The Traveling Steve's

Milwaukee brewery hopping by land

Steve (DOS) and I spend a nice Spring weekend afternoon in Milwaukee taking a brewery tour, and yes as the title says, it was by land this time, as opposed to a boat tour. We took a boat brewery river tour on our summer visit a few years ago and loved it, although this trip it was still a bit too early for the river boats to be running, as seen by the occasional pieces of ice floating in the river.

Downtown Milwaukee River Front
Large piece of ice still floating in the river

Our Untapped Tours started at 1:30pm, and took us to four different micro-breweries in the River West section of Milwaukee, not far from downtown. DOS and I took Uber from our downtown Hyatt Hotel to the meeting point, a short two miles away. DOS and I got to the arrival point a bit early (which would actually be our final stop) and walked around this charming neighborhood a bit before the van rolled up and we met our group.

DOS at the start (and end stop) of our brewery tour.
Beautiful Cathedral we walked by while waiting for our tour to start.
River West neighborhood of Milwaukee
Our Lady of Divine Providence
Our Untapped Tours tour bus

We went to four breweries over the next 3 1/2 hours, riding from place to place in a mini shuttle van with another 15 beer enthusiasts. Most of the people were couples, family members and from Wisconsin or Chicago, making a weekend stay in Milwaukee.

At each stop we were given two six ounce beers of our choice, from the breweries wide selection of microbrews. Below is a gallery of the breweries we went to, in order of visit.

While all of the stops were micro-breweries, the first brewery we stopped at, Lakefront Brewery was by far the largest. We had a good mix of breweries on the tour, and I’m glad we started with the largest first, as it was quite busy, and the ones to follow were much smaller and more intimate. They even had a large photo board honoring Laverne and Shirley from the 70’s sitcom.

Our next stop was my overall favorite; a new micro-brewery named The Gathering. Like many of the breweries, this was started by a couple whose passion for beer making turned into a business. This new brewery has a fancy tasting room, and the owner was proud to show us around.

Our next stop was Black Husky Brewing. This brewery had the Husky in the name and label, and the production facilities we toured had some memorabilia including a dog sled. After just visiting northern Finland in February and doing the husky sled ride, we really enjoyed the brewery tie-in to the huskies! In their tasting room, which was just outside the glass walls of the production facilities, they allow owners to bring their dogs in, with all shapes and sizes. We went out and bought some souvenir glasses while chatting with some of the owners.

Our final stop was at Company Brewing. This was where we met for our tour originally, although we didn’t tour this until our final stop. This was a fun last stop, and we toured the production facilities as well as had our final brewski’s in the bar area. We had a fun time talking to the others on our tour in the festive atmosphere, and even had a couple extra brewski’s with our new pub friends.

After finishing up our brewski’s at Company Brewing, we Uber’d back a short distance to our Hyatt Hotel in downtown Milwaukee.

Ubering back to our hotel after an afternoon of brewery hopping.

It was 5:30pm or so when we got back to our hotel, the Hyatt Regency Milwaukee.

A shower and a nap were in order when we got back, but still managed to make it for our 7:30pm reservation at Rodizio Grille, a Brazilian type steakhouse.

Wine cellar at Rodizio Grille

‘Twas a long and fun-filled day of touring Milwaukee’s ‘finest’!

Dinner at Rodizio Grille, Milwaukee

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