Wisconsin's Finest - Part 1?

Every day we are peppered with advertisements for just about everything that you can think of; cars, movies, and clothes just to name a few. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it), the microbreweries that I want to talk about today won't be found peddling their beers during Monday Night Football or Dancing with the Stars, the cost of one of those TV spots would likely blow their entire advertising budget for the year. Instead, they rely on beer festivals, word of mouth, and maybe a print ad or two in the right magazine.

Microbreweries
- A brewery that produces less than 15,000 barrels of beer per year with 75% or more of its beer sold off-site.

Central Waters Brewing Company - Amherst, WI

Central Waters was founded in 1998 in Junction City, WI. Two friends, Mike McElwain and Jerome Ebel started the company in a vacated building that they had spent two years remodeling. They initially produced their personal homebrewing recipes, including Ouisconsing Red Ale, Happy Heron Pale Ale, and Mudpuppy Porter. Eventually Mike and Jerome sold Central Waters to their brewer Paul Graham and Clint Schultz. These two oversaw the expansion of both the production and lineup of beers produced by Central Waters. In 2007, Central Waters moved to a new facility in Amherst, which allowed for even greater expansion in their production. In 2012, the brewery will produce approximately 10,000 barrels of beers, which means within a few years we likely won't be able to call them a microbrewery any longer.

Central Waters currently produces 18 different beers, which includes seven year-round offerings and 11 seasonal beers.

My favorite Central Waters beer: Ouisconsing Red Ale

Official Website 

Lake Louie Brewing - Arena, WI

Lake Louie is the smallest of these three breweries I'll talk about today with a production of just over 4,000 barrels in 2011. Lake Louie started in 1999 when it's founder Tom Porter basically went through a mid-life crisis and decided he needed a new challenge. (Sidebar: His last name is Porter... What took him so long to start a brewery?!?) So he came up with a business plan that somehow said a brewery could be profitable on a 3 barrel brewing system (93 gallons), and went on his way. In his first full year of brewing, he produced 106 barrels of beer, and more than doubled that in his second. In 2002, he expanded to a 15 barrel brewing system, and by 2007 the production capacity had grown to 2,000 barrels. Lake Louie is now available throughout the state of Wisconsin and is well on track to exceed the 4,000 barrels produced last year.

Lake Louie currently offers five year-round beers and five limited release beers.

My favorite Lake Louie beer: Warped Speed Scotch Ale

Official Website

Tyranena Brewing Company - Lake Mills, WI


Unfortunately, I cannot find much information on Tyranena... I do know that they were founded in 1999 and that the name supposedly is from a Native American tribe that called the lake that Lake Mills sits on (Rock Lake), Tyranena. (This is from their website, so take it with a grain of salt, because based on the website, it seems the most important thing to them is having fun.) Tyranena has a current brewing capacity of 45,000 barrels per year, but has a fermentation limit of 6,000 barrels per year, which keeps them in the microbrewery category. I would not be surprised to see them move beyond this number in the very near future, and like Central Waters, out of the microbrewery category.

Tyranena currently makes six year-round beers and six seasonal beers. In addition to those 12, Tyranena will release what they call Brewers Gone Wild beers randomly throughout the year. These beers are as they put it, "Big, Bold, and Ballsy". As of this post, they are currently brewing Dirty Old Man Imperial Rye Porter (aged in rye barrels).

Side note! In early November of each year, they put on the Tyranena Beer Run, which includes both a 1/2 barrel and 1/6 barrel race (1/2 marathon and well... 1/6 marathon, ~4.37 miles). For some reason I have not done this race yet. I don't know why, but it is on my calendar for this year. Tim Kowols, if you read this, unless you have prior plans for Saturday November 3rd of this year, you should come. We have a comfortable air mattress that you can use.


My favorite Tyranena beer: Rocky's Revenge Brown Ale

Though whenever I think of Rocky, I think of the following...

Official Website


Today's run:  7 miles - 49:00 - FARTLEKS!!! (One mile warm-up @ 8.2, then three minutes at 9.5 and three at 7.5, repeated six times, last 7.5 was skipped and 9.5 was slowly ramped up to 11) Best run in a while. Nice to see how fast the legs can turnover.
Today's beer:  19 North Mountain Climber IPA - Batch number six (beer number eight) that we've brewed and the second recipe I've put together. I'll give a more detailed description some other time, but the Simcoe hops do a good job of giving this the typical IPA bite, but the Mt. Hood and Mt. Rainier hops give it a unique flavor and aroma.

• Skippy's Rating - 5 out of 6 beers