Madison Bus Trip: Brewery Hop – Feb 24, 2018

It’s time for another Barons Bus Trip! This time, we are heading to Madison to check out some of our favorite places to our west. Mark your calendars for Saturday, February 24th. The cost is $20 per person which covers transportation only – a safe and fun way to travel between destinations. We are renting a coach bus this year. Participants will be paying for their own beer samples and food as we travel from place to place.

This trip is open to members and non-members alike. We need to have 30 people signed up in order to make this trip feasible. If we do not get enough support, we will happily refund any reservations.

Here are some details:

We are leaving the The RedZone MKE at 9:30 am and then heading to the Goerkes Corners Park & Ride to pick up the rest of our guests. We will leave the park and ride by 9:50 am. We’ll hit Madison by 11:00am and the proposed itinerary will be:

We plan to spend between 60-90 minutes at each place. We will return to the Park & Ride by 9:00pm.

Here is map of the locations:


All participants need to have a safe driver to take them home after the event.


Reserve your tickets here!

January 2018 – General Meeting: Broken Bat Brewing Company

 

This month’s general meeting we welcome Tim Pauly of Broken Bat Brewing Company.  Broken Bat opened in April of 2017 in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward.

Broken Bat’s name comes from the notion that “In baseball, when a bat breaks, it’s something unexpected.  And that’s essentially what our beer is going to be like, what the brewery is going to be: something different, unexpected.”

As always, members are encouraged to bring their latest homebrew to share with the group. Please notify me directly if you plan to bring anything served on tap.

This general meeting will be held at Cliffords Supper Club in Hales Corners, WI on Wednesday, January 24th. The meeting will start at 7:30pm, however you are welcome to stop in earlier and enjoy food that Cliffords has to offer.

December 20th – Holiday Party!!!

The holiday party is finally here!  The meeting starts early this month, 7:00pm.  Guest are welcome tonight for the standard $15 fee.  Like always, we are meeting at Cliffords Supper Club in Hales Corners.  There is no formal programming or guests tonight but we do have elections for our Board so please make sure to get there to vote.

Cliffords will be providing broasted chicken and potatoes.  Please bring a dish to pass, as long as it doesn’t require a heat source.  Tonight is the night to eat, drink, and be merry alongside your fellow Barons.  We will have some excellent beers on tap tonight also.  Hope to see you all there.

October 2017 – General Meeting: Barrel Project w/Anti-Barrel Project

This month’s general meeting will be the culmination of the Barrel Project started this time last year. 6 teams brewed 6 different beers of their own recipe and chose a barrel of their choice to age the beer.

Please join us in the sampling of these beers as each of the teams discuss their recipe, their barrel selection, the barrel condition, and the process they took to make and age the beer.

In addition to the Barrel Project, we welcome the Anti-Barrel project. A group of Barons who sought after creating the same flavor profiles of barrel aging without a barrel. They will talk about the different alternatives available, their process and their result.

Last we will also be continuing our pre-meeting beer evaluation. Starting at 7pm, if you have a beer you want to get real-time feedback, bring in a bottle or two and have several BJCP judges provide constructive criticism to help make you a better brewer.

For those of you who are new, our general meeting will be held on October 25th, begins at 7:30pm and will be in its usual location at Cliffords Supper Club located at 10418 W Forest Home Ave, Hales Corners, WI 53130.

Photo Credit: Breakingbrews.com

September 2017 – General Meeting: Mead with Colleen Bos of Bos Meadery

This month’s general meeting we welcome Colleen Bos from Bos Meadery. Colleen was a former Secretary of the American Mead Makers Association, a former medievalist and long-time homebrewer She has also attended Siebel Institute’s concise course on brewing technology and has over 12 years of experience as a project manager in research and technology fields. Bos Meadery was founded in Madison in 2012 by Colleen Bos and Peter DeVault.  The Bos Meadery Tasting Room opened in 2015.

Bos Meadery seeks to bring mead into the 21st century and introduce it to the thriving community of local foodies and craft beverage lovers in Wisconsin. Please join us as she tells us about her craft.

In addition to the Bos Mead, we will have several home brewed ciders on tap for your enjoyment.

Last we will also be continuing our pre-meeting beer evaluation. Starting at 7pm, if you have a beer you want to get real-time feedback, bring in a bottle or two and have several BJCP judges provide constructive criticism to help make you a better brewer.

For those of you who are new, our general meeting begins at 7:30pm and will be in its usual location at Cliffords Supper Club located at 10418 W Forest Home Ave, Hales Corners, WI 53130.

August 2017 – General Meeting: Malt with Abby Kanyer of Proximity Malt

This month we welcome Abby Kanyer, the Quality and R&D Coordinator of Proximity Malt located in Walkers Point. Abby will be discussing her history in the Malting industry, the malting process, and showing their progress in the commissioning of their 2 full scale production facilities located in Colorado and Delaware.

Along with Abby’s talk we have several beers brewed by fellow Barons made only out of Proximity Malt.

The Barons Officers recently held an officers meeting at the Proximity Malt location in walkers point, where VP of Operations Dave Kuske showed us around and walked us through the process on their “Mini-Works” system that is a working scale system of their full scale facilities.

We will also continue our successful pre-meeting evaluation panel of BJCP judges. Please bring a bottle for real time evaluation and feedback from some of our most experienced members.

The 2017 Summer Picnic Cometh

Our annual picnic will be on Saturday September 9th at Picnic Area 3 on the Root River Parkway (see map below) rain or shine. We kick off about noon with a food provided (burgers, brats, chicken breast, salads) along with all our drafts lines pouring homemade beers, meads and ciders. We encourage you to bring a dish to share, chairs, pop-up tents, towels, yard games or any other summer-outdoor-type-of-thing.

Bring your best beer, mead, or cider for a chance to win our ‘best beverage’ get your name etched on the Jerry Hetzel Memorial Mash Paddle. There is also a ‘food-made-with-beer’ competition for any edible you bring that includes beer/mead/cider as a recipe component. Both competitions are popular-vote style, voted on by our guests.

We will be holding our annual picnic pay-to-play giveaway again this year. We will have a lot of great things in the pay-to-play giveaway and will update this post with more details as they become available!

Get your tickets now!

Timeline: We’ll be there at 11am. Food starts around 12:30pm. Giveaway starts at 5pm.

Image: https://www.steakhouseprices.com

Great Taste of the Midwest

It’s that time of year again and if you’ve bought tickets through the Barons, the times listed below are for the pick-up locations.  The tickets will be handed out once we get to Madison so please don’t ask.  The beer lists are posted on the Great Taste website (https://greattaste.org/) and the apps are live.  Remember to drink plenty of water and make sure to eat.  This is truly one of the best in the country and we are all looking forward to another year!

The first pick up will be at the Red Zone Bar located 6247 S Howell Ave, Milwaukee, WI 53207
The bus will arrive at 9:45 and will depart at 10:00.

The second pick will be Water Town Plank Road Park and Ride Main Lot
The bus arrive at 10:15 and will depart at 10:30.

The third Stop will be I- 94 & Hwy G Park N Ride
The bus will arrive at 10:45– and depart at 11:00.

The last stop will be a quick pick and go at Hwy 26 the Pine Cone truck stop at 11:30