Madtown Brews

"I found a tavern in Antibes that was simple and its food was good, but it is always hazardous to recommend anything to anyone in travel. One must say, 'That day when I was there it was very good – for places change hands and mood. If Rene is still the proprietor of Chez Rene when you are in Antibes, then I can recommend it.'" – Ludwig Bemelmans, from La Bonne Table







As you watch the microbrew Revolution continue to unfold, you wonder if you might not be wasting part of your life if you haven't bellied up to the bar, so to speak, and in some way paid homage and made your own contribution to the new empire of beer. You begin to wonder whether there has been one sane beer loving man (sorry can't speak for women on this one -- it seems Chardonnay is a strong favorite there), who has not at some point in his long and illustrious beer drinking years hasn't considered launching his own little garage batch, then, in a sort of collective dream, seen that little batch of brown or IPA catch fire, find its audience, then transform magically into the next great brewpub, iron rafters, glittering casks, the perfect tune from a favorite jazz band rattling of romance in the corner? Well, ok, maybe I have thought of this myself. It is true. As a mere innocent lover of beer from way back in the late 90's in Seattle, who stumbled across his first shining rows of microbrews by Pyramid, Rogue, and Red Hook, I have often thought of the some fifteen years that has passed since and wondered why my own creative brand name doesn't line the shelves of the local grocery beer cooler. As a sampler of hundreds of varieties of beers, loyal reader of Beer Advocate, and nearly pilgrim-like seeker of brewpubs, whatever state, town, country they may be, I also wonder what kind of creative names I could have come up with for my concoctions; what level of care might have introduced to my brand? Could I have esteemed to unprecedented levels of Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada? Or stop at the less lofty level of the small shop down the street? So many thing for the brewpub dreamer to consider. And then the revelation comes, which most of the is capable of promptly setting the dream afloat out in the ether of other dreams past: the beer consumer is in the grand position of being able to live the dream of sampler but not owner or brewer. I don't have to labor through the daylong process of developing my worts and yeasts and watching it in brown bottles ferment for three weeks. I walk into the grocery store beer section and there are five taps for-filling growlers; down the street there are three micro brews that I can think of and more on the way; outside of my immediate circle of travel, here in Madison, there at least four superior brewpubs that I can think of....again, always likely more on the way. Much writing has been done that seems to decry the gradual slip of the beer revolution – too many IPA's, price creep to the point where a 4 pack might you back 16 bucks and counting, so many styles, so little hard-earned quality – but really, folks, we live inside a beer lovers paradise right now, let's not kid ourselves. And so my own little contribution to the paradise is far more humble, yet, for better or worse, certainly experienced. Madtown Brews will launch as not just a blog of brief encounter with the most contemporary of sampled beers, but also a retrospective, including beer eras, beer towns, beer lit, beer poetry, beer whatever comes up. Next Up: a humble, yet experienced, beersponse to Rockhound Brewery, Park Street Madison.