Kyle Nabilcy
If you’re anything like me, your head is spinning after the last 10 days or so, and I hope not because of overconsumption. No, if you’re anything like me, you grabbed onto the reins of Madison Craft Beer Week, and you held on for dear life.
I like sour, wild, tart, funky beers. If I have a jam, this very loose style category is it. But on Saturday, April 30, I went from pale and malty Karben4 small-batch releases at the Tipsy Cow to massive barrel-aged Against the Grain stouts at Field Table before I ever got to my beloved sours at Blue Moon and the Malt House.
While the headliner at Field Table might have been the smoky Bo and Luke, jaws at the bar and on social media really dropped at 70k, a barrel-aged imperial version of Against the Grain’s regular 35k milk stout. And once people find out about Field Table’s cheese-filled pretzel/croissant hybrid (called a cretzel, natch), they’re going to be pretty happy.
Against the Grain might not be the first brewer you’d think of for scheduling a tap takeover. Same is true with brewers like Alaskan and Great Lakes. They’re not the flashiest brewers on the scene. But Jordan’s Big Ten Pub proved that a good get is a good get, and the crowd at the bar was the evidence.
It was May the Fourth, so an event highlighting the “dark side” was a natural choice. The Imperial March (you might know it as Darth Vader’s Theme) was playing on the sound system, interspersed with a lot of David Bowie. Some guys standing behind me had clearly read the Craft Beer Week event guide, expressing excitement at the Great Lakes Barrel-Aged Blackout Stout being one of only two kegs in the state.
I enjoyed some very necessary cheese curds between pours of the Blackout and Alaskan’s complex Perseverance Ale, a 2011 one-off beer celebrating the brewery’s 25th anniversary. The Big Ten Pub landing this one is cool, an unexpected treat even with the bar’s craft beer focus. A five-year-old Russian imperial stout — the only keg in the state — made with birch syrup, honey and smoked malt, is a big deal anywhere.
Surly’s re-brew of Two, its anniversary beer from 2008, was on my radar from the start. As I did at the Big Ten Pub on Wednesday, I cast aside all other post-work responsibilities on Friday, May 6, and drove directly to the Coopers Tavern, claimed a couple seats at the bar for my wife and me, and settled in with my victory pour. Two is lightly tartened by the addition of cranberry, with an astringency that mirrors that of the darkly roasted malt.
On Twitter that night, I posted that it was Madison’s first 80-degree day of the season, and the weather, combined with Craft Beer Week and Gallery Night, made for a truly celebratory atmosphere around town. (It was actually the second 80-degree day, but who’s counting?) My wife and I walked from the Coopers to the Old Fashioned, where we shared a warm, gooey, delicious brick of bread pudding made from Greenbush old-fashioned doughnuts and Central Waters’ Bourbon Barrel Stout, before walking to MMoCA for a friend’s gallery exhibit. It was glorious.
But sours are my jam, and as wonderful as the week prior had been, Saturday, May 7, was a red-letter day on my Craft Beer Week calendar. Funk Factory Geuzeria, still not quite open for day-to-day drinkin’, opened its doors for a one-day party with O’so, 3rd Sign and the Underground Food Collective food truck. There were a lot of beards, a goodly number of millennials, and enough beer diversity under one tent to please even some wine drinkers in attendance.
Levi Funk was in the crowd, checking in on his fans and sharing his perspective on the day’s beers. He released a few cases of 43N 89W, a brandy-barrel-aged lambic homage to Cantillon’s classic 50N 4E, from his stockpile just for the occasion. His forthcoming Tradeship, which will be available in a handful of variants later this year, tapped out in about five minutes. A joyous, refreshing prickly pear version of O’so’s Infectious Groove Berliner weisse lasted much longer but was no less enjoyable. And the Underground double cheeseburger was a thing of beauty, no joke.
That’s what I love about Madison Craft Beer Week. From the Malt House bartenders putting all their muscle into each pour from the beer engine to a surprise drop of Cherry Lambic bottles at Star Liquor via the Upland reps in town, from Next Door’s relaxed Mutha Pucka bottle release to the marathon cattle drive that is Great Taste Ticket Day, Craft Beer Week has it all.
You didn’t have to like only one kind of beer to participate, and you didn’t even need to leave a single neighborhood if you didn’t want to. You might have had conversations with brewers and representatives, or you might have just taken a seat at the bar. This is an event for beer people, period.