Need New Glarus Recommendations (and bottle shop)

A coworker is dropping his kid at Marquette this weekend and offered to haul me back some New Glarus.

1.) Recommendations for beers? I love just about all styles, especially wild ales. I have heard of the Wisconsin Belgian Red and Serendipity.
2.) Anyone know of a good/convenient bottle shop with a good selection near Marquette University? I want to make this as convenient as possible so I can negotiate future hauls!

This guy is not a beer guy, so I am looking to make this as easy as possible for him. So availability of beers is also a consideration.

TIA-

Just a mule?

Can’t help with a specific store but here are what beers are out there. http://www.newglarusbrewing.com/index.c … erschedule

In my opinion all their beers are very solid, I don’t like them all equally but that has more to do with my beer style preferences than it being a well done beer. Do like their sour beers but the fruit ones lean a bit sweeter than something like Cantillon but no where as sweet as Lindemans, just setting expectations.

I love all their lagers but that is likely because I like lagers and Dan Carey (as well as other brewers there) are also into lagers.

Like flip, I too think all their beers are solid. Their fruit beers are sweet so plan to share them with SWMBO. I LOVE Moon Man which is a session IPA. yokel is a pretty good beer and if you can find Totally Naked give it a shot to see that American lagers CAN have flavor. Spotted cow is a pretty good cream ale style beer, but drinks like a lager. Looks like his apple ale should be available which would also be a good score. Store wise, I would have them try a Woodmans. Those stores are UNBELIEVABLE. There appears to be one about 15-20 mins from Marquette U.
Edited to add info about Woodmans.

O’so is my newest brewery I track down when I’m in Wisconsin. They have a porter called Night Train that’s pretty good. They also do 12 pack samplers with a variety that’s not disappointing. This spring, I got their beer called “Grandpa’s got a gun” that was amazing… it was brewed with maple sap. I think they had it in 750s someplace.

Apple Ale is certainly available. Was in Madison and then New Glarus (for their ‘hard hat’ tour) last weekend.

Ok great replies, thanks. I was going to have him grab me (if they are readily available) more of the wild ales/sours from New Glarus. I have had Spotted Cow before and yeah, its good I guess, but you have to understand that I live in Genesee country, and there is only one Cream Ale for me (other than mine of course) :mrgreen:

So are NG’s large format/sours pretty widely available? I was just going to have him grab me 12 of those or so, worst case I can trade for other stuff with some of the fanboys in my area.

Apple Ale really doesn’t sound appetizing to me. Is it any good?

I think you’ll need to direct him to a specialty bottle shop for their larger format bottles. There are a few in Milwaukee, but most of the offerings you’ll find at the corner stores, and they’re everywhere, will be the ordinary 6-pack varieties. Woodman’s will probably have everything, though. Of all places, I found some of their large sour bottles at Seguin’s near the border between Wisconsin and Michigan. Haven’t opened them yet, saving them for a special occasion. When I was in Milwaukee earlier this summer, I didn’t find any of them, although I only looked moderately hard.

Woodman’s was a good suggestion or a Whole Foods would be a good choice. Not too hard to find the large format NG bottles in any sort of real liquor store. Know Whole Foods has a good selection of beer in Wisconsin since I was looking where to pick up some 3 Floyd’s down there and they are listed as having a good selection.

The Apple Ale is actually pretty good, really just tastes like tart apples.

I will fly in the face of typical beer mulery and hoarding and post this:

I ended up sending him to Avenue Liquors, who I called beforehand to check on inventory. Their beer guy said they typically have Wisconsin Red, Raspberry Tart, and Serendipity, but they do sell really quickly. My coworker said it was super easy off of the interstate, and they gave him a discount on a full case, 12 bottles for $128 with tax.

Score!

Nice! I really like Serendipity and Raspberry Tart. Very well done. Try not to drink them all in one sitting!

Wish I would have seen this post earlier. Lots of hype with New Glarus but IMO those big bottles taste little like beer and mostly like popsicles! The small 12 oz bottles have all their better stuff. Next time.

Dave are you generally a fan of wild ales? I’ve heard they are sweeter than say Rodenbach, but (God I hope) not as sweet as Lindemans or something. I definitely don’t mind sweet/fruity up front, but need it to be dry with some subtle funk on the finish.

Serendipity, Wisconsin Red and Raspberry Tart are all on BA’s Top 20, to your point. As I said above, if I REALLY don’t like them I can definitely trade with some local BA sycophants for something I like :mrgreen:

What are your favorite small-format bottles? I like Spotted Cow, but I’m in Genny Cream Ale country :mrgreen: He’s picking her up again for Xmas, and as long as I throw him an occasional growler/bomber of my stuff, he said he will be happy to continue to mule for me.

I’m interested in this, too. I’ve had quite a few of their 12-oz bottles, and while they’re generally solid offerings, they are nothing that I would seek out. I’d choose them over BMC, but that’s about it.

Whenever I go home to Wisconsin I always seek out Sprecher products. There is only one store in all of New York City that sells them. With New Glarus I always buy what catches my eye to sample them but none have ever stuck in my memory like Sprecher has.

[quote=“Pietro”][quote=“dmtaylo2”]

Dave are you generally a fan of wild ales? I’ve heard they are sweeter than say Rodenbach, but (God I hope) not as sweet as Lindemans or something. I definitely don’t mind sweet/fruity up front, but need it to be dry with some subtle funk on the finish.

Serendipity, Wisconsin Red and Raspberry Tart are all on BA’s Top 20, to your point. As I said above, if I REALLY don’t like them I can definitely trade with some local BA sycophants for something I like :mrgreen:

What are your favorite small-format bottles? I like Spotted Cow, but I’m in Genny Cream Ale country :mrgreen: He’s picking her up again for Xmas, and as long as I throw him an occasional growler/bomber of my stuff, he said he will be happy to continue to mule for me.[/quote][/quote]

I love wild ales. The big bottles are NOT wild ales IMO. Too sweet, too big on the fruit, don’t taste like beer at all. They do make some great wild ales and oak aged stuff but these are not them.

By the way… recent research of mine has reached the conclusion that BA don’t know sh**.

I am tapping on my Kindle currently but remind me later and I promise to followup with a far more detailed post. :slight_smile:

Hey cmon, if its not 100+ IBU and 9.5% abv, its GARBAGE!

Its not much better, but a little: I’m generally more of a Ratebeer fan.

I may be trading for some Canadian Breakfast Stout or Cantillon…

That there is a worthy trade… I’d make that any day!

I certainly hope to read this synopsis. I do agree that sites like this are a total waste of time for the following reasons:

  1. taste is subjective. It could taste good to you but bad to me.
  2. anyone can post their thoughts and raise or lower a score without training.
  3. some people rate styles they don’t even like (I hate stouts but am drinking and scoring this one)
  4. I find it difficult to rate a beer that’s only available in one small region.

Loopie, you pretty much nailed it on the head.

As promised, here’s some detailed raw unedited tasting notes from my personal file from the past 15 years, in order from awesome to ho-hum. Ratings at the end of the lines are on a 1 to 10 scale. If I said BEST OF FEST or BOF, it means I went to a beer fest (I’ve been to a LOT) and this was my favorite beer of the whole day. Disclaimer: These are my opinions, which means they are the right answer and anyone who begs to differ will be ignored. :mrgreen:

Coffee Stout BEST OF FEST - excellent 10
Cran-Bic BOF - sweet & sour, nice Brett 10
Alt vanilla, caramel, hi alc, awesome 9.5
Hop Hearty IPA BOF - Cascade & EKG, 6.1% abv 9
Black Wheat unique black malted hefeweizen! Yum 9
Oud Bruin oak & cherry Flanders - nice! But too much oak 9
Snowshoe Red Ale artificial grapeiness! complex 9
Moon Man piney Chinooky APA - WORTHY! 9
Edel Pils excellent German pilsner 9
Imperial Hefeweizen spicy, sweet, Belgiany, not clovy 8.7
Blonde Lager German pilsner 8.5
Crack’d Wheat bubblegum 8.5
Spotted Cow easy going, corny 8
Fat Squirrel sweet, nutty, funky finish 7.3
Staghorn Octoberfest too hoppy, pretzely, dry 7.3
Organic Revolution (Pale Ale) just O.K. 7
Serendipity tart cherry popsicle! Not beery 7
Belgian Red HUGE cherry, not much else 6.2
Two Women Bavarian Lager Spaghetti-O’s?? 6
Stone Soup grapey fruit but not a Belgian 5
Cabin Fever Honey Bock sweet honey, DMS 5
Apple Ale way too sweet! Where’s the apple? 5
Thumbprint Berliner Weiss sour but very very plain 5
Uff-Da Bock yuck, caramel?, not great 4.3
Raspberry Tart tastes like soda, NOT beery 4

EDIT: And here’s another way to view a guy’s opinions in a more fancy fashion:

https://untappd.com/user/dmtaylo1/beers ... rt=brewery