Sweater Weather is an imperial milk stout with vanilla, brewed by The Fermentorium, of Cedarburg.
Black Friday is going to be a little different this year, obviously.
Breweries across Wisconsin are retooling or scrapping their … wait, what? You thought I was talking about shopping for, like, TVs and pajamas and Nerf guns? No!
For years, Black Friday has been craft beer’s biggest release day, particularly here in the Midwest. Goose Island’s seminal Bourbon County Brand Stout led the way, with its first day-after-Thanksgiving release day in 2011. Milwaukee’s own Lakefront Brewery began its Black Friday releases in 2012, a tradition that would grow into arguably the most beloved annual release event in Wisconsin beer.
That party — for the most die-hard, beginning not long after the turkey feast and continuing overnight until the morning bottle release — will not happen this year. Black Friday 2020 is being sold in stores for the first time this year, with all 5,000 bottles as well as a handful of variants being sold through retailers around the Milwaukee area.
Lakefront is just one of many Wisconsin breweries that are adjusting to this COVID-19 year in the release of some of their most sought-after beers. The main goal: avoiding the crowds that have become part of the fabric of these events. Some brewers that have done Black Friday releases in previous years are skipping them entirely this year.
In La Crosse, 608 Brewing, which last year had a tap takeover of several barrel-aged beers, is selling tickets for its release of two boozy winter warmers, Jacob Marley and Yet to Come, and a handful of other beers.
In Waukesha, Raised Grain Brewing is releasing its Santa’s Sack Christmas ale and a bourbon barrel-aged version of its Paradocs Red imperial IPA with a drive-thru outside the brewery.
In Madison, Young Blood Beer is taking preorders for four out-there beers including a wine barrel-aged Belgian golden strong ale, a pineapple upside down cake sour and a pastry stout using coconut, coffee, allspice and the Southeast Asian herb pandan.
And in Milwaukee, Third Space Brewing’s Black Friday release is the first variant of a series of “Deconstructed Dessert” imperial stouts that will drop every two weeks through February, each of which isolates an ingredient in the mocha pie treat. If the spread-out releases weren’t enough to diffuse crowds, the online-only sales and anytime pickup surely are.
While going to a brewery is part of the experience of big releases in years past, this year I’m more than happy to just pick up a special beer or two at my favorite bottle shop — which I was going to visit anyway.
And that’s the route that The Fermentorium is going this year.
The nearly 5-year-old Cedarburg brewery, which has sold beer in Madison for a few years, is releasing its imperial vanilla milk stout Sweater Weather and three variants the day before Thanksgiving this year. But, of more interest to this column, The Fermentorium is also sending some cases of all four beers to bottle shops in the Madison and Milwaukee areas for release on Black Friday.
The variants — S’mores and Car Bomb, each deploying “natural flavor,” and Ugly Sweater Weather with (deep breath) black tea, raisins, figs, black currants and spices — will come in a mixed four-pack with a can of the base Sweater Weather. Each variant has a different take on the base beer’s awesome “knit” label.
If you’re about to judge a brewery for making what appears to be a kinda fruitcake imperial stout, hold your fire for just a bit. The Fermentorium has made a name in Wisconsin beer by deftly playing both sides of the contemporary brewing landscape.
Sweater Weather — as a pretty sweet imperial stout — and the variants in particular are crowd-pleasers among the beer geek set. A nice set of hazy and juicy IPAs play here as well, including its flagship Juice Packets and the rotating-hop Music Maker series.
But it also kicks out a serious stable of well-executed traditional styles as well — hefeweizen, dunkel, Mexican lager, schwarzbier, brown ale — and those are just as well represented at the bottle shops I frequent as the hazies.
But c’mon, ahead of Black Friday, let’s get dark and ward off the cold by slipping on that comfy sweater. For this review, Fermentorium furnished samples of the base Sweater Weather ahead of its release, but the variants hadn’t been packaged yet, so you’re on your own with those.
Sweater Weather
Style: Imperial milk stout with vanilla.
Brewed by: The Fermentorium, Cedarburg, which also has a tap room in Wauwatosa.
Where, how much: Fermentorium sales director Maggie Skinner said ordering was still underway as of this writing, but I’d expect Madison’s better bottle shops, particularly those on the small side, to carry Sweater Weather. It might be worth calling ahead to avoid extra running around in these pandemic times. The base Sweater Weather should be around $14 for a four-pack of tallboy cans; the variant four-pack will be about $16.
What it’s like: There are beer analogues here — though most these days have other stuff layered in — but I’m going with an Oreo. It’s a liquid Oreo.
Booze factor: “Imperial” means a good time — in this case 8.4% ABV.
Up close: Sweater Weather pours as black as this Friday, with a thin and quickly dissipating head. A whiff gives you a noseful of sweet chocolate and vanilla — an ingredient that has always been in Sweater Weather but was added to the label this year. It’s a delicious aroma along the lines of Count Chocula cereal or the aforementioned Oreos. That nose profiles sweeter than the flavor, though. All those flavor components — the chocolate, vanilla, and a creamy sweetness from the lactose — are there, especially in the front of the palate, but the chocolate eventually comes across a bit darker and roastier, providing enough balance to make it all work. Let it warm for at least a few minutes from fridge temperatures for full effect. Sweater Weather, like your favorite sweater, is full and soft (as a big milk stout should be), and a downright perfect beer for these dark pre-winter nights.
Bottom line: 4 stars (out of 5)
Kid Kölsch
New Glarus Kid Kölsch
Honestly, this could have been a list of one beer this year. I do not remember the last time I was so taken with a beer as I was with Kid Kölsch, New Glarus’ latest masterstroke. I wrote a breathless review shortly after this German-inflected ale dropped in July, and although I rarely stopped drinking it through fall, every time I came back to it, I wondered why I strayed. It’s … I mean, I don’t know if a beer can ever be perfect, but it’s delicate but flavorful (gently sweet, floral and fruity), superbly balanced, has an amazing mouthfeel and won’t get you bombed if you have three of them. That just might be perfect. If it doesn’t come back in 2020, I’ll meet you at the brewery and we can riot.
Honorable mention: I feel like I write something like this every year, but New Glarus proved again this year why it’s Wisconsin’s best brewery. In addition to its underrated (yes, underrated) year-round and seasonal lineup, it debuted two new Thumbprint beers that could have made this list on their own: Kühler, a lambic-type sour ale infused with tea and lime for an Arnold Palmer-type profile; and Berliner Apfel, a tart wheat ale fruited with Kickapoo Valley apples.
Lakefront Black Friday V
Lakefront Black Friday V
Terminal velocity is the highest speed you can achieve when falling through the Earth’s atmosphere. Gravity is always accelerating that skydiver, but at some point wind resistance takes over and she won’t go any faster. For the last few years, as the spirit barrel arms race has advanced, I’ve wondered if there’s a terminal velocity to barrel-aging beer. Most barrel-aged stouts sit in wood for six to 12 months. A few age for 18 months, and some remarkable ones -- Central Waters’ 2016 release Ardea Insignis being the most notable around here -- age for three years or a bit longer. Before I tried Black Friday V -- Lakefront’s annual imperial stout aged an astonishing 70 months in brandy barrels -- I figured this would be the beer that found it, that proved that three years and twice that long have basically the same effect. I was wrong. It was an astonishing, intensely rich beer, with an enormous amount of woody, kind of plumlike barrel character that would have overwhelmed many beers, but the 13.4% ABV Black Friday was up to the task. This $100 bottle, sadly, was only available at the brewery on the day after Thanksgiving, and given how these barrels essentially got lost for a while, I wouldn’t count on it coming back anytime soon.
Honorable mention: One of the most underrated beers in Central Waters’ Brewers Reserve series of barrel-aged beers is its Bourbon Barrel Barleywine, and this fall the brewery’s annual release, aged for about a year in bourbon barrels, was joined by a limited amount of BBB aged two years and three years in the barrels. Sold on draft and in cans only at the brewery, the flight was a fascinating study in what time and wood does to a beer, the three-year variant being my favorite. And the best anniversary beer I had this year -- albeit just a short pour -- was Tyranena Twenty, an imperial stout aged in bourbon barrels, with a portion aged further in Madeira barrels. That exotic fortified wine barrel came through in just the right amount, adding a vinous finish to a typically exceptional stout from Tyranena.
City Lights Brewing's Hazy IPA
City Lights Hazy IPA
As a beer writer in Wisconsin, the Great American Beer Festival judging contest should be confirming what I already know about Wisconsin beer -- like the 2019 silver medal awarded to Third Space Brewing’s Unite the Clans Scottish ale. Yeah, I know, that’s an excellent beer. But this year GABF medals opened my eyes to one beer in particular I was overlooking: this hazy IPA from Milwaukee’s City Lights Brewing. My read on City Lights’ beers had been solid but not essential, sound but not all that interesting. Hazy IPA wrecked that assessment. It’s a spot on iteration of the style, as I’ve come to expect from City Lights, but where its other beers seemed to capture the outline of their styles but not their potential, Hazy IPA is a dynamo. It’s a tropical-citrus bomb placed second out of 348 entries, in GABF’s most popular style. And to think, it won that accolade with zero consideration to its value proposition, a nice feather in its cap at $8-$10 per six-pack.
Low pHunk
MobCraft Low pHunk
This May, I rode one of those pedal tavern things for a work outing. I wasn’t particularly proud of it until I was a couple beers in and having fun. Like, a lot of fun. I don’t regret it. And the fun fuel for myself and a few of my fellow pedalers that evening was this easy-drinking but nuanced sour ale. MobCraft makes it using the solera method in which each batch is blended with a blend of all previous batches, imparting some of the microorganisms that give the beer its unique flavor profile. There’s a touch of funk underneath a bright, lemony-citrus, gently tart character. If that sounds like a winner for a summer beer, you’re right. Low pHunk was a go-to patio and golf course this summer even before it won gold at GABF in the American-style sour ale category.
Lake Louie Warped Speed
Lake Louie Warped Speed
What can a landmark scotch ale in the local beer scene do to be a Beer of the Year nearly 20 years after its first release? It can survive. This summer, Lake Louie was acquired by Wisconsin Brewing, bringing two of Wisconsin beer’s greatest characters -- Tom Porter and Kirby Nelson -- under one roof. The deal came at a time when Lake Louie had been sloughing sales and staff as Porter battled through health problems and Wisconsin Brewing was retooling and diversifying its business. In late October, Porter and Nelson presided over delivery of the first batch of Warped Speed made and -- in a change -- canned at Wisconsin Brewing’s brewery in Verona. The beer inside is better than ever: A smooth, caramelly but perfectly balanced scotch ale that begs for another, bigger swallow. And to think, all this came after it won the Beer Bracket last spring. What a year!
Glazer Bean
I liked but didn’t love my four-pack of Glazer Bean, but it’s still a slam-dunk Beer of the Year because it could be the dawn of a game-changing opportunity for Karben4. The coffee chocolate stout, brewed in collaboration with and exclusively for Kwik Trip, puts Karben4 in an elevated position in the beer coolers of hundreds of convenience stores across the state. If sales are strong enough -- and after a blitz at its November launch, the beer had a tough time staying in stock -- there’s also a chance for an ongoing series featuring Kwik Trip products. Who knows, there are hundreds more Kwik Trips in neighboring states, too. See you next time, indeed.
Honorable mention: When I visited Karben4 to talk Glazer Bean with brewmaster Ryan Koga, I wasn’t expecting to come home with three stories. The second: K4’s series of Barely Beer, fruited lagers that clock in around 3.1% ABV -- feather-light but big in fruit flavor. I took home a strawberry lemonade version that reminded me of the best parts of the Naturdays trend of 2019 and a cranberry-apple Barely Beer that was perfect at the Thanksgiving night card table. The third: This winter K4 became the second Madison brewery to join the hard seltzer wars, launching four flavors of a 4% ABV sparkling water. Between this and Ale Asylum’s Stray Forth label, launched in August, I don’t think this is a story I’m going to be able to avoid much longer. Stay tuned.
Untitled Art Double Apricot Double Milkshake
Untitled Art Double Apricot Double Milkshake
I have not been crazy about the milkshake IPA craze, in which a beer that was maybe identifiable as an IPA is dosed with lactose and vanilla, rendering it definitely not identifiable as an IPA, and usually souped up further with some fruit. But, dang it if sometime around midsummer, this doozy from the Octopi Brewing-based Untitled Art label squarely hit the mark. Sweet, creamy and fruity, I’m guessing as much from the hops as from the apricot. And it wasn’t even called an IPA! Hats off to that. If the powers that be at Untitled Art decide to make this one again -- they often don’t repeat beers -- I’ll be buying it again.
Honorable mention: Beer should be fun, and UA’s Rocket Popsicle Sour did that with flying colors this summer. Just in time for the Fourth of July, this neon blue raspberry sour was pretty tasty but looked very awesome in the glass.
Lakefront Lager
Lakefront Lager
The craft light lager trend continued robustly this year, and Lakefront Lager set Wisconsin’s bar for the style -- apologies to Ale Asylum’s Keep ‘er Movin’, a 2018 Beer of the Year. Light pale lager needs no explanation; it’s the most popular style in the world, and for a reason. And Lakefront Lager nails that formula -- a little sweet, a little bitter, and easy to drink -- most notably with a fantastic noble hop aroma. Besides Kid Kölsch, it was probably the beer I drank the most of this year. And I don’t even have a boat.
Got a beer you’d like the Beer Baron to pop the cap on? Contact Chris Drosner at chrisdrosner@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @WIbeerbaron.
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November 21, 2020 at 10:00PM
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