Wednesday, June 16, 2010

8 great beer meccas are within a day's drive of Milwaukee

Wisconsin has a long-time reputation of being "Beer Central". Now Lucy "Beer Cook" Saunders has put together a guide to visiting Wisconsin's centers of beer.




Just as Napa and Sonoma offer wine tours, we have our beer meccas.



Did you know that Wisconsin is home to more than 70 brewing companies and brewpubs? Some 20 of them will be pouring at the first-ever Wisconsin Brewers Guild festival - the Summer Solstice - at Bayshore Town Center in Glendale on June 26 (www.welcometoglendale.com).



Better still, it's fun to visit the breweries, cafés and taverns that celebrate craft and imported specialty ales. To explore the places that put pints on the state map, here are eight beer meccas within a day's drive of Milwaukee (view on an interactive map here).




Lucy goes on to list destinations in these areas:




  • Milwaukee

  • Lake Mills

  • Madison and New Glarus

  • Mineral Point

  • Chippewa Falls, Dallas and Downsville

  • Ashland and Bayfield

  • Stevens Point and Wausau

  • Amherst and Waupaca



Good destinations all, even though Green Bay and Appleton are conspicuously absent. Still, I encourage you to visit the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and start planning your trip.

1 comment:

Lucybeercook said...

Thanks for including the link, Rich!

(thwacka, thwacka, the sound of my head pounding on the keyboard - there are 70+ breweries in WI and I had 1,000 words alloted - impossible to cover everyone's favorites - including mine - at that rate ;)