Great Taste of the Midwest Doesn’t Make Sense… But It works

The booth spaces at this fest were some of the more elaborate I have seen. A few included interactive displays like Dark Horse’s live portrayal of Jesus. Jesus stood on a pulpit and called out to people, made jokes, and told stories. Ale Asylum had a take on the “Price is Right” including a big wheel and “Kinko”. 3 Sheeps built a beer engine out of an old bicycle and used a keg as the front wheel. Then there was my favorite single non beer item of the day, a homemade glass rinser. It sat on top of an old barrel-turned-jockey box and was fully functional. I do not know why Rockford Brewing’s glass rinser made such an impression on me, but it did. Also, a special shoutout goes to Metropolitan and their robot themed jockey box that pours beer from the hands. 

There were some fun beer styles at Great Taste that I either had not tried or had only tried once. Mob Craft had a “festival only” barrel aged sour barleywine on tap. This was in my top 5 of beers for the fest. The maltiness and barrel played well with the sour of this beer. I was impressed with how balanced this bastard child of Mob Craft was and I wanted more, but they ran out by the time I returned. As we were making our way around I heard that Delafield Brewhaus had some kind of amazing mango beer on tap. When I got there I found Mango Sunset Lager was the only mango beer left. A 4.0% lager didn’t give me reason to expect much but I tried it anyway, and this was a beer that nearly anyone could sit and drink all day in the heat of summer. It was all mango without being too sweet and it was crisp and refreshing. I left there understanding why I had kept hearing about this beer. 

We continued to make our way around trying everything we could without getting stumbling drunk, as there were way too many hills in the park and I could just see me rolling down one and into the lake. I might be too big for the construction fences to hold!

The firkin tent was loaded with over 50 offerings from over 30 breweries. There were offerings from Indiana breweries Flat 12, Lafayette, Shoreline, SunKing, and Triton. A couple of big hits were from Metropolitan Brewing with their habanero and orange peel infused Kolsch and Lucid Brewing with a peach and coriander Amber. Right next door to the firkin tent was New Glarus Brewing who was pouring the R&D releases from the same weekend. New Glarus is very close to Madison and does a 3 day R&D release every year. Typically they are sours that you can only get during this time and it is first come first serve. I did not make it to any of the releases so I was very pleased to get a sample pour of one. From here I knew it was time to get something to eat. 

Now, there are vendors all over the park, but I had my eye on something special I had seen earlier in the day.

I couldn’t think of anything to go better with beer than thick cut bacon on a stick! I was wrong though: the only thing better than that was getting two thick cut slices of bacon on sticks! Oh the fatty fried goodness brought a smile to my face in a way that only bacon can. It may not be good for you but neither is sampling beer for 5 hours, so who cares. While I was walking around I also saw pickles on a stick. Since pickles are a finger food anyway I could not figure out why they were on a stick but I liked it. This seems to be the theme of the event. It may not make complete sense but do it anywfesay and it will be enjoyable. There was music being played everywhere, like two guys playing one violin, and someone dressed up as a giant hop. We saw people playing cornhole on a giant cornhole set. There was a putting green and a throne, non toilet type, to sit on. It was a great time at a great festival and I can’t wait to see what’s next!