New Glarus Brewery Tour

Alex and I went up to to the land of cheese and beer for the weekend last month. While there we drove to the newly opened hilltop brewery. The drive out to the brewery is great. You go straight though the winding roads of the Driftless area. The Driftless area is a part of southwest Wisconsin that has deeply carved valleys from glacial drift. There's also some great fly fishing for trout in streams no bigger than one lane of highway in the area. No fishing this time though. We passed the old brewery on the way to the new one. Once you see the new facility you wonder how they ever did it all in the old one. This place is the nicest micobrewery i have seen. The front is setup to looks like an european village. There's limestone steps that lead you to the brewery with a waterfall besides it. Once inside you can grab yourself a pint or a sampler. They had 6 beers on tap. For $3.50 you get a taster glass and 3 4oz samples. They only have guided tours on the weekend, so we took the self guided one. Wich means you cna walk anywhere thats not ropped off. The first thing you see once leaving the gift shop is the new copper kettles. Then you follow the hallway which leads you past a yeast storage room, a chemistry lab like room, the bottleing/kegging and past the fermetion tanks. NG put in 20mil to make this new brewery happen. They have expaned from 65,000 to 130,000 barrels. Looks like it was worth every penny. I almost forgot one of the coolest reason for stopping in, beer. They have a beer depot by the parking lot. Everything that they bew is there and sold by the case. Even brews that are out of season, like the iced barleywine. I spent way too much money there. But then again you have to stock up since it's only sold in Wisconsin.