Robin Shepard
A series of beers in cans from 608 Brewing with a glass of beer on far right.
608 is clearly having fun naming its beers.
Beers from 608 Brewing Company of La Crosse are creating a lot of buzz in Madison lately. The brewery has been producing beer since 2018, however it’s been hard to find outside of La Crosse until this year. Brewery owner Phil Humphrey self-distributes and makes a trip to Madison about once a month. “The Madison market gravitates to our IPAs,” says Humphrey. The company’s best seller is Citranado, a citrus-hop hazy IPA that finishes at 7.2% ABV ($17-$19/four-pack). This is a bold and juicy IPA, packed with more tropical flavor than many other hazies.
608’s other beers change with every delivery to Madison and are mostly one-offs. The likely suspects for regular drops of 608 beers include BarleyPop Tap & Shop, Jenifer Street Market and Harley’s Liquor and Bait.
Among those to watch for right now include Typhoon IPA, featuring Mosaic and Citra hops ($20-$23/four-pack), and Googly Eyes sour IPA ($22-$25/four-pack). The brewery celebrates its fifth anniversary in August. To mark the milestone, it will release Five, a twist on a pastry stout, aged for 18-24 months in three different types of bourbon barrels. Once the beer is finished aging, it is run through a hopback filled with the brewery’s birthday cake. The hopback works like a reverse filter and infuses cake flavor into the beer. Watch for Five in Madison during early August in a few Great Taste of The Midwest pre-parties.
Heavy hitter
Calling it “the most outside-the-box beer we’ve brewed,” Full Mile Beer Company and Kitchen just released Palace of Gold. The beer has been a long-term project for the Sun Prairie brewpub. This Belgian golden strong was brewed in early 2022. Some of the beer was held back and aged for more than 14 months in sauvignon blanc wine barrels with Brettanomyces. Ultimately there’s a Belgian floral yeastiness, then the sharp wild acidic tartness of the Brett with hints of lemon and pear. The beer also gets a subtle white wine sweetness from its time in the barrel. The beer finishes at 10.4% ABV ($8/12-ounce glass, $16 for two 16-ounce crowlers). Palace of Gold is well described by brewer Bill Morgan as a beer to contemplate its layers of flavor while slowly sipping.
A peach of a peach
After test marketing last summer in Wisconsin and several Midwestern states The Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company is releasing its Juicy Peach nationally. This golden-colored ale has a tart-sour background, balanced by subtle notes of peach that emerge in the flavor and especially its aroma. It’s good for beer drinkers looking for tartness but not acidity, while also appealing to those who enjoy juicy fruit sweetness. It doesn’t go too far either way, and because it’s only 4.4% ABV, it’s good for a hot day in summer.
Leinenkugel's president Tony Bugher took over the company after his uncle, Dick Leinenkugel, retired in 2022. He says he’s not shy about chasing the current interest in light, fruited sours: “Peach is a major trend; it’s a hot flavor right now.”
Information Resources Incorporated, which supplies industry marketing data to companies like Leinenkugel’s, ranked the beer as the number one new craft beer in the Midwest, and number four nationally in 2022.
Juicy Peach will become a year-round beer for Leinenkugel’s ($9/six-packs and $15/12-packs). It is brewed at the original Leinenkugel Brewery in Chippewa Falls. Together with Leinie’s Summer Shandy, the pair make up the largest part of Leinenkugel’s portfolio. Summer Shandy alone is the company’s largest seller, accounting for over half of its sales.
Later this fall Leinie’s will re-introduce its Red Lager. Last year the brewery tweaked the recipe using its small seven-barrel pilot brewhouse that is part of the Leinie Lodge Visitor Center in Chippewa Falls. With a new name and label, “Remastered Red” is now dry-hopped with Mount Hood, Cluster and Cascade to provide more hop aroma. Watch for it to appear later this fall.
