12:00 pm January 19th, 2015

I am cramming all of our Milwaukee experience into one blog post, this is a bold move, but I think it will give a better overview of the time.

The drive from Wisconsin to Milwaukee was the shortest drive of the trip thus far at just four hours. Wellll, four hours of drive time, but with our bathroom break regimen it was about five hours of road time.  Overall it was a nice relaxed afternoon drive. As we got close to Milwaukee we got some practice pronouncing Wisconsin city names such as Oconomowoc, Waukesha and Pewaukee. The best fail was Dan pronouncing Waukesha as wah-Ke$ha.

We got to Sarah’s place in the middle of the afternoon and received the most extravagant welcome of the trip yet. Sarah had made a welcome sign for her apartment door and had also set up Prosecco and cupcakes with a ‘Congrats Grads!’ sign. So we started off our weekend with a toast to graduation and Milwaukee. Next on the agenda was the famous Lakefront Brewery tour. I had heard from so many people that this was theeee brewery tour to attend in Milwaukee. We decided to get to the brewery tour a little early so we could sit in the tap room and have a few beers before. We also met up with another Valpo alumna, Brittany Popa, who lives in the area. Uber was our transportation of choice. Kileigh, Dan and I all downloaded it for the first time so we got free rides all weekend, which was awesome.

Hand made signs by Sarah. She's an artist.

Cupcakes and Prosecco :D

The outside of the brewery and an American flag.

Lakefront lived up to my expectations. The beer was on par and they gave you a lot of it! We also ended up with an enthusiastic tour guide. It was definitely the best brewery tour I have been on as it seamlessly wove entertainment into general brewing information. And our guide was not afraid to toe the line as he incorporated quite a bit of adult humor throughout the tour.  At the end I even volunteered to act out the opening scene from the old show Laverne and Shirley on an old bottling line they had acquired that was actually used in the show. I can’t say I ‘ve ever seen Laverne and Shirley, but this ‘acting’ consisted of me placing a glove on a bottle as it went down the line as the show’s theme song played and everyone sang along. The older folks seemed to get more of a kick out of it, but It was still fun.

Sneak photo of the tour guide.

Selfies for days!

The Laverne and Shirley thing. 

After the tour, we went back to the tap room and had a few more beers. We met a couple of guys that went to college with one of Sarah’s teachers from high school and we also met a guy that was obsessed with UT. This trip continues to confirm that we do in fact live in a small world. The other highlight of the Lakefront experience was that Dan and Kileigh both experienced their first deep fried cheese curds. Of course, they fell in love with the delicacy immediately. I mean come on, who doesn’t love cheese curds?

CHEESE CURDS!

Giant Beer Mug.

Naturally, after the tour and a few beers we were all ready for some dinner. We walked over to a nearby bar/restaurant called Stubby’s because the brewery had given out coupons for a free beer to everyone on the tour. Dinner was slightly rushed because we were worried about making it to our next event, the roller derby, on time. Even though it was rushed, it was excellent. They had possibly the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever had.

We ended up being slightly late to the Brewcity Bruisers (the roller derby), which wasn’t a big deal at all because it was a wayyy longer even than we were expecting. The derby itself was also quite different than we expected. We spent the majority of the derby trying to figure out the rules and scoring and general point. There were two couples behind us, who we befriended because they were just as confused about what was going on as we were. Basically there is a circular track and both teams have about 7 girls (I think) out on the track all at the same time. One girl on each team has a star on her helmet and her goal is to fight her way through the crowd and make a lap around the track. All the other girls are trying to block the ‘star girl’ on the other team and help out their own ‘star girl.’ If the ‘star girl’ makes it through she scores points. I am still unsure on how they determine the number of points they get for each time the make it through. As far as I could tell, it was arbitrary.  Other components to the roller derby included the ‘cheer leaders.’ They were composed of middle aged slightly overweight women with below average dancing skills. They did a dance routine at half time. So that was interesting. To their credit, they were very enthusiastic and seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was also an Evil Knievel look a like riding a bicycle on only the back tire around the stadium the entire time. Overall, the event was a little cheesy, but we got some cheap (in quality, not in price) beer from the concessions stands, picked our favorite skaters to root for, and had a great time. Some of our favorite skater names included Skittles, Thrash Mama and Frau Kapow.

After an hour or so, we were roller derby’d out. From there, we headed to Red Rock, a nearby country dance bar. A few other Valpo alumni, Carly Anderson and Kim Cottichia also met up with us there. We got there early so there weren’t many people at first, but by 11:00 the place was bumping. It was a neat atmosphere because they played all country songs, but a lot of them were remixed into a hip-hop/pop style. So we danced the night away. Brittany even tried her hand at riding the mechanical bull. If you ask me, she killed it. We headed home just before bar close to beat the end of the night rush. 

The next morning (Sunday) was game day, so we got up early and headed over to a local pub called Steny’s around 11:30 to make sure we could get seats. Keep in my mind the game didn’t even start until 2 pm, but Wisconsinites are die-hards and there was already a crowd at the bar when we showed up. Obviously, 98 percent of the people were Packer fans with the other 2 percent being transplants to the area and Kileigh, who I am pretty sure was the only true Seahawk fan in the whole place. Steny’s is famous for their bloody mary’s so we started off with a round of bloodys and cheese curds. We then proceeded to spend the next 7 hours at the bar playing cards, watching the game, eating and drinking. For those who are not sports fans, the packers did not pull out the win at this one which made for some disappointed fans. There was even a guy who punched a dartboard at one point. A bit of an overreaction if you ask me. Even though we lost, the afternoon was a success.

Much needed Bloody Marys

Sooo many packer fans!

After the game, we headed back to console our sadness with frozen pizza and a Redbox movie. The first movie we watched was not great, so we followed it up with The Aristocats. Fun Fact: The Aristocats came out in 1970. We were all very surprised by this fact. After that, it was bed time so we could rest up for our trip to Chicago the next day. We said goodbye to Carly and Brittany since we wouldn’t see them again. They definitely added another level of fun to our experience in Milwaukee.

Sarah had to work on Monday (as most real people do), so we got up early and had breakfast with her at The Colectivo before leaving town. We had too much fun in Milwaukee and were very thankful once again for the hospitality we received from everyone and wished we could stay longer. Also, the trip has finally caught up to me and I’ve lost my voice. I can’t say I’m completely surprised, but it should make for an interesting next couple of days.

Friendzzzz

And I almost forgot about our stop at the old Pabst Brewing Company on the way out of town. There was no way Dan was going to let us leave without stopping by. He loves PBR and has been talking about seeing this place ever since I told him about it. I went on an actual tour the last time I visited Milwaukee. And I use the term tour loosely. They no longer brew PBR there and it’s really more of just a few historic buildings that they have renovated and a gift shop where you can buy just about anything you could ever want with a PBR logo on it. Unfortunately, they didn’t open until noon that day so we had to settle for a self-guided tour and a few photos.  

The main building

He's in heaven.