Milwaukee Bars?

Lakefront Brewing and Milwaukee Brewing Company (MKE) both offer great brewery tours. Make sure you sign up ahead of time, online. MKE does reserve some tickets for sale on the day of the tour, but if you sign up ahead of time, you can be guaranteed the time you want.

Milwaukee Ale House is the original brewpub of MKE, so their taps are mostly, if not all, MKE beers. But MKE makes such a great variety of styles that everybody can find at least 2 or 3 beers they like. And the food is rock-solid.

The Pabst Brewery tour is fun. You tour some of the original brewery, which is no longer brewing beer. But it's still an interesting history of beer-making in the early days of Milwaukee. And some of the architecture in the building is REALLY nice.

If you're a big Miller beer fan, then the Miller brewery is worthwhile. Otherwise, skip it. Most of what you see is a GIANT factory, from a bit of a distance away. The old-time bar, where you get several complimentary beers, was probably the best part. Very nice old-time woodwork and décor.

For breakfast, the restaurant brunch, http://www.brunchmke.com/, is VERY good.

 

Did you look here ?-

https://www.beeradvocate.com/place/list/?city=Milwaukee&c_id=US&s_id=WI

A fellow I know lives there, also a homebrewer. He recommends Burnhearts, The Palm and Romans. Lakefront gets raves for it's tour. Black Husky is pretty new and makes some good stuff. Imo Discount is the top bottle shop.

 

Lakefront has an awesome location (on a river, ironically), so that's definitely a good shot.


Personally, I'm a huge fan of Safe House myself (you can probably guess why based on my screenname), which is a really fun place if you're into the spy vibe.

 

Best Beer Bars:
Sugar Maple, Burnhearts, Palm Tavern and Romans are all close to each other (south of downtown) and typically have the biggest and best craft selection.
Rumpus Room has the best selection downtown.
Stubbys 53 has the best selection north of downtown.

Best Breweries:
For hops: Good City and Third Space are both brand new and (in my opinion) have the best IPAs in town. These guys are making a big splash for how new they are. Black Husky also has fantastic sappy IPAs.
Lakefront has a fantastic tour (3rd highest rated in the country) and specializes in Germany-style brews. They win a lot of competitions in Germany. They also do plenty of other styles really well and have the best fish fry in the city on Fridays.
MKE Brewing makes a lot of good brews and have the best value tour if you want to drink as much as humanly possible.
Mobcraft makes a lot of really interesting stuff. They were on Shark Tank and are as unique of a brewery as it gets. They recently released a raspberry sour that I thought was great. I recommend checking them out. They're actually in the same area as MKE Brewing and there are a lot of breweries in that area now. There's also a really good craft distillery in that same area called Great Lakes Distillery. Try their gin & tonic. And if you get smashed, Conjitos Place is next door and has extremely cheap and tasty mexican food.
Miller is a free tour and worth seeing for the massive size of the place.
Pabst is also close to Miller and really cool for the historical factor. They're also coming back to Milwaukee and re-opening brewing operations in the next month or two.

If you want to go for more of the party scene, then Water Street and Old World 3rd Street are lined with bars. It's more of the college/club crowd, but it's not all like that. Old German Beer Hall is awesome if you want a 2L of Haufbrau and play some hammerschlagen.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot. MKE has been booming in the past year with something like 20+ new breweries. Lots to explore.

 

Not much more I can add to that. Good call on Sugar Maple. I would add Vanguard to the list since it's very close to Sugar Maple.
Also if you want great craft beers for dirt cheap try The Drunk Uncle. $2 craft pints/bottles on Sundays and $3 every other day.

 

Around MKE Brewing, I heard very good things about the afore-mentioned Conejito's Place. Never been there though. Closer to MKE Brewing, within easy walking distance, Cielito Lindo had some rather tasty Mexican food. As we were leaving, we saw the Molcajete, http://cielitolindomilwaukee.com/?page_id=111 It looked REALLY good.

 

I've made posts in the past about Milwaukee. Here's the compilation I've done... Some of it is repeats from above but I think it's pretty comprehensive


There have been a few discussions in the past about Milwaukee, here's some links to them, though some of the info is a little old but you can get some good variety of opinions in:
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/bottle-shops-in-milwaukee.158324/
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/a-couple-of-milwaukee-questions.125793/ (more bars and such)
http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/bottle-shops-in-milwaukee.122990/

Hopefully you're driving in or will have a car, cause everything is unfortunately spread around. Really, it boils down to a few locations in each category in my opinion:

Bottle & Growler Shops
Don't forget to check their Facebook and/or twitter feeds for new releases and beermenus.com or app for tap lists
Discount Liquor (51st and Oklahoma) - probably biggest bottle selection in the city, my preferred choice typically, (FYI only open 10-2 Sundays)
Ray's Wine and Spirits (~90th and North Ave in Wauwatosa) - Another great liquor store with a big selection and a big plus that virtually all their beers are in the cooler
The Malt Shoppe (Hwy 100/Mayfair Rd and just north of Wisconsin Ave) - Newer bottle and growler shop with huge selection and 30 taps. Virtually all bottles can be bought as a 4/6pack or individually.
Otto's (Particularly on Oakland and Otto's Wine Cask on Brown Deer Rd) - Nice store with good selection and always seems to have a couple nice bottles of limited or vintage beer. Nate at Brown Deer always has some good stuff available
Woodman's (Oak Creek, Kenosha, Waukesha, Menomonee Falls) - HUGE grocery and liquor stores with big selection, good prices
Three Cellars (Franklin [far south suburb] and Menomonee Falls [north suburb]) - Two nice bottle shops with tap rooms and Menomonee Falls doing crowlers. Always seem to have a good selection and some solid and limited/unique taps
Draft & Vessel - Cool place in Shorewood, has some bottles and a pretty solid tap list typically. Really cool aesthetic and vibe to it. It's a ways away from where I live so I haven't gotten there much, but they recently expanded and heard the space has only improved even more

Beer Bars
Just check facebook/twitter/beermenus for their up to date tap selection, but really you can't go wrong with almost any of them
Stubby's Gastrogrub and Beer Bar Just north of downtown, about 1/2 mile from Lakefront Brewery. 53 beers on tap and they're usually great taps with a wide variety of different beers both local, regional, and some harder to get ones. Plus they have solid foo.
The Rumpus Room The casual/trendy restaurant for the big restaurant group in town. Good food albeit higher-end/pricey, lots of great beers, plus if you want to mix it up, their true specialty is that they make amazing cocktails. Plus an incredible bourbon list (used to regularly have pappy available by the pour, but now you know, it's pappy so...) But this place can get really busy FYI weekend nights.
The Lowlands Group restaurants (Cafe Hollander, Cafe Centraal, Cafe Benelux, Trocadero, Cafe Bavaria) are themed on Belgian/European beers and food and are all really solid places, but less emphasis on local brews than then above places.
But really, just go to Bayview. 4 of the top 100 beer bars in America IN ONE NEIGHBORHOOD all within about a mile or 2 of each other. Sadly none really serve food, but there's good options nearby
Sugar Maple in Bayview has a superb selection of beers but no food, but many really good restaurants within walking distance.
Roman's Pub has a great tap selection as well - check out their Facebook for updates.
Burnhearts another really good, nationally rated bar that has some awesome taps and bottle selection (and they're only a couple blocks from Vanguard and Honey Pie, two great restaurants, Vanguard for Sausages and bourbon and old school wrestling on TV and Honey Pie for way above average local/american meals
The Palm Tavern (New addition to the top 100 this year) great taps awesome bourbon, and occasionally a really nice surprise on tap (one day just randomly put on BA Victory at Sea just cause)

Breweries
Lakefront - Friday nights has their famous fish-fry. Really good, one of my favorites. But be prepared to wait if you get there after about 5:30-6:00. Unless you've already been on the tour, don't dismiss it. One of the best in the country. Otherwise during the days and weekends, it primarily is a brewery with tours and then they sell their taps too, but now has food daily in their beer hall
Good City Brewing - New in the last year. Great location and space. Really enjoyed their Motto mosaic Pale Ale. Also looked like they had some nice food, but I didn't eat there.
Company Brewing - newer place in Riverwest. Beer was good, but was impressed with their really great food.
Black Husky - newly opened brewery and tap room in Riverwest but have been getting bottles down here for a couple years. Haven't been myself to the new brewery yet, but heard nothing but positives for the new location and their beers are well regarded with the hoppy beers being their forte.
Raised Grain Brewing - in the Western Suburbs, but really been making some impressive beers. Sometimes you can find them on tap at other bars/growler shops
Third Space - Won best new brewery in WI at the RateBeer awards. Head brewer came from Hangar 24. Really solid beers. Haven't been recently, but the beers they're posting on Facebook have looked really impressive
City Lights Brewing - Brand new in the last month or two. Amazing space and interior. Beers are solid. Only a couple beers as of now (Session, IPA, Amber, Brown) but as they are open more, I'm excited to see what else they'll pump out.

I know I'm missing some great places that keep opening up that I haven't had a chance to check out yet. There's a ton of great places and Milwaukee is really seeing a revival of great beer. Hope that helps some and if you have any questions or want more specifics, I'm happy to chat some more. Enjoy your trip to The Good Land (insert Alice Cooper here). Cheers!

 

It’s already been said but Sugar Maple is definitely a great beer bar.

Also, the MKE tour is awesome. Highly recommend uber though lol

 

I totally 2nd Discount Liquor, that was an amazing store! It's a little out of the way, but I'm detoured to check their selection out. If you don't have a car btw(which I didn't, the time I detoured over to see the selection here), it's right off the #14 MCTS bus route.

Will have to check out the brewery suggestions you mentioned, that I didn't quote in my reply. Don't forget Ale Asylum(out of Madison) now has a Milwaukee taproom, as well. IIRC from online reviews, it serves food. It's just barely off the Old World 3rd Street strip of bars and other shops, on Highland just east of 3rd St. And the last storefront, before you hit the pedestrian bridge over the Milwaukee River.

Would've visited there my last trip, if not for the fact I was trying to catch my Amtrak train back to Chicago. I'm sure on my next MKE trip, I'll finally get in a visit there for sure.

 

Good call on Ale Asylum. I always forget they opened their taproom here. There's so many places and so little time to check them all out.

 

For me, the best combination of beer and food in Milwaukee is Goodkind.

http://goodkindbayview.com/

Not far from the other Bayview spots already mentioned.

 

I am heading to Milwaukee this weekend for a quick visit/trip and have been very grateful for the opinions and advice given in this thread. I haven't been to MKE since seeing the Mighty Mighty Bosstones there during college (what can I say, it was the '90s). It will be my wife and I and 2 kids, ages 8 and 7, both of whom have been going to breweries since they were babies and are very well behaved (not hard in the age of the iPad). So I'd like to revive this thread to run my itinerary past you all and ask some specific questions.

FRIDAY
7:30am - 12 pm - drive from Cedar Rapids to hotel (near airport), grab a quick lunch somewhere.
1 pm - 4 pm - Discovery Museum
4:15 - 5:30 - Brewery visit
5:45 - 7 pm - Dinner
7:30 - 8:30 - Beer bar
then back to hotel

SATURDAY
10 am - 11 am: Head downtown, go to the Public Market, walk the Riverwalk
11 am - 1 pm: Old World 3rd St area - options include Uzingers, the Spice House, Mader's, and beer at Uber, Ale Asylum, or Rumpus Room.
1 pm - 2:30: Brewery visit
3 pm - 9 pm: Summerfest

SUNDAY
Head back to Cedar Rapids, perhaps stopping at Discount Liquors or Three Cellars for bottles/crowlers first.
Stop at New Glarus on the way back.

We like to drink any style of beer if it's well-made, but as most do these days we're willing to go further out of our way for a particularly delicious IPA (NE especially), stout, or sour. For the brewery visits I'd like a place with a lot of depth in the lineup. If a brewery has only one or 2 standouts I'd just assume finding them at a bar or restaurant.

From my research (using the brewery websites and Untappd ratings), I am most interested in Black Husky (3.87 Untappd avg and some juicy looking IPAs) and Like Minds (3.76 Untappd avg and a couple 4 star sours). Raised Grain actually has the highest ratings but they're just a bit too far, I'll look for them at a bar. Other intriguing options are Mobcraft (just based on close location to Discovery Center, their avg is a bit lower at 3.62), Third Space (3.77) and Good City (3.82 and good location if we want to see the Brady St area)

So for now I'm thinking of Friday visiting Like Minds and Saturday visiting Black Husky, but I am open to cases being made for some of the other options if anyone feels strongly.

For Friday dinner - we are foodies but do have 2 kids in tow. We are open to all styles - good local ethnic like German, Polish, or Italian, or Asian, or tapas, or just good food - but particularly like eating if a city has a unique offering not easily found elsewhere (like Primanti's in Pittsburgh or pizza in Chicago). Since we are doing so much beer at other times, it's possible to not focus on beer for the meal and do something like Easy Tyger on Brady St. But I've also heard great things about the food at a beer place like Camino, so that's fine too. Any other ideas?

Post dinner, I really wanted to check out some of the Bayview beer bars like The Palm, Burnhearts, Sugar Maple, or Roman's - but in my research I didn't get a real kid-friendly vibe at any of them. Are there any good options for grabbing a beer at any of them with kids in tow?

If anyone is able to come up with a Friday evening itinerary that has good logistics, that would be truly awesome. Best I can come up with at the moment is Like Minds -- > Brady ST restaurant like Easy Tyger --> Stubby's. (maybe squeeze in Good City too?) We will be taking Lyft around town so walking occasionally would be nice.

Then for Saturday - if you had a two hour lunchtime block on Old World 3rd St, what would you include? Beer, food, tourist stuff - tell me whatcha think.

Any other ideas are welcomed! Thanks!

 

Another Friday itinerary: BREWERY: Third Space --> DINNER Camino or La Merenda --> BAR: Merriment Social.

 

Black Husky and Like Minds are good ones to hit. Another good option in that area is Company Brewing which also has really good food. I would probably pass on MobCraft in favor of Good City or Third Space. If my memory serves me, Good City's outdoor patio is opening this weekend, so if the weather's nice that could be a good one.

 

If you're looking for IPAs, definitely start with Third Space. They just canned Unbridled Enthusiasm for this Saturday and usually have something in their Happy series (Happy Place, Happy Happy, Happy Juice) or It Was All A Dream (juicy IPA) worth trying. Plus, they have a large outdoor area for your kids to run around. Black Husky is definitely a solid second choice as far as Milwaukee IPAs go. If you're looking for depth, I'd say those two breweries are good choices. If you like sours, then consider Like Minds.

Good City has pretty approachable food and may still have their anniversary NEIPA on tap or in cans to go. Also, Untitled Art just released a Creamsicle IPA that hit Milwaukee and Madison liquor stores this week.

Burnhearts has outdoor tables, but isn't a kids place inside and Sugar Maple has a large indoor and outdoor space that should work for you and your family. Palm is small.

Friday: Third Space > La Merenda or Goodkind > Sugar Maple

Satuday: Do both Mader's and Rumpus Room before heading to your brewery of choice.

 

You could do Lakefront Brewery on Friday for their fish fry. It gets pretty busy, but it's been the top rated fish fry in MKE for several years, so you'll get a true WI experience. I think they typically have a firkin of a prototype beer on Fridays. Their tour is also top 3 in the country, if you have time for it. It's very much worth it.

 

Thanks to everyone for the great advice. SundayMornin, I like the way you think - I think this might be exactly what we do. La Merenda and Goodkind were both in the top 5 finalists we were looking at for dinner, so I'll talk it over with my wife and pick one. Also good info on the 3rd Space can release. I'll post again next week and let you know how things turned out.

 

Thanks for all the info on this thread guys. I piggy-backed off of this and drove up to Milwaukee on Saturday for the heck of it. Went to Third Space and had pretty much every IPA and Pale Ale they had on tap. Super solid company. Then drove over to Good City, and again did not disappoint. Also had their pork belly and holy shit it was awesome. Didn't make it too much more because I wanted to stop by Mars Cheese Castle on my way back to Chicago. Definitely will do another Milwaukee trip.