Thursday, March 05, 2020

A Self Guided Milwaukee Brewery Tour

Thursday night in Milwaukee has become my night of revelry. 


Biden 2020. You know the thing!




Always exciting when airline people start comparing things to 9/11.




We ordered Chinese takeout for lunch. St. Louis' Chinese food scene is pretty gnarly so it was nice to have some out of town.


I discovered that my watch has a function where it can remotely activate the camera on your iPhone. Who knows what sort of hijinx I could get into with this little toy.


So I was standing in the hotel lobby back at the Potawatomi, I think looking up ride prices. A dude walks up and is like "are you staying at the hotel, because if so we have a free shuttle and I can drive you wherever." Heck yeah.


Brian the shuttle driver and I spent only a short time together, but how sweet it was.


So for some reason the boondoggle U City Loop Trolley came up in conversation at the office. And they were like "oh yeah we have a boondoggle trolley too!" I had to check this situation out. The Milwaukee version of the trolley is called The Hop which I thought was nice and punny, being a reference to hopping on and off as well as of the beer ingredient. For one thing it's free to ride which is awesome.




I got a cool casino bracelet in order to take the shuttle. Can't beat free jewelry.


I'm not super familiar with the Blatz beer brand, except for the fact it is the sound a bug makes when it hits a windshield. Living in a historic brewery building seems like it would be up my alley though.


Looks like this baby dates back to 1901.




Buy Allbirds if you're the type of person who wants to see the outline of their toes at all times. If you're one of those toe freaks.




I don't recall what I set out to do, but the night turned into a downtown Milwaukee brewery walkabout.






I popped into Uncle Bucks. Get it, the local basketball team is the Bucks. And we're apparently in the Deer District. And the chandeliers are made of deer antlers. So much deer.








My next stop was awesome: Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery.


You may have heard of Milwaukee's Best beer. "Best" is not a value statement. It's actually the worst. The founder of the 1844 Pabst Brewing Company was Jacob Best. It wasn't renamed Pabst Brewing Company after Frederick Pabst until 1889 after he married into the Best family,




How cool is this place? It was really foreboding from the outside.






I grabbed a beer and tested out my newfound remote camera watch function. I think it went pretty well for my first try. I think I may need to buy a tripod because jamming your phone in snow to hold it up is not ideal.

King Gambrinus is a mythical figure who reminds me of sort of a royal Friar Tuck.










They did not disappoint me with their Pabst Blue Ribbon selection. Who knew there were so many PBRs?




I had to try the Hard Coffee Pabst Blue Ribbon. One of the bar dudes described it as an alcoholic Yoo-hoo and I think that was pretty accurate.

So I got to talking with some of the regulars who were clearly eager to chat about the place and the beer. Well before I knew it one of them was giving me a private tour of the building!




Next door they were having a swing dancing club meeting or something.


There were really cool illustrations all over the walls.








After my impromptu tour my new beer buddies revealed that they were in a breweriana club and there were going to have an upcoming meeting in St. Louis. This was the awesome reverse of one of their business cards.








I walked over to the Captain Pabst Pilot House but was disappointed when it was closed for the day. Sad.


Even the damn sidewalk was a Pabst museum.


Oh deer.


I finally hit Rock Bottom and then went home. To the casino.

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