Last year Dustin Hehn and Michael Rill were parked outside Lakefront Brewery at midnight the day after Thanksgiving. They were there for the brewery's annual Black Friday beer releases.
Beers flowed and despite bitter cold, "it was a fun experience," Hehn said.
Hehn and Rill followed the routine for three years. Line up. Share beers and stories in line. Bring home Lakefront's Barrel-aged Stout.
This year the brewery, which started Milwaukee's Black Friday beer scene in 2011, decided not to release its Black Friday beers at the brewery over COVID-19 safety concerns.
Instead, Lakefront allocated its 2020 Black Friday inventory — Black Friday Imperial Stout aged in bourbon barrels, Black Friday Barleywine aged in bourbon barrels and Black Friday Christmas Ale aged in brandy barrels — to retail locations like Karl's Country Market in Menomonee Falls.
There were still lines. At Karl's, those lines snaked past the butcher counter to the liquor department. The store, which opened at 7 a.m., sold out its Lakefront inventory in 20 minutes, an employee said.
The quest for Lakefront's Black Friday selections as well as Goose Island's Bourbon County Brand Stout and its variants reportedly had people lining up at 6 a.m. at all three Total Wine locations — Greenfield, Brookfield and Bayshore.
Nate Huemik was one of those at the Total Wine at Bayshore at 6:30 a.m. Before 10 a.m., he was waiting outside Eagle Park Brewing & Distilling, S64-W15640 Commerce Center Parkway in Muskego, hoping to get a few specialties.
Jason Strommen was at Eagle Park, too. He started the day at The Explorium Brewpub, 5300 S. 76th St. in Greendale, at 6:30 a.m. to purchase bottles of its Milwaukee County Stout Gold, then headed to Total Wine in Greenfield before cracking a beer outside at Eagle Park.
"Hanging out with people, this is what it's all about," he said. The Racine resident and three friends make the Black Friday beer rounds every year but usually in Chicago.
Mary and Kevin Liner go out early every year on Black Friday. By 1 p.m., the Milwaukee couple were sitting down to the first part of the brewery's Mocha Pie base stout and a Double-barrel Nexus of the Universe at Third Space Brewing, 1505 W. St. Paul Ave.
The couple hit up several liquor stores in search of specialty beers but didn't want to stand in line. Instead, they found beer at smaller mom-and-pop stores this time. What they noticed, at least at one store they wouldn't disclose, was that a single person often served as a scout in search of the Black Friday Lakefront beers or Goose Island's Bourbon County Stout Brand brews.
The Liners sipped beer next to a line of people waiting to pick up beers they had pre-ordered from Third Space.
The Black Friday offering, a bourbon barrel-aged Imperial stout, is the first in the series, which breaks the dessert down bottle by bottle. It sold out.
Third Space will release a new single variant every two weeks until the final beer, which is called The Mocha Pie, on Feb. 6.
Around noon, Hehn and Rill stood in line at Biloba Brewing, 2970 N. Brookfield Road in Brookfield, hoping to snag a bottle of the brewery's Impossible 2020, a strong ale with an ABV (alcohol by volume) of 19.68%.
For comparison's sake, a typical beer's ABV is between 4% and 8% and Lakefront's Black Friday Barleywine clocked in with 14.9% ABV.
Even as they stood in line, Hehn and Rill clicked on pre-orders for the next specialty beer release at Third Space Brewing.
Contact Kathy at (414) 224-2974 or kathy.flanigan@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @katflanigan.
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November 28, 2020 at 05:10AM
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COVID didn't keep people from buying specialty beers on Black Friday, but the lines were shorter - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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