Aug 12 - Trip to MN - The Leinenkugels Brewery

Marco and I headed east, into rural Wisconsin, for a visit to the legendary Leinenkugel's Brewery. Leinies may sell alongside Miller and Bud, but it's actually a local brew and tastes good. It's a true Midwest icon. Heck, it's the flavor of the Northwoods!

We took backroads. This meant vistas of red barns and cows, soybeans and corn, forests and hills, punctuated by the occasional farm town.

We ate lunch in Glenwood City, which is not a city. On the main street we found a one-room diner with framed deer posters and modest folding tables. It was packed - the whole town had come for lunch. One might think that after living in Paris for two years I'd look down on such a small-town place. But I loved it.

We continued on. On one curvy, woodsy road we rounded a corner and saw a sign for honey and stopped.

We rang the doorbell and a long pause later an old man came out of the garage. He invited us in and apologized for the mess and said he was an old bachelor. The house was actually tidy, except for pots and buckets of honey scattered around the kitchen. He pointed to the beehives across his driveway and said the bees made their honey from the wildflowers in the fields that we could see out his windows. He asked where Marco was from and then said he was going to be hosting a German exchange student soon. We bought some comb honey and thanked him. Seemed to be a sweet old man.

But, on to the Brewery!

After getting lost in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, if you can imagine that, we found the brewery. Things had changed since I visited several years ago and now there was an enormous "Leinies Lodge". This is a log cabin with fireplaces and deer heads where you sign up for brewery tours and browse a vast array of merchandise like Leinies soap bars and Leinies canoe paddles. This could have been a disappointing move towards crass commercialism but somehow the merchandise was so odd and interesting that it was rather likeable.

We signed up for the tour, which would commence in 45 minutes. In the meantime we got two coupons each for a free beer tasting, so we went to the tasting area where cheerful Midwestern girls poured free beer. We sipped and wandered in the Leinies merchandise where we also discovered the historic case of Leinies German beer steins, one new model issued every year for at least the last hundred years.

The tour was cool. The brewey is still run by the original family. They've brewed for 138 years and for five generations. We saw vats and steamers and cooling rooms and bottling racks.

After the tour we had one more beer on the patio over the clear, rushing Chippewa River then headed home, west into the setting sun.