This past weekend Julie and I headed up to Madison, Wisconsin for the night. We’ve been to Madison for a football game before but never really ventured out and into the town. We managed to check out Vintage Brewing Co. on the way into town and then once we were downtown we set out for the Capital Tap Haus. From there we spent the better part of the evening working our way around State Street.

New Glarus Brewing

On the way up we stopped at the New Glarus Brewing Co. in New Glarus, Wisconsin. We’ve had quite a few of their beers over the past couple of years. Their distribution is limited to Wisconsin but they are one of the top 20 largest American breweries. We were surprised by the scale of the facility. They have nearly all of their beers available for sale including a wide selection of their fruit beers. The taproom or tasting area was more limited but the expansive patio over looking farmlands was great.

The setup was either a tasting glass with three refills or a 16oz pint glass with one fill. You could then get additional pours for $5. The patio area was huge with several faux ruined structures to walk about. There is also a self guided tour of the production facility where you basically walk a hallway that goes straight through the middle of the brewery with glass partitions on each side. The brewery store had nearly every beer they produce and a variety of ‘mix and match’ so we were able to get a little bit of everything we liked.
Side Note:

Included in the tasting is a ticket for a free New Glarus beer in one of the many bars in town. I’ve never seen this done before but I think it’s a great way to get people to check out the town of New Glarus. We ended up at the Sportsman’s Bar & Grill and they actually had a better selection of New Glarus beers on draft than the brewery had for tasting.