An Early Look at Green Dragon Brew Pub In Fond du Lac

There hasn’t been a commercial brewery making beer in Fond du Lac since 1937. That’s going to change pretty damned soon. The Green Dragon Brew Pub at 156 Western Ave. (about a block west of S. Main St.) opened its doors in Fond du Lac last month. They aren’t pouring their own beer yet, but that’s not far off. That piece should be in place this fall, perhaps as early as October. Still, this is already a spot that ought be on the radar of any person around here who’s into good beer.

Right now they have 16 beers on tap. Every one of those draught lines is given over to craft or good imported beer. The selection is excellent with an emphasis on beers that lean towards the sessionable side with a few higher alcohol beers rounding out the list. There’s also a good selection of bottled beer.

The food is fantastic. It’s pub fare with a creative bent (see the menu). The breads are made in house and the greens are from the local farmer’s market. When I was there, I had a pork schnitzel sandwich with an Ayinger Oktoberfest. It was incredible!

The place has a comfortable, casual atmosphere with a long bar facing the dining area. Off the main room is a lounge with leather couches and a pool table. The brewery is downstairs and not visible from above.

I’m looking forward to tasting a commercial beer brewed in Fondy. The Green Dragon brewmaster is Dave Koepke. I’ve known Dave for a while and have drank his homebrew. It’s exceptional. I can’t imagine his beer at the Green Dragon will be anything less. After 77 years, it’s going to be good to see Fondy have its own beer again. I’ll post something here when that starts pouring.

Beer Run: Badger State Brewing Co.

Head Brewer Sam Yanda

Here’s a new brewery just an hour north of Oshkosh that’s worth checking out. Badger State Brewing is a Green Bay nanobrewery launched by former homebrewers Andrew Fabry, Michael Servi and Sam Yanda. They began selling their beer in early December 2013. Their brewery is now open weekdays with growler sales on premise. The place is something to see.... and smell.

I stopped in last Friday just as head brewer Sam Yanda was adding cinnamon and cocoa nibs to an oatmeal stout he was making. The aroma was incredible. The brewery is located in a good-sized open space in the back of a manufacturing building near Lambeau Field. Yanda brews on a 15-gallon Sabco system that feeds 42-gallon Blichmann Conical Fermenators. The set-up is getting plenty of use. Yanda says he’s brewing almost daily to keep up.

They had three beers available when I was there – New Green Chop Session IPA; Waloon Belgian Wit Beer; and Bunyan Badger Brown Ale. All three of the beers were quite good. I wound up taking a growler of the brown home.

At the moment, Badger State beers are available at the brewery and at Adams St. Pub and The Libertine, both in Green Bay. But the best way to see what they’re about is to stop in at the brewery, get a tour and pick up a growler or two. It’s rare that you get to see this kind of small-batch brewing taking place on a professional level. We need more of it.

For more on Badger State Brewing, see their webpage and their Facebook page.

Beer Run: The National Brewery Museum

In 2004 Potosi, a small village near the Mississippi River in the southwest corner of Wisconsin, was selected over Milwaukee and St. Louis to become the site of the National Brewery Museum. Six years and $7 million later the restored ruins of the defunct Potosi Brewing Company now stand like a shrine to American brewing during the post-war years. The true strength of the museum is its collection of artifacts from the regional breweries that flourished in America following Prohibition and the Oshkosh breweries of that era are all particularly well represented. In fact, you can hardly turn around in the renovated three-story brewery that houses the museum without spotting some beer related item that originated in Oshkosh.

The museum’s displays are made-up from the collections of members of the American Breweriana Association and are swapped out for new items a couple times each year. The current collection has a noticeable Wisconsin bent, but that’s not too surprising when you consider the sheer number of breweries that made Wisconsin home prior to the 1960s and 70s. It’s also fitting that you find all this in what was once a prototypical Wisconsin Brewery. The history of the Potosi Brewing Company played out along the same lines as that of the Oshkosh Brewing Company and numerous other regional Wisconsin Breweries. Potosi Brewing began in 1852. The company limped along during Prohibition selling soda to re-emerge from that awful period as a thriving regional brewery. But by the early 1970s Potosi Brewing could no longer compete with the likes of Pabst, Miller and Budweiser and in 1972 the beer stopped flowing.

The story doesn’t end there, though. Another great part of the National Brewery Museum is that with it has come a new brewery to Potosi. Things have changed some, the new brewery makes ales while the older concern was strictly a lager house, but most importantly they’re making excellent beer. Potosi’s new brewmaster, Steve Buszka, formerly the head brewer at Bell’s Brewery in Michigan (when it was called Kalamazoo Brewing), brews on a 15-barrel system on the third floor of the Museum. The beer is served at a beautiful, hand-made bar on the ground floor and it’s just what you’re craving after a couple hours of prowling through rooms filled with fascinating beer advertisements designed to make you as thirsty as possible.

Potosi is about a three hour drive from Oshkosh. The road leading in is rustic and rural and would make for a great bike trip. Admission to the museum is $7 and includes a beer at the end of your tour. For more information visit the website of the National Brewing Museum and the website of the Potosi Brewery.

Here is a short video tour of the museum by Milwaukee’s WTMJ. Take a look and you’ll see what I mean about Oshkosh being well represented.

Beer Run: Corks And Caps in Greenville

If the holiday weekend finds you traveling north on Highway 76, there’s a good beer dealer just off the main road that you ought to check out. Corks and Caps is about 20 miles north of Oshkosh in the Town of Greenville and over the past year they’ve bulked up on their beer selection to the point where the store is now one of the best destinations for good beer in the area. Joe, the owner of Corks and Caps, keeps better than 60 craft and imported brews in stock with about half the inventory stored cold. He has a thorough selection of the Wisconsin-brewed favorites and is strong on midwestern beers in general with breweries such as Bell’s, Dark Horse, Goose Island and New Holland all well represented. There’s a nice crop of Belgians on hand along with bombers from Rouge, New Glarus and New Belgium.

Our Man Joe

There’s plenty to like here and if you stop in, ask if Joe is around. He’s a fun guy to talk to. He knows his beer and he likes to share his enthusiasm for what he’s doing. His plan is to continue expanding the beer side of his business and by all indications he’s getting plenty of support on that from the beer drinkers in the area.

For more information on Corks and Cape - the place is more than just a beer haven - visit their website.

And if you have the time, check out Joe’s blog. It’s an interesting glimpse into the bizarre system we have for distributing beer in America.

Directions to Corks and Caps.

Beer Run: The Cellar In Fond du Lac

The Cellar door 109 N. Main St.

There’s a burgeoning homebrew scene in Fond du Lac and its epicenter is The Cellar, Dave Koepke's beer brewing and wine making supply shop. The Cellar shares a downtown building with an aquarium shop so when you first walk in you might think you went through the wrong door. What’s with all the bubbling tanks and fish? Just keep walking. Soon you’ll begin to smell the malt and you’ll know you’ve arrived.

Malt truly is the first thing you notice about the place. That wonderful smell is coming from the bags of grain stacked on carts and the rows of grain buckets shelved along the length of the store. “I stock 60 different types of grain,” Dave says. It’s not just a pound of this and a pound of that, either. He’s got it in bulk and his prices might be the best of any homebrew shop in Wisconsin. He says, “I try to make it as affordable as I can.”

The other thing you’ll soon notice about The Cellar is the owner’s enthusiasm for what he’s doing. “There’s nothing I enjoy more than teaching people to brew beer," Dave says. "It’s not just brewing, but the philosophy of brewing, as well.” You can see that in the way he deals with his customers. When I was there last Saturday I saw him working with a couple new brewers. One looked to be in his mid-20s, the other was pushing 70. Each came in with simple questions and each walked away knowing a whole lot more about beer and brewing than when he’d walked in. Later on Dave said, “I guess if you're a beer lover then we can talk all day long.”

He’s got plenty to talk about. Dave has had his hand in just about every aspect of the beer trade. He’s been a bar owner, worked for a liquor distributor and is a graduate of the Siebel Institute’s Diploma Course in Brewing. But he first fell in love with good beer during a backpacking trip through Europe. There he drank Czech Lagers and English Ales and in Amsterdam had a Belgian Whit that sealed his fate. When he got back home he immediately started brewing. His initial brews were, if nothing else, memorable. “The first two batches were terrible,” he says. The third was even more interesting. He smashed a carboy and had an exploding fermentation “but it ended up tasting awesome!” As so often happens, he was hooked.

Dave got into the homebrewing business in 1997 when he opened Valley Homebrew Supply, Fond du Lac’s first store for homebrewers. The store went under when the business it was attached to closed its doors. So what does a homebrewer do when he loses his job and winds up with a load of grain he can’t sell? He starts brewing, of course. Within six months he had brewed a hundred gallons of beer. He brewed everything - Lagers, Belgian Whits, Pale Ales and, one of his favorites, Vanilla Stout.

Dave Koepke at work

Dave’s hoping he’ll have a longer run with The Cellar. The store is still young, it opened just last May and it’s off to a great start. “I’ve tried to take all the things I don’t like about homebrew shops and do them differently,” he says. Eventually, Dave would like to see the shop develop into a brewery, but for now he’s focused on the immediate future. Within a year or two he expects to relocate and he's hoping to keep the shop in downtown Fond du Lac. And then there’s the new homebrew club he’s helping to get started. The club, which doesn’t have an official name yet, is going to have its kick-off gathering on Big Brew day, May 1st at the Denevue Shelter in Fond du Lac's Lakeside Park. “We’re just going to get together and see who turns out and have a good time.” That seems to be the re-occurring theme that runs through all of Dave’s endeavors. As he says, “I’m 15 years in and still having fun with it.”

For more information on The Cellar and to check out their incredible prices on malt visit the store’s website

For more information on the new Fond du Lac beer and wine making club visit their Facebook page.

And finally, what's the point of talking about homebrewing without a recipe or two. Here’s Dave’s recipe for his Vanilla Stout. He’s been good enough to supply both the extract and all-grain version. Enjoy.

Dave's Vanilla Stout - All Grain

11 gallons
SG 1.052
SRM 47
IBU'S 19.5

Grain

• 13 lbs. 2-row
• 4 lbs. Cara-pils
• 3 lbs. Chocolate Malt
• 1 lbs. Roasted Barley
• 1 lbs. Wheat
• .25 lbs. De-bittered Black Malt

Hops

•  1 oz Northern Brewer 8.0% alpha acid @ 90 mins.

Add 1 or 2 vanilla beans in secondary for 1 month or put them in the keg - your choice.

Dave's Vanilla Stout - Extract

5 gallons
SG 1.052
SRM 65
IBU'S 18

Extract

• 6.6 lbs. Briess Dark LME
• 1 lbs. Briess Pilsen DME

Steeping Grains

• 1.5 lbs. Chocolate Malt
• 2 lbs. cara-pils
• .5 lbs. roasted barley
• .5 lbs. wheat
• .25 De-bittered Black Malt

 Hops

• .5 oz Northernbrewer 8.0% alpha acid @ 60 min
• Add 1 or 2 vanilla beans in secondary for 1 month or put them in the keg - your choice.

Beer Run: The Tap Room at Central Waters Brewery

Fifty-Five minutes north of Oshkosh, the small town of Amherst is home to one of the best breweries in the United States where on Friday and Saturday evenings you can take a seat in the heart of their brew house and drink all the beer you care to.

The Central Waters Tap Room is a beer bar like no other. When you first walk in you get the sense that things have gone out of whack. The Tap Room is seated in the midst of a production brewery. So unlike the brewpubs we’re all familiar with, the brewing equipment doesn’t appear as an afterthought to an elaborate dining room or bar. At Central Waters, that scenario has been inverted. Here the simple bar is dwarfed by the breweries out-sized mash tuns and fermentors. Having a few pints amidst all that gear as the crowd rolls in, the atmosphere takes on the unique feel of a brewery tour turned beer bash. And there’s a distinct vibe that comes with drinking the brewery’s beer while standing in the heart of its production area. It’s as if the brew is coming straight off the teat. I like Central Waters’ beer anyway, but it just seems to taste better here.

The atmosphere is relaxed and inviting and the beer, all Central Waters of course, is excellent. The bar area is causally decorated with recycled, beer-related knickknacks that are easy not to notice in such a big space. The one drawback, is that the bar area does tend to fill up fast and you sometimes have to be patient when getting your next brew.

People watching here is great as the crowd is an odd mix of beer geeks and locals looking to whet their whistle after work. And the pride these regulars take in having the brewery in their town of just over 1,000 people is unmistakeable. They’ve got a right to be proud. Most towns this size are lucky to have some dive with a couple taps of macro-bland swill. The Tap Room at Central Waters stands as proof that you can find a crowd for good beer where ever you pour it.

Central Water is located at 351 Allen St. Amherst, Wisconsin. Hours are Fridays 4-9pm & Saturdays 3-9pm. Here’s a Link.

And here's our lo-fi, 30-second tour of the joint.

Beer Run: The Sugar Maple in Milwaukee

We want to occasionally feature some of the great beer destinations within driving range of Oshkosh and now that the weather is warming, it’s time to get started. Let’s kick things off with Wisconsin’s tap-beer king, The Sugar Maple in Milwaukee.

Here’s what you really want to know: The Sugar Maple has 60 American craft beers on tap. Sixty! Walking in and seeing that long row of tap handles is enough to set any beer lover’s heart racing. But shortly after the initial rush you realize you’ve got a problem. You’re going to need to make a decision. What are you going to drink? You might want to start with their sampler, which gets you 5 oz of any four beers for $10. It’s a start.

Prices here are mostly in the $5 range, about the average for pints around Milwaukee, and the atmosphere is very friendly and relaxed. The servers seem generally well informed about the beer and are more than willing to guide you along if you need help making a choice.  One thing you may want to consider is making your first visit earlier in the afternoon, say 4 pm or so when the crowd is lighter. It’s a large room, but in the evening this place tends to fill up fast, which doesn’t make navigating all that beer any easier.

The Sugar Maple is located on the South East side of Milwaukee, in the Village of Bay View. You can get there from Oshkosh in about an hour and a half and it is definitely worth the trip. At their website you can see their tap list and get directions. How you'll ever find your way back home is something you’ll need to figure out for yourself.