Touring and tasting breweries in Green Bay
Go for the Packers. Stay for the beer.
We planned a trip on a Thursday pre-season game day. Rookie mistake. Never underestimate the popularity of a home game, even one that doesn't count.
Five reservation clerks at five hotels laughed when asked about availability a week in advance. The sixth call scored a suite at the Days Inn for $200 a night. Not the fanciest hotel in town but clean and quiet.
There's something about the energy of a single-minded crowd wearing Cheeseheads that makes it worth the price of a room. Or a game ticket, which can run between $90 and $375.
That vitality wraps itself around Lambeau Field before the game. Some of the stadium's residential neighbors have ditched backyard patios to create rooftop ones to join the revelry.
But don't confuse the stadium for the city. Take a spin around it. Enjoy its thriving craft beer culture and city history. You know, along with its biggest draw: football.
Here are suggestions for where to eat, drink and tour:
Badger State Brewing Co.
The pre-game street party typically begins in the Badger Brewing parking lot. That's how close it is to Lambeau.
"We used to tailgate back here all the time when this wasn't here," Andrew Fabry says about the location of Badger State Brewing, which he started in 2013 with Sam Yanda and Mike Servi.
What was there was a metal fabrication shop with cheap rent, good access to water and a floor drain just where they needed it. It checked off all the boxes for the future brewery owners.
On game days, people pay $20 to park in the lot (Badger State doesn't own the building or the lot) and follow the big G a few blocks to the stadium.
Beers on tap change, but you can almost always get a Bunyon Badger brown ale or a Walloon Belgian Wit Bier in a crowler to share at a tailgate. Or you can belly up to the bar with your tailgate picnic in hand. Badger State doesn't serve food, but patrons are welcome to bring it in.
More information: Opens at 1 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and noon on Sunday. Hours change on game day. Tours are given at 2 p.m. Saturday. 990 Tony Canadeo Run, (920) 634-5687, badgerstatebrewing.com.
Hinterland Brewery Lounge
Hinterland Brewery Lounge was the first craft brewery in Green Bay. That Packerland Pilsner label is legit.
The building was a parts warehouse when Bill and Michelle Tressler decided it should become a brewery and restaurant in 1995. It's small. You don't so much dine in the brewery as the brewery works around diners. Brewers come in at midnight to make the beer so they don't have to move equipment or bump patrons with dollies and spent kegs.
Things are going to change next year.
Bill Tressler loads a couple visitors into his shiny white truck and heads across town to the Titletown District, a 34-acre entertainment mall planned by the Green Bay Packers as an entertainment district adjacent to Lambeau Field.
This is where Hinterland is moving in April — lock, stock and barrel-aged stouts.
Tressler shows a reporter one of two 6-foot fireplaces that will flank the downstairs beer hall. Upstairs in fancier quarters, diners will be able to watch the chef from a seat at the counter.
In all, Hinterland has 25,000 square feet of space — half to be used for a production brewery and half for a beer hall and taproom restaurant. A catwalk will let diners watch brewing in action, at least what you can't see from the other side of the room.
There will still be beer at the Dousman St. site in 2017, just not Hinterland. Copper State Brewing is moving into the Dousman location as soon as Hinterland moves out.
More information: The bar opens at 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and noon on Saturday. Tours are held at noon, 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m. Saturday and cost $10. Dinner is served from 5 to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday and 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday with lunch also served on Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. 315 Dousman St., (920) 438-8050, hinterlandbeer.com.
Leatherhead Brewing Co.
It took customers awhile to learn how to pour beer at the Beer Wall, a pour-your-own station and major feature of the brewpub. Turns out that college keg-tapping skills do get rusty.
"It's definitely a learning curve," said Amanda Sharon, one of Leatherhead's owners.
You can also tap your own at a few of tables that overlook the open concept brew house. There are instructions at the Beer Wall and on the tables. And wait staff everywhere. The pour-your-own is really more of a suggestion than a necessity.
There are a couple Milwaukee connections here. WUWM listeners might better recognize Amanda as Amanda Shalhoub. She spent several years on air there. Jacob Sutrick, Leatherhead's brewer, spent several years brewing at the former Stonefly Brewing.
The brewery is barely beyond the shadow of Lambeau Field. To find it, look for the lighthouse in front (Leatherhead used to be a crab restaurant). It's far enough away that you can park there for free and walk the four blocks to the stadium.
More information: Open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. Hours change on game day. 875 Lombardi Ave., (920) 544-9230, leatherheadbrewingcompany.com.
Titletown Brewing
Titletown takes up an entire block from top to bottom. On one side is Titletown, the restaurant. You can bring your dog. On the other is Titletown the production brewery, taproom and rooftop patio. The taproom building is a former vegetable processing plant, so take note of the scary pressure cookers in the photos displayed in the hall.
Titletown rents out parts of the taproom building for office space and to The Cannery, a gourmet market, deli and restaurant selling sandwiches, specialty foods, wine and beer.
Shawn Zambarda, vice president and general manager, says they looked to Milwaukee's Lakefront Brewery when they decided on tour styles. A dozen performers with comedy backgrounds give the hourlong tours that take the beer-curious past the beerblr, a 110-year-old bubbler refitted to dispense Titletown's Johnny Blood Red, an Irish red ale.
On the day of our visit, E!'s "Wives and Girlfriends of Sports Stars" was visiting to tape an episode with Julius Peppers' girlfriend, Claudia Sampedro, so you never know who you might run into. If you don't see any celebrities, soothe yourself with beer and a three-seasons view of Green Bay's riverfront from a perch on the penthouse-like rooftop.
More information: The taproom is open from noon to 9 p.m. Sunday; 3 to 11 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; 3 p.m. to midnight Friday and noon to midnight Saturday. Tours are held from 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday and cost $10. 200 Dousman St., (920) 437-2337, titletownbrewing.com.
Stillmank Brewing
On a pre-season Thursday, Brad Stillmank gets his brew house ready for a bachelorette party. Last week it was a baby shower. If you ever questioned if you were in Wisconsin, that should answer it for you.
Stillmank and his wife, Erin, founded the brewery in what used to be a builder's supply warehouse. Brad moved things around so it doesn't look so much like a warehouse inside. He added soft lighting above the bar in the taproom. Picnic tables are scattered throughout. Country music plays while two visitors from Michigan drink beer and chat up the bartender.
Unlike Badger State, which is near Lambeau, and Titletown, which is downtown, you have to know that the brewery is there. Or you have to be headed to the Schreiber Foods Warehouse because that's the biggest thing on Henry St.
Brad Stillmank grew up in Milwaukee. He gave up studying marketing to go to the University of California, Davis, brewing school. If not for that switch, we wouldn't have Wisco Disco, an EBS style beer brewed with five different malts, a touch of milk and four hop additions, which, even if you don't know anything about beer, is unique.
But don't even think about visiting on a Sunday game day.
"We're not open on Sunday at the moment," Stillmank said. "We enjoy taking our time and watching the game ourselves."
Count that as a second clue to how Wisconsin the brewery is.
More information: Open 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday. 215 N. Henry St.
More to do in Green Bay
Put down a good base at Al's Hamburger's, 131 S. Washington St. One family owned Al's for 82 years. New owners took over the tiny burger stand this summer. but haven't changed much. Burgers are still the big man; try the one with smoked gouda. Anyone can make French fries but Al's rocks the tater tot. Eating is believing.
Save time for the pop-up Mardi Gras around Lambeau Field. Is this Bourbon Street? There are beads, live music and drinking in the streets. Oh wait, those cheese curd stands say it's definitely Wisconsin. The people watching is nearly as good as Bourbon Street. I spied with my little eye a woman strolling with a dog in a cooler shaped like a football on wheels. And a woman who looked a lot like Katy Perry driving a pedicab.
Visit the Packers Hall of Fame. Sit in Vince Lombardi's office. OK, it's not his actual office but it is the furniture from his actual office. And that is his voice when the telephone rings. It's impossible not to sit for the Ice Bowl highlights, even though we all know how it ends.
Learn a little bit about Green Bay at the Neville Museum, 210 Museum Place. Children at the museum didn't seem scared by the exhibit "Life and Death at Fort Howard," but it terrified me. Green Bay's origins as told in this exhibit aren't pleasant ones. You can examine the coat a lieutenant was wearing when he was murdered by one of his soldiers or read the undelivered love letter from a distraught lieutenant to his commanding officer’s daughter. Catch the "Ice Age Imperials" exhibit before it leaves next month.