I recently spent four blissful days touring southern Wisconsin on Victory motorcycles with a couple of good friends, Darrick Anderson and Alyn Silberstein. We spent the evenings of said tour checking out the area's craft breweries, which range from the German precision of New Glarus Brewing Company to the old school genius of Sand Creek Brewing Company in Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
One of the high points of the trip came while visiting Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. We stopped in to see Russ and Jim Klisch, the founders and generals of the place. They were happy to talk with us and to make a little time to take some photographs. But their time was limited--a famous bar in Milwaukee was closing, and they didn't want to miss the event. Those are the kind of priorities we respect, so we set up lighting equipment near their uber-cool old school German brewing kettle and made haste with the photographs.
Once the photos were complete, Russ and Jim needed to split. On the way out, they asked us if we wanted to try their beers. Silly question. Yes, of course!
They pointed us to the taps in their bar, suggested we taste all we like, and tell the maintenance to guy to lock up after we leave. Then they left. We had the place to ourselves.
I shot photos of the brewery while Darrick and Al set up the tasting in the cavernous bar. When I came back from shooting, they told me there was a problem.
"Lakefront makes 15 beers," Darrick said. He had all of them lined up on the bar.
We did the right thing. We tasted them all. You'll have to wait for the article for the results of our beer shootout, but we can tell you this: Lakefront's beers are incredible!
(Note: We parked the bikes at the Iron Horse Hotel and bummed rides from the local tourism rep for our brewery tour!)
Watch for the write-up of our entire adventure in the June issue of Motorcycle Cruiser.
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