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Regional brewers keep flavors hopping
Jan. 8, 2008
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Name: Viking Brewing Co.
Address: 234 Dallas St. W., Dallas.
Owners-brewmasters: Randy and Ann Lee.
Telephone: 715-837-1824.
Web site: www.
vikingbrewing.com.
Tours: Free tours are offered at 1 p.m. most Saturdays. Call ahead or check Web site.
Availability: At many sites in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Check Web site for vendor list.
Beer prices: Vary with the seller. We paid $5.49 a six-pack at The Coffee Grounds, Eau Claire; $5.29 at Marketplace Foods, Menomonie; and $4.69 at Festival Foods, Eau Claire.
Extras: In January, watch for Invader Doppelbock, brewmaster Randy Lee’s favorite beer.
Name: Rush River Brewing Co.
Address: 990 Antler Court, River Falls.
Owners-brewmasters: Dan Chang and Nick Anderson.
Co-owner: Robbie Starr.
Telephone: 715-426-2054.
Web site: www.
rushriverbeer.com.
Tours: No brewery tours. Web site offers a good virtual tour.
Availability: In many establishments and some stores in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Check Web site for vendors.
Beer prices: Vary with the seller. Six-packs of Unforgiven Amber and BubbleJack IPA are $7.69 at Marketplace Foods in Menomonie.
Extras: Rush River also brews Lost Arrow Porter, Small Axe Golden Ale (a Midwest Hefeweizen) and Winter Warmer.
Name: Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co.
Owner: SABMiller (South
African Breweries/Miller Brewing Co.).
Address: 1 Jefferson Ave., Chippewa Falls.
Telephone: 723-5557 or 888-534-6437.
Brewmaster: John Buhrow.
Tours: Every half-hour from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays and Saturdays; every half-hour from 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Fridays; every half-hour from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sundays. Calling for reservations is recommended.
Address: 1515 North 10th St., Milwaukee.
Telephone: 414-931-6706.
Brewmaster: Greg Walter.
Tours: Not currently available.
Web site: www.leinies.com.
Availability: Unfortunately, Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout is now rare to nonexistent in the Leader-Telegram readership area; local stores received a couple of cases at most. It was brewed to test-market especially in Madison, Milwaukee, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Mich.
Beer prices: Vary widely. Per four-pack of 12-ounce bottles, in Eau Claire, we paid $10.99 at Festival Foods, $11.99 at Stave and Hoop, and $12.99 at The Coffee Grounds.
Extras: Look for a possible return of Big Eddy India Pale Ale in early 2008. Other Big Eddy beers, including a barley wine, may be in the planning stages.
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Last month we profiled warming winter beers brewed and bottled locally by Northwoods Brewpub and Grill in Eau Claire and Sand Creek Brewing Co. in Black River Falls. (Menomonie’s Das Bierhaus also plans to set up a bottling line.)
We continue today with beers by Viking in Dallas, Rush River in River Falls and Leinenkugel in Chippewa Falls and Milwaukee.
Viking Brewing Co., Dallas
Brewers Randy and Ann Lee are exuberant experimenters. Astonishingly, they produce more than 22 different beers each year: four beers available year-round and one or two seasonal beers a month.
On your first sip of Big Swede, a “Swedish-style” Imperial Stout, you may think you’re drinking Big Sweet. Low carbonation makes it lean toward the heavy and cloying.
It’s a seductively smooth, relatively simple beer whose malt sugar-syrupy power is cut somewhat by a slight coffee dryness at midpalate and then cut somewhat more by a mild hop-resiny finish.
Light notes of vanilla; maybe smoke.
Berserk is Viking’s barley wine, an extra-strong ale. Three of the four bottles we tried were Undercarbonated.
The fourth produced a fast-subsiding creamy head that could be raised again at any moment through agitation. This smooth, dark reddish-brown beer tasted sweet, rich and fruity. Has a pleasantly alcoholic, half-dry finish with a hint of cherry syrup.
Rush River Brewing Co., River Falls
The Rush River beers now available in bottles are not winter beers per se. But winter intensifies their vibrant fall and summer flavors.
BubbleJack India Pale Ale pours a rich golden-yellow with yeasty haze and a bright citrus aroma. A long, creamy sip starts a complex give-and-take between hop-bitter, hop-floral, yeast-fruity and honey-sweet. The finish is clean and properly bitter.
The gorgeously orange Unforgiven Amber Ale is aswirl with yeast. Has a rich body unusual for an ale of this gravity and a spunky mix of bittering and flowery aroma hops held in delicious check by powerful sweet malt and some fruit. Compelling and refreshing.
Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Co., Chippewa Falls and Milwaukee
Leinie’s entered the winter beer world last February with its (experimental) Big Eddy beer: an Imperial India Pale Ale only briefly available — and only in kegs.
In November, Leinie’s released Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout, mostly to markets in eastern Wisconsin and lower Michigan.
Award-winning brewmaster Greg Walter crafted them both at Leinie’s 10th Street Brewery in Milwaukee.
Big Eddy Russian Imperial Stout is an impenetrably black, beautifully thick, syrupy-smooth beer with a creamy-brown head.
Scents of sweet cocoa and coffee are followed by a flavor dance of immense complexity and near-perfect balance: we taste sweet chocolate, bitter cocoa, dark caramel and toffee, baked dark cherries, dark-toasted raisin bread, blackstrap molasses, espresso, bourbon. A massive beer to be sipped and savored for an hour or more at 55 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer.
Main
Course, the Leader-Telegram's restaurant review column, runs the
fourth Sunday of the month. Diners' Notebook, a sampling of favorite
restaurant offerings, runs the second Tuesday of the month.
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