Hugh and Jim at the 2012 Great Taste of the Midwest

by Jim Vondracek on 08/13/12

Hugh, me and six thousand other enthusiasts attended the 2012 Great Taste of the Midwest, one of the largest beer festivals in the country.  It was held in Madison, Wisconsin.  We stayed in a hotel across the street from the Wisconsin capital, within walking distance of the festival, which was held in a city park.

Although the festival opened at 1 pm on Saturday, we and many others started lining up early.

We used the opportunity to study up with the guidebook for the festival.  There were over one hundred breweries and brewpubs at the festivals.  

One of our favorite tents was the Real Ale tent.  If you aren't familiar with real ale or cask ale, its worth reading about here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ale#Real_ale 

There were so many interesting and remarkably fresh beers in the real ale tent.  A really memorable cask ale for me was from Toppling Goliath, an Iowa brewery that describes itself as a "stealth brewery, flying under the radar", whatever that means.  But their real ale, a double dry-hopped American IPA was mouthwateringly fresh, I could smell the hops from ten feet away when the server poured the beer.  Remarkable!

The setting for the festival was beautiful and it was a lovely day.  It was in a city park on Lake Monona.  We could not have asked for a more beautiful day.  

Hugh, having spent the previous 2 1/2 months in Turkey, was enjoying eating pork again.  This was bacon on a stick.  

We set our chairs up in a shaded area, walked around trying various beers (2 ounce taster portions, and I usually ended up only trying 1 ounce or so) and then came back to our chairs, and the happy surprise that is the Jim James and The Damn Shames band.  Take a listen, they are great fun.  

Hugh had a great time at a special tent that Chicago's own Goose Island had set up for their Bourbon County Stout.  BCT is a blended beer - it comes from different casks and is blended by the brewers.  

They shared with us four varieties of BCS, highlighting bourbon, vanilla, chocolate or vanilla flavors.  After a brief talk, we were then given the opportunity to blend our own version of BCS, using those four samples.  Mine emphasized the vanilla flavors and was delicious!   

Hugh tasting his personal blend of Bourbon County Stout.  We also tried a special tapping of Bourbon County Stout that had been aged in a barrel that had aged Manhattan cocktails in it previously - it was quite delicious (and blended by experts). 

We sampled far too many beers, meads and ciders to list them all.  At the risk of leaving off some excellent examples, here are a few that stood out for me:

Aeppeltroew Winery's Perry (a pear cider)

Ale Asylum's Hopalicious

Atlas Brewing's 1871 Smoked Porter

 B. Nektar Meadery's Vanilla Cinnamon Mead

Blind Pig Brewery's Saison La Sorciere

Buffalo Brewing Company's Chili beer

Dave's Brewfarm's Citra Single Hop Lager and Eye. Pea. Eh?

Dragonmead Brewery's Under the Kilt Wee Heavy

Finch's Beer Co's Toasted Summer Kolsch

Free State Brewing's Oak Aged Cow Tipping Stout

Goose Island's Gran Gas (a spruce tips, Scandinavian inspired beer) and a Bourbon County Manhattan Stout 

Haymarket's Indigent (an imperial stout aged in Templeton Rye barrels)

Well, you get the idea.  If you'd like to see the whole program, with all the breweries and the beers they brought, follow this link.

If you went to the Great Taste of the Midwest and want to highlight a beer or two, do so in the comments below!