As one of Wisconsin’s premier Beer Festivals, it’s no wonder the Great Lakes Brew Fest is on it’s seventh year! And this year marks a special change in the GLBF. This year will feature two days of GLBF rather than one!

Friday kicks off the fest with a celebration of Milwaukee Beer Week and features only Wisconsin Brewers. 35 of them to be exact. With more than 100 brews and food available to purchase, it’ll be a beautiful time watching a fireworks display over Lake Michigan. After that you may want to get your Gatorade and sleep on cause Saturday features even more beer-y goodness.

More than 90 American craft brewers will be serving up more than 250 different beers, food available for purchase, and Reggae and Ska music to compliment this years’ theme: Dreadlocks -N- Hops.  Come in your dreadlocks and tie-dye to have a chance at winning a prize for being the best dressed! Saturday also features Homebrew Island, a special section of GLBF dedicated to homebrew clubs featuring their own concoctions.

A word to the wise though; tickets go fast. It’s been sold out the last 4 years running AND the hotels are booked solid months in advance. I’ve already saved mine; the Radisson within walking distance. A very short walking distance. I suggest you do the same!

For more information on this event visit the Great Lakes Brew Fest website.

How would you like an all-Wisconsin craft beer event? Well, southeast Wisconsin has one for you coming up pretty soon! The City of Glendale, in partnership with the Wisconsin Brewer’s Guild, will host the first Wisconsin Summer Solstice Beer Lovers Festival on Saturday, June 26, 2010 from 1 – 5 p.m. (rain or shine!) at the Bayshore Town Center (Bayshore Mall more-or-less). This is the first beer festival in Wisconsin to be all-Wisconsin breweries. 28 different breweries to be exact, and all 28 will have their brew masters there to answer any question you may have!

Admission is $50 a person or $90 for two tickets which includes a souvenir tasting glass and unlimited sampling of more than 100 different beers. This would be a good point to also share that a discounted ticket for designated drivers will be available for $20. This ticket includes Sprecher root beer, the same sampling glass, and all the complimentary food that’s included in the normal ticket price.

Sure, there will be plenty of beer here, but what about food? We’ll that’ll be covered too! Glendale is host to plenty of fantastic restaurants, many of which will feature specially prepared cuisine to compliment more than 20 different Wisconsin craft beers at the Summer Solstice Fest. A few of the different places to offer food are Auntie Anne’s, COA, Bd’s Mongolian Grill, Devon Seafood Grill, California Pizza Kitchen, Bar Louie, Ovations, Bravo!, Solly’s Grille, Anchorage, Zambonie’s, and the Bavarian Inn.

This event will certainly be an afternoon to remember! I’m personally excited to meet with all the brew masters and sample delicious food designed to pair with some tasty beer. Well worth the ticket price, you get to keep the sampling glass that will hold all the beer you can drink and your meal is covered. Where else can you get a deal like that?

Come on out Saturday June 26^th from 1 – 5 P.M. and join me at the Bayshore Town Center directly east of I-43 on Port Washington Road and Silver Spring Road for some great conversation over some great Wisconsin beers!

For more information on the fest visit the links here:

Welcome to Glendale
Summer Solstice Fest on Facebook
Wisconsin Brewer’s Guild (Purchase tickets HERE)

Also, look for an article following the event that will sum up the event. I have high hopes that I’m sure won’t be let down! Cheers!

-Andy

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

“Chameleon Brewing, dedicated to creating innovative craft beers true to the American spirit, is a new brewery started by Randy Sprecher, founder of Sprecher Brewery. Crafted to please and tease a wide variety of palates, Chameleon beers are light in body, yet full of complex flavors and aromas.”

Chameleon Brewing is hosting a release party for their beers, Hop On Top, Fire Light, and Witty tomorrow, April 28th, at Bayshore Mall in Glendale, WI from 5:30-8:30. Here is what they have to say on their website calendar:

“Come join us for complimentary beer and food samples as we celebrate the launch of Chameleon Brewing! The event will be held at the rotunda, next to Bar Louie, at Bayshore Mall.”

You can find there website here: http://chameleonbrewing.com/index.php

I’ll be there for a short time with my cousin to sample Chameleon’s beers and hopefully score some to review for a BeerFM podcast.

Hope to see you there!

-Andy