It’s the early evening of day ten and we just finished visiting Sierra Nevada brewery and eating dinner at In-N-out burger. I must say that that In-N-Out is by far my favorite fast food chain in the US. That isn’t really saying too much, considering the fact that I don’t eat much fast food (at least outside of Beercation). All that aside, let me tell go back in time to the morning of day six. As I mentioned at the end of the day five blog, day six began with a bit of a hiccup. We woke up at the Biggerstaff’s house and Matt couldn’t find his keys. We all did a bit of drinking the night before and none of us could remember who had his keys last.
Matt remembered giving me his keys to grab my bags out of the trunk so that we could all get situated for bed the night before. But I distinctively remember giving Matt his keys back. He also remembers opening up bottles of beer that we bought along Beercation and were enjoying at the Biggerstaff’s house. We looked for nearly a half hour without any success locating Matt’s keys. But no one had asked Andrew whether or not he had them or remembered borrowing them the night before. Once Andrew was done showering, we approached him to see what he knew of the missing keys.
Surely enough, Andrew had put them in the bottom of his bag. But Matt has outside when we found out this information. So I thought it would be a good idea to mess with him. I approached him outside and said something along the lines of, “I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The good news is, this (losing his keys) is the worst problem we’ve had so far on this trip. The bad news is that Andrew doesn’t have your keys either.” I head back inside, eager to share my joke with everyone. Ben, erring on the side of compassion, decides that enough is enough and tells Matt that I was just messing with him and Andrew had his keys in his bag all along.
After saying goodbye and thanking the Biggerstaff’s for the overwhelming show of hospitality, we headed in search of some good beer at Three Floyd’s Brewery in Munster, Indiana. Stopping in Hobart for a quick lunch, we made it to Three Floyds about an hour and a half after leaving the Biggerstaff’s house. We arrived at Three Floyds and everyone but me tried a sampler which included four of the breweries top selling beers. Because I had already visited and tried quite a few of the beers at Three Floyds, I decided to have an Apocalypse Cow. Matt, Andrew, and Ben all thoroughly enjoyed their samplers and we hit the road to stop at my parents place on our way north toward Wisconsin.
We got to my parents house and were greeted by dad and sat down to enjoy some BLTs and waffles my mom made in the morning. I tried to eat light when we stopped for food in Hobart at Chipotle so I could save room for food at my parents. Everyone else ate a burrito, so I don’t assuming that they wouldn’t eat much. But boy was I surprised when Ben ate a BLT, Matt had some waffles and a sandwich, and Andrew also ate some waffles and half a sandwich. I made an awesome BLT with potato chips and a cold glass of water to wash it all down. It was nice to be able to unload all my dirty clothes at home and grab clean clothes for the rest of the trip. But obviously the best part was being able to see my family and secondly telling them about how great our trip had been so far. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to see my little sister. So Melora if you are reading this, sorry I missed you when we stopped by. But I have a surprise for you when we meet up again in Florida. And for mom and dad, I’ll also have a surprise for you two, as well. (I wanted to write you two, too but I thought that might be confusing). And no mom it isn’t like the mother’s day card I sent you. For those of you not in my family, I’ll get back to Beercation.
After spending a little less than an hour with my family, we were off to Wisconsin to our first stop at Tyranena Brewery in Lakes Mills, Wisconsin. Coming from home, this was a great placed to stop because of the great community feel at this brewery. Although we encountered what seemed like a ridiculous amount of road closures and construction, we eventually made our way to Tyranena Brewing. After ordering a sampler of beer at the bar, I met an older couple sitting next to me at the bar. We made small talk about employment, Wisconsin, and the brewery itself. She told me that I should try and speak with the head brewer at the brewery who was sitting outside enjoying some live music. So, I waited for him to head inside to the bar and approached him with a number of questions in the back of my head.
I asked him if he would mind if I videotaped our conversation, but he was a bit hesitant to be on camera. Nonetheless, we had a great conversation about his role as head brewer, the brewery itself, and the local and community feel to Tyranena. He said that as the head brewer he was responsible for creating the beer and didn’t have much to do with the beer outside of Wisconsin. He did mention that Tyranena had distribution to the Chicago area. When we discussed the brewery, I told him that I thought it had a very local and community-oriented feel to it. We exchanged opinions about what it meant to be local and both agreed that the brewery was heavily tied to the community. He said that Tyranena was the only brewery he was aware of that supported running (half and full marathons), cycling (not sure the exact events, sorry), and local charities and events. I was very impressed with the breweries interest in staying local. The brewery doesn’t even serve but recommends ordering food to the brewery from local eateries or bring your own food from other local establishments. The outdoor garden even has a grill, so Tyranena was a place to buy their beer and BYOM (bring your own meat). One thing that the head brewer mentioned during our conversation was that their brewery was about 1/8 the size of Capital. Ironically enough, there Beercation’s next stop in Wisconsin.
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