Day 3 of Milwaukee Beer Week started with the Lakefront tasting at Three Cellars. The tasting featured Lakefront’s Oktoberfest, Pumpkin Lager and Rendezvous. It was hosted by Lakefront’s head brewer Luther and Jim Klisch co-owner and founder. Shawn Vollmer, the owner of Three Cellars, does a great job of holding a vast array of events year-round but really kicks it up a notch during beer week. And more importantly, his “cellar lounge” is a great place to hold an event or a tasting! It boasts a bar with room for about 8 patrons plus a handful of tables and lounge chairs, giving the guest speaker an almost stage like presence.
I was especially excited for this event since I had never met Jim or Luther. I’ve had numerous encounters with Russ Klisch and he never disappoints so I was curious to see how this would go. I can honestly say the Klisch brothers are two of a kind; Jim was very warm and engaging. He told some great stories and seemed to genuinely enjoy everyone’s questions and comments. Also, the taps were flowing freely which is never a bad thing in my book. This years Oktoberfest seemed to have an almost sharp and crisp bite to it. Maybe it was just since it was my first one of the season. Either way it was drinking real nice on this evening and the Pumpkin Lager was spectacular as usual which is personally this is one of my favorite pumpkin beers overall. Rendezvous is a Biere De Garde which is not a super-popular style so it was a refreshing change of pace. The event was a lot of fun and it was great to finally meet Jim and Luther. Thanks to Shawn for another well put together beer event!
After the Three Cellars event Andy and I decide to head over to Palm Tavern in Bay View for a special tapping of Duvel Green, Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat’s version of Duvel made exclusively for draught. We arrived at Palm and grabbed a couple stools at the bar. Palm is a very subdued dark lounge type bar aimed at beer geeks who don’t like the bright lights and loud music of a typical pub and is owned by Bruno Johnson, the owner of The Sugar Maple. Not a huge crowd at the bar but it was a Wednesday evening after all. I ordered a couple “greens” and we sat and ticked away at our newest find. We were a bit surprised to find out a barrel of Mikkeller‘s Beer Geek Bacon was also tapped that day since we were thinking it wasn’t until the next evening. Well happy birthday to us! This is Mikkeller’s standard double stout with smoke added. We both were very curious about this beer so Andy ordered a snifter to share. I’m not a huge smoke beer guy so I will admit it was a bit too smoky for my taste but Andy seemed to really enjoy it which is why he only ordered one.
Well as usual my alarm clock was calling so we wrapped it up and headed out. Day three of Milwaukee Beer Week had come to a close as we put to bed another awesome night of beer geek fun.
-Beerwolf
