We, me, Kris, Dawn and Christi, hit the road around 3:00pm Friday to head to Cheesehead land. The drive was uneventful but a stop had to be made at Blue Max Liquor in Burnsville, MN. We had to have some beverages for the night and some fun ones for our vacation. After a bite to eat we headed to Hudson, WI for our sleep stop for the night. We also met up with Ronnie and Nanci our other two vacationeers. They had crashed for the night but we needed a night cap before the heads hit the pillows so we broke open a few bottles of beer to enjoy.
Saturday morning we headed to Chippewa Falls, WI to tour the Leinenkugel Brewery. If you ever get a chance to take the tour do so. It is better to do this during the weekday then weekend as you get to see the whole production of the bottling also. It was a fun time and of course you get two FREE 7 oz glasses of Leinies to sample. I of course did a mix. If you are not familiar with this, Leinie drinkers do some mixing of the different Lienie brews. It is a lot of fun and gives some of your favorite beers a different taste. I had a Red Oktober which is their red lager mixed with their Oktoberfest. Very good. I like the Oktoberfest and am not really a Red Lager fan but when you mix the two they are good. Lets see if I can remember what all we tried. Black Bear (Leinie's creamy dark and berry weiss) Honey Bear (Honey weiss and berry weiss) Red Sunset (red lager and sunset wheat)....and of course I can not remember them all...might have to take another trip there.
Ok, so we do the tour and our tour guide, Zach, escorted us back to the Leinie Lodge (gift shop) and what do we see but a whole bunch of bikers. I snapped a pic of a few of them as they took off on their tandems. We fell in LOVE with the Disney bike jersey the one couple had on. Might have to start looking for a couple of those. This seems to be a bit of a hot bed for bikers. I do know that the Leinenkugel have a bike ride the end of May which might be a fun time for a future ride. Anyway when we were there a lot of bikers were coming and going which was neat to see. Why is it the biking and good beer go together? I have yet to figure this out.
So, we head to a little place for lunch. Nothing fancy, but was recommended by Leinenkugel staff. The place was not much on atmosphere but the food was great. We also hit the local grocery store for more beverages. We were given $2.00 off coupons on 12-packs of Leinies for taking the Leinies tour. I did question Zach, our tour guide, about the new nut brown ale Leinenkugels coming out this fall. He said it is not ready but asked if I had tried New Glarus Brewery's nut brown ale. Hmmmm....this is the second time I had heard about New Glarus (thanks Mr Bite) so we decided to purchase some at Gordy's grocery store but to our surprise we looked at the Leinenkugel sample and low and behold their was a featured beer call Fireside Nut Brown Ale! Of course we bought the sample pack and also the New Glarus Spotted Cow, Fat Squirrel (nut brown ale) and a few other beers to sample.
We were finally on the road again and headed to our destination up by Luck, WI.
We got all unloaded and kind of settled in to the log cabin that Kris's aunt and uncle own. Little did Kris know is that I sent all sorts of items to her aunt and uncle to decorate the cabin for her 50th birthday. It was kind of a belated surprise but lots of fun. She of course thought her aunt and uncle did all of it and you know me, I played right along with it until she called and talked with them. I had to come clean. It is a very nice place and is not ruffing it by any means. Food was needed so we headed down to the local drinking hole the Blacksmith's shop. All of us had chicken is some sort of way but not Kris. She bucked the group and opted for liver and onions. I have to tell you that four of the six of us like liver and onions and so samples were had. The liver and onions were awesome!
We headed back to the cabin and all of us were so tired we were all in bed by around 9:00pm...wow!
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