Kyle Nabilcy
Some weekends just have a little bit of everything. The weekends where there’s nothing going on and you might not get out of your PJ’s before 3:30 p.m., if at all — do not dare judge me —
are great sometimes. Other times, the hours whistle by with barely a moment to appreciate them, and by Sunday night, you can barely remember where you live.
The weekends that have lazy-ass lounging and bursts of “keep all hands and feet inside until the ride has come to a complete stop” action, though? Those are something special.
I’ve been listening to a lot of sports radio lately, so the idea of taking a whole weekday to catch up on the weekend in small, easily digestible bites appeals to me right now. Here are my takes, none of them particularly hot, on the weekend in beer that was.
Central Waters Anniversary Party/Scrum
This was obviously the Big Thing for the Wisconsin beer scene. Central Waters’ 20th-anniversary bottle release was accompanied by a big blow-out of a party at the barrel warehouse in Amherst, and it was about as raucous as I’ve seen it. The line, if it could be called a line, for the timed taps was not the paragon of good spatial engineering that it could have been. As a result, the crowd waiting for vanilla, blackberry, boysenberry and maple barrel-aged stouts was more akin to the battlefield crush of Game of Thrones’ “Battle of the Bastards” than a beer line. The beard count was about the same.
Those stout variants — perhaps a preview of what’s to come for 2019’s anniversary bottle lineup? — proved highly contentious among those who sampled them. I thought the Blackberry, Maple, and Vanilla Stouts (all bourbon barrel-aged) were all good-to-great. The Rum Barrel-aged Boysenberry Stout was challenging at first, but warmed up nicely over a half hour of nursing it. Others have been less charitable in their online commentaries; see Beer Advocate and Untappd. I think the experience of the pour line might have ruined some beers for more than a few folks.
The Showboat Experience
It’s well-known among anyone who has talked with me about central Wisconsin for more than a minute: I will wax rhapsodic about the Showboat Saloon in Wisconsin Dells. For two years running, a group of my friends and I have gathered there post-Central Waters to decompress and enjoy a big ol’ burger or a plate of nachos. Last year we even shared a bottle of Nineteen with our bartender. Showboat is its own little ball of weird reality, but a friendly one.
This time around, our group was approached by a couple of young women in red plaid flannel shirts asking if anyone at our table was named Kyle. An odd question, but I thought, “Did they see a checkin from me on Untappd already?” No, it was sheer dumb luck, a bachelorette party scavenger hunt task that happened to strike paydirt. I put on my dopiest grin for the proof-of-Kyle photo with the bride-to-be (wearing white plaid flannel, adorably) and they went on their merry way. Also noteworthy: Showboat no longer houses the kind of morbid catch-your-own-dinner lobster tank it once did, which pleases me greatly.
Dispatches from the Corn
Some Iowa beers came my way in the trunk of a good buddy who lives down that way now, as he was fortunate enough to acquire a Central Waters ticket too. I now have a Double Hop Skewer imperial IPA from Barn Town Brewing in West Des Moines, a triple IPA called Buster from Big Grove Brewery in Iowa City, and Aurox, a big barrel-aged maple stout from Alluvial Brewing in Ames to crack into.
Of course, my guy brings his good stuff over from Iowa, and we unload the Wisconsin treats on him in return. One such beer, maybe the first true Madison whale, was the Barrel-Aged Hazelnut Imperial Stout from Untitled Art. I kind of hate to bring it up here, because it was a one per person release from a month and a half ago, and if you don’t already have a bottle you’re not likely to get one, but I just have to say: it was incredible. On the same day, we opened the last of our Three Floyds Dark Lord variants from the 2015 Dark Lord Day that my friend, my wife, and I attended together, and if you ask me, the BA Hazelnut was the clear winner. Make a mental note to prioritize any future Untitled Art barrel drops, do it now.
Sometimes You Beat the Bear, and Sometimes He Beats You
2017’s last loose end to tie up was finally knotted on Sunday, as I made my way to Chicagoland to pay off my baseball bet with Tribune beer writer Josh Noel. The final build on the custom sixer was: New Glarus Wild Sour (a vintage beer just for a little value add), New Glarus Hometown Blonde, The Brewing Projekt’s Wet-Hopped Dare Mighty Things (slightly less than fresh but still tasty), 3 Sheeps’ The Wolf, Untitled Art Hazelnut Imperial Stout and Central Waters Cassian Sunset.
In a move I can only describe as Wisconsin nice, Josh didn’t let me leave Illinois without some swag of my own: a couple Revolution Deep Wood series cans, plus the bottle of Pollyanna’s Toasted Marshmallow Fun Size milk stout he opened to share. That’s the kind of bet I’ll make every time: the kind that lets everyone leave a winner.