Robin Shepard
From the farm to your porch: Rookery’s Urban Farmer.
These days, small breweries benefit from a style identity. “Our thing is beers like saisons and grisettes,” says Kiel McGuinness of Wauwatosa’s Rookery Brewery Co. He and his wife, Ashley, carved out a niche among Wisconsin breweries primarily with these and other farmhouse ales. While the brewery does produce IPAs and stouts, for the most part they brew Belgian-inspired beers based on wild fermentation techniques, barrel-aging and blending in fruits from their own small orchard.
Rookery, founded in 2019, was starting up just as COVID-19 took hold. COVID strictures and supply chain issues were especially tough for small start-ups like Rookery that didn’t have existing contracts for ingredients and packaging. Initially Rookery’s beers were made using a one-barrel pilot brewing system at MobCraft and sold at pop-up events and tap takeovers around Milwaukee.
By July 2022, Rookery had enough of a following to merit the purchase of its own four-barrel brewing system (set up within the MobCraft production brewhouse), giving flexibility to brew and package on a regular schedule. That’s allowed Rookery to distribute to Madison; throughout the summer its beers have been available at such specialty beer purveyors as BarleyPop Tap and Shop and Longtable Beer Cafe in Middleton.
Among Rookery’s bestsellers is Urban Farmer, made with a blend of saison yeast strains combined with Brettanomyces, resulting in subtle earthy and musty notes, tartness, and a light, spicy dry finish ($14/4-pack). Others include Dart Frog, a farmhouse ale fermented with strawberries and a blend of honeydew, cantaloupe and canary melons. It’s effervescent and reddish-pink from the strawberries, and the sweetness of the fruit balances some of the tartness of the wild yeast. It’s become one of my favorites among late summer beers. It finishes at 5.7% ABV and is packaged in 375 mL bottles ($12).
Most of Rookery’s fall releases will be in four-packs of 12-ounce cans ($14). Forthcoming are Fruit Bat, a cherry-apricot saison; Avocet, a rye-raspberry farmhouse ale; and Amburana, a dark saison aged with amburana (a hardwood native to Brazil) wood chips. Amburana is especially attractive for aging spirits like whiskey.
The couple’s backyard orchard, about a dozen trees, produces peaches, apples, cherries and plums, along with raspberries, blackberries and currants. Those fruits appear in numerous Rookery beers including the annual Micro Orchard farmhouse ale ($15/four-pack of 12-ounce cans). Each year the aged beer features a different blend of fruits based on the previous year’s harvest. (They also grow hops, which are used in Micro Orchard.) The 2023 batch’s strong peach and pear character blended nicely with the wild tartness of Brettanomyces and the touch of woodiness from its 18 months in Elijah Craig bourbon barrels. Micro Orchard is fruity and mildly acidic, and approachable for most palates. If you see any left from this year, grab it.
The couple’s goal is to one day have a taproom in Wauwatosa or the greater Milwaukee area and to expand to a larger farm brewery and orchard on the outskirts of Milwaukee.
Three more saisons
While saisons are typically more available in late spring, they’re just as good on the opposite end of summer, and that’s the philosophy right now at the Great Dane Pub. The brewery is releasing three versions. Classic saison was tapped at the end of August, and will be followed by Saison de Mélange in early September and a rye saison by October.
The classic version follows European brewing tradition using Belgian malts and German Hallertau Mittelfrűh hops; it’s full of floral, earthy yeastiness, with a crisp, dry, spicy finish. That’s all most evident when you’re drinking a freshly tapped glass.
Saison de Mélange is a hoppy take on the style with Chinook, Falconer’s Flight and Mandarina Bavaria hops. The combo creates pine, lemon, grapefruit, orange and tangerine notes. The rye saison uses German rye malt that amplifies the spicy, peppery dryness of the saison yeast. They all finish around 7.5% ABV and sell for $8/glass.
