Lakefront Brewery Brews Green Beer All Year ‘Round

The City of Milwaukee has a heritage of brewing and beer. While many of the old names have faded, the Lakefront Brewery has grown and is adding to Milwaukee’s proud tradition. And to add a little extra color to their beer, Lakefront Brewery is a participating business in the Travel Green Wisconsin program. Ah, definitely a greener kind of beer!

There are several things to know about the Lakefront Brewery. First, it’s not on the lakefront. It’s actually on the Milwaukee River just north of downtown. Second, the beers I’ve sampled have all been highly enjoyable and wonderfully unique – they even brew a gluten-free beer! – and I’d buy them all again (and have). Third, Lakefront Brewery has “The Tour.”

I’ve stopped at many a brewery tour – from Milwaukee’s Miller to Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis, Tyranena Brewery in Lake Mills Wisconsin, Cooperstown Brewery in New York, and many in between – but this brewery’s tour is a hoot and well worth the trip. Even if you don’t like beer, you’ll still enjoy the show, but it helps if you at least appreciate the stuff.

Our tour guide was a mild mannered 4th grade teacher by day and a comedic, brash cheerleader and part time Laverne & Shirley imitator on the weekends. This tour starts the right way – with a visit to the tasting room. You bring your cup along and refill midway so as not to be high and dry at the end of the tour.

You find out all the basic things about beer on this tour, including definitions of words like wort and fermentation. However, the high tech graphics (laminated hand made signs), fermentation tanks painted with images of The Three Stooges, the tour guide’s rendition of Laverne & Shirley choreography, and most importantly, the refillable beer cup, make this tour “The Tour.” You see the real brewing operation in all its gory (or glory), and it’s one grand adventure. They also have the original beer mug from old County Stadium – take your photo holding the handle. Finally the gift shop, a 9’x12′ cubby, has some great shirts and other beer paraphernalia.

Travel Green Wisconsin Green Guide Score – 53

Green highlights and innovative practices
— Uses organic malt and hops
— Renewable energy is purchased through WE Energies
— Used grains and hops are sent to a worm farmer and turned into compost
— Water that is run through a heat exchanger to cool boiled beer is reused for the next batch of beer
— Products are purchased in bulk and reusable goods are used instead of disposable ones

Website — http://www.lakefrontbrewery.com/

Photo and article by Bo Mackison, a Madison area writer and photographer, who often accompanies her husband on travels throughout Wisconsin, and makes frequent stops to tour microbreweries at his suggestion. To see more Wisconsin photography, visit the Seeded Earth Photography gallery. Photo “Larry’s Mug on the Tank” ©2008 all rights reserved.

Go Big Green

Wisconsin has always been a leader in environmental protection and its people have been leaders in raising awareness for environmental causes.

Think of John Muir, who grew up on a Wisconsin farm and later founded the Sierra Club. Or Aldo Leopold, whose “Sand County Almanac,” helped spur a greater land ethic for conservation. And don’t forget former Gov. and U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, often called the father of Earth Day, which has helped raise the environmental consciousness of two generations.

Now Wisconsin is at the forefront of another movement.

The state Department of Tourism and the Wisconsin Environmental Initiative have teamed up to support Travel Green Wisconsin, a voluntary program to review, certify and recognize tourism businesses that are committed to improve their operations in order to reduce their environmental impact. The bottom-line goal: provide valuable travel experiences while moving toward environmental, social and economic sustainability.

Currently, 203 businesses have gained certification through a program that gauges the performance of the business in nine categories:

Communication and education (with customers, employees and the public)
Waste reduction, reuse and recycling
Energy efficiency, conservation and management
Water conservation and wastewater management
Air quality
Wildlife and landscape conservation and management
Transportation
Purchasing
Local community benefits

For all the details, check out the Travel Green Wisconsin Checklist.

To gain certification, a business must earn a minimum of 30 points. A dozen businesses have earned scores of greater than 100.

There will be posts that explore the state we love by focusing on the travel green movement. We’ll help you experience the state’s natural areas and businesses that foster sustainability. We’ll offer ideas for minimizing negative impacts on the environment in your travels and help you appreciate the state’s biodiversity and natural heritage. We’ll help you learn about local culture and traditions so you can better interact with your hosts.

In many entries, we’ll introduce you to businesses participating in the Travel Green Wisconsin program. With each entry, we’ll provide an overview of the business, taken in part from the Travel Green Wisconsin web site. For each business, we’ll also list:

Green Guide Score
Highlights and innovative practices
Web site or contact info

We hope you enjoy Go Green Travel Wisconsin – and Go Green!

Not Just Your Ordinary Bank

The M&I Bank building in Spring Green, Wisconsin, is a definite “must see” if you are in the area touring Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright’s home. The bank was designed by a Wright associate, William Wesley Peters. Peters was Wright’s first apprentice, joining him in 1932. He assisted Wright in the designs of Fallingwater and did the structural rendition of the Guggenheim Museum.

The bank, located in downtown Spring Green about an hour’s drive west of Madison, is an operating bank, and is open during business hours. A nearby building, at one time the drive through window for the bank, is now occupied by Spring Green’s Chamber of Commerce.

Peters was first married to Wright’s adopted daughter, Svetlana, who tragically died in an auto accident with one of Peters’ sons. Later, he was briefly married to Svetlana Alliluyeva, the only daughter of Joseph Stalin, in a marriage arranged by Peters’ mother-in-law, Olgivianna Wright. (Frank Lloyd Wright’s last wife, she survived him and ran the Foundation for many years.)

Peters was a widely respected architect and engineer, and a loyal friend of Wright and advocate of his ideas. He completed several projects that Frank Lloyd Wright left in various degrees of completion after Wright’s death. He was Chairman of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation from 1985 until his death in 1991.

Photos by Bo Mackison, a Madison area writer and photographer who travels Wisconsin in search of Frank Lloyd Wright-related architectural gems. To see more Wisconsin photos, visit her galleries at Seeded Earth Photography.

Last 2008 Farmers Market on the Square, But it’s Not Really Over

We went to the Dane County Farmers’ Market early this morning. Rewarded for our efforts, we came home with the quintessential cheese curds made that very morning, a colorful mix of purple, yellow, blue, and white potatoes, ground emu meat, and parsley pine-nut pesto. A good haul, but it wasn’t a pleasant stroll around the Capitol Square as usual. After all, we’re in the second week of November – it was cold and snow flurries were spewing from the gray clouds. It only makes sense that this is the last market on the Square for 2008. But wait!

Unlike in the earliest years of the market, this doesn’t mean the end of Saturday morning forays to visit the farmers and survey their goodies. The market moves inside next week, none too soon for my way of thinking. After all, while I love the market, I’m not fond of getting frozen fingers checking out the produce.

The indoors market opens next Saturday, November 15, and continues weekly through December 20th. The hours are shorter than in the summer – from 7:30 am to noon. It is held at the Monona Terrace, just a few blocks east of the summer location.

There is plenty of variety available, even in the colder months. Fruits such as apples and pears are available, plus apple cider, and apple and pear butters. Stored vegetables will include carrots, garlic, potatoes, and turnips. There are a few fresh vegetables – chard, greens, kale, lettuce, radishes, spinach and tomatoes. Meat varieties are almost endless. There are your standards found in any meat section, plus bison, emu and ostrich.

Plenty of offerings to keep my Saturday mornings booked for the foreseeable future.