Lakefront Brewery - Eastside Dark

This Bavarian-style dark lager was a Silver medal winner at the 2003 World Beer Championship. Expect rich bagel dough notes with a touch of rye-like spiciness and fresh, roasted barley. Look for coffee notes throughout, blossoming as it warms, all wrapped in chocolate and faint hints of raisins. Packed with flavor, yet it has the smoothness and drinkability characteristic of this lager style. Gentle spiciness mingles with chocolate, prune, and medium-roast coffee bean notes, segueing to a creamy, rich middle, all grounded by late-breaking flourishes of lemon-peel bitterness and espresso. The finish is quite notable; bitter up front, running to slightly sweet, smooth and mellow, with the bitterness returning very prominently at the end. Dark fleshy fruits round out the fade. This is a great beer to have with spiced gravy beef tips or lamb kebobs, or paired with a medium-bodied maduro cigar. (Shameless Plug Alert! Visit us at www.cigarmonthclub.com for information about our Premium Cigar of the Month Club.)

As home to mammoth beer companies Miller, Pabst, and Schlitz, Milwaukee, Wisconsin has been known more for its big “macro” breweries than for microbrewed craft beer. But, since founding Lakefront Brewery in 1987, brothers Russ and Jim Klisch have been dedicated to changing that perception. While there was a family heritage with roots in the brewing and beer service industry, the Klisch brothers ended up in very different careers: Jim was a Milwaukee police officer, and Russ worked in the field of chemical engineering. But then sometime in the early 1980s, Jim developed an interest in brewing and Russ gave him a book on brewing for his birthday. Russ admits that Jim wasn’t too bad at it, and that inspired a measure of sibling rivalry that got Russ bitten by the brewing bug, too. By the mid-80s, the brothers had become quite adept at brewing, and their homebrew was increasingly popular among both family and friends who encouraged Russ and Jim to expand their hobby into a full-fledged business.

Lakefront Brewery remains a locally-owned, small, family-run microbrewery, that has a knack for innovation. In 1992 they bottled the first fruit beer in the U.S. since Prohibition, and in 1996 they created the first certified organic beer in the country. They also introduced “New Grist,” one of the nation’s first gluten-free beers in 2006 (brewed with sorghum and rice in place of barley) so that those with Celiac’s disease could have access to a beer that they could safely drink. Additionally, Lakefront has been a leader in the green business movement in Wisconsin, being awarded the Travel Green Wisconsin certification in 2007.

For more info on the brewery or brewery tours (in which they give you a beer at the start of the tour instead of the end!), call (414) 372-8800 or visit them at www.lakefrontbrewery.com.