the hops to climb on. The hop bines, commonly called vines, have tiny little hooks that grow from the stem and allow it to attach itself to objects as it climbs. As the hop bines begin to grow they will need to be trained to grow up the string or twine. It’s easily accomplished by wrapping them loosely in a clockwise pattern (looking down on the hops) once they are long enough to do so. It may take a week or so until they fully behave in this manner, but they’ll follow the sun across the sky and curl themselves up the twine on their own.

Now all that’s left to do is constantly water the hops to keep them healthy. My first year I watered my hops twice daily, once in the morning and once after work. Remember though that watering plants in sunlight shouldn’t be done as the water intensifies the sun’s rays and damages the plant. Instead, make sure to pour the water at the base of the plant avoiding saturating the greenery of the plant itself and make sure not to have standing water.

The only other thing to watch out for during the growth of hops is something I encountered during my first year; non-human hop-heads. In areas that hops typically don’t grow you’ll be less likely to encounter pests like spider mites, Japanese beetles, and aphids. These bugs like to feed on the leaves of the hop bines. This will be clear if you start to notice holes in the leaves or chewed edges of the leaves. Since we’ll be brewing with the hop cones (once they’re produced) we’ll want to use low-toxicity measures of dealing with the pests. I took care of my problem by buying a house-hold spray bottle which I filled with a mild dilution of insecticidal soap and sprayed all over my hops. This should cover the leaves on top and bottom to rid the pests. Just keep an eye on them from there out.

I’ll continue this article after the summer solstice when the hop plants switch their energy from growing and establishing the plant and foliage to producing the actual hop cones, which are actual flowers, that we’ll eventually be using for brewing!

Hoppy planting, and as always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me at andy@beerfm.com or research further in the areas I listed in the last homebrewing article Getting Ready to Grown Your Own Hops regarding hop growing!

-Andy