Milwaukee Ale House: A Nice River View!

Our 3rd stop on our 2015 Wisconsin Brew-venture was Milwaukee Ale House!

After our weird visit at Water Street Brewing the night before, we slept in on Saturday and walked over to Milwaukee Ale House around noon for some brunch.  Unfortunately, it looks like they only serve brunch on Sundays, since they only had a lunch menu!  Boo, negative one for them right off the bat!  

They made up for it thought!  We ordered cheese curds for starts again #becausewisconsin.  And a round of beers.  I had a squash stout, which was quite tasty!  I forgot what my friends ordered since I was busy enjoying my own beer.  I had another big ass salad for lunch, but this was admittedly quite a bit smaller than the one at Horny Goat the night before!  It was quite enjoyable, in any case!  

For dessert we shared this bottle of Barrel Aged Doppelvision.  Truth be told, doppelbock's aren't really my thing, but I still enjoyed this one.  Probably because I like bourbon, ha!  I think it makes all beers taste better ;-)  

I thought this was a cute spot overlooking the river.  It was also quite entertaining since there was an event going on, and boats kept passing by full of people wearing various costumes.  It was like a parade in the water!  

As we were leaving, we noticed there was a sign saying they offered 4 tasters for $7 or something like that.  If we had known, we would have ordered 2-3 of those so we could try more of the beers on the menu!  Something to keep in mind for next time!  I much prefer having smaller portions of more beers than a huge glass of one thing.

Stop 2: Water Street Brewery

The second stop of our 2015 Brew-venture was Water Street Brewery in Milwaukee!  This might not be a very fair review of the bar, since we arrived around 11:15pm, but for completeness sake, I wanted to share our experience. 

The bar seemed like it had a fair number of people when we walked in, which was a good sign!  We had just finished dinner at Horny Goat, checked into our hotel, and walked over.  Seemed like a good place to go!  We didn't order food since we'd already had dinner, but instead each got a ginormous beer.  

My friend got the Raspberry Weiss, which was surprisingly mild-flavored considering the color.  I thought for sure it'd be distinctly fruity.  But it lacked overall flavor.  My other friend and I ordered the Punch You in the Eye PA.  Yes, I'm pretty sure it was all because of the name.  Though I actually wasn't all that impressed with the selection, so that was the one that sounded the best to me.  The other beers on draft were a lager light, a bavarian weiss, a raspberry weiss, that IPA, an amber, and an Oktoberfest.  So, mostly things that don't taste like anything.  

In any case, I think the IPA was overall pretty mediocre.  I honestly couldn't even remember what I'd had until I took a look at a picture I took of the beer list.  Thank goodness for smart phones!  

Anyways, the weird part of the evening was when the waitress said she was getting off her shift so she closed out our tab.  She said we could continue to order from the bar.  Great!  This always happens at other places, so we didn't think it was a big deal. The beers were huge so it would take us a while to drink anyways so no big deal.  Until 15 minutes later we realized we were the only ones in the bar besides the bartender.  

Um.  Was the bar closed?  Was it just so uncool that no one was there besides the poor saps from out of town?  I think we were so weirded out about been the only ones there, we chugged our beers and go the heck out of there.  The area seemed dead anyways, so maybe we chose wrong when we booked our hotel!  

Anyways, I'd say the beer was ok, but if you want to check this place out, perhaps it's best to go during the daytime!  

Horny Goat: Always a Good Time!

Horny Goat has a special place in my heart.  Honestly, any time I'm heading through Milwaukee, I always try to convince my car-mates to stop here!  They have a really cool outdoor space (complete with firepits for when it gets cold out) along the river, and they're also dog-friendly!  So perfect spot to stop when you're road tripping with your pooch.  On top of their great ambiance and friendly service, their food's pretty delicious and so is their beer!  

This stop on our 2015 Brew-venture was no exception.  As our first stop of the trip, we got there for a late dinner, since we didn't leave Chicago after work (around 6:30pm) and of course had to traffic and construction!  But it was all worth it when we got there!  

We started with their cheese curd appetizer #becausewisconsin, which obviously we delicious.  For dinner, I ordered a big-ass salad which was about the size of my head.  It was huge!  To go with my salad, I had the Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter.  Which was AMAZING.  It was rich and dark, like drinking a dark chocolate Reese's milkshake.  In contrast, one of my friends had their Watermelon Wheat, which was quite refreshing.  My other friend had their seasonal Hornacopia pumpkin ale, which was very festive!  

For dessert, we had a giant cookie a la mode, and their Cereal Killer Breakfast Stout.  They complemented each other quite nicely!  

Normally I would highly recommend you going there, but I'm sad to say I found out they were closing their brewpub so they could focus exclusively on making good beer.  I guess we'll just have to try out their beer at other bars now!

Thanks for the memories, Horny Goat!  

Hello Old Friend!

Sorry I've been deliquent in blogging.  To be honest, I really haven't been cooking much at all.  BUT I've still been eating, so that's not an excuse not to blog about my food!  Now that the holidays are approaching, I'll plan to do some recipe experimentation in the future and give myself some good material to blog about!

To start, a couple of friends and I did a follow up trip to the Anti-Dark Lord Day trip we did a few years back.  This time, we visited Wisconsin breweries instead of Michigan.  We were able to visit 9 different breweries over the course of 48 hours!  I'm excited to write a recap of each one!  Stay tuned!

Faux Shamrock Shake

Um, yeah. THIS happened.  I was playing around with the idea if healthier versions if the Shamrock Shake. A bit of Googling gave me a bunch of recipes that seemed all too complicated. I thought I could come up with a quick and easy version.

Picadillo Sin Carne

This is my take on my mom's Picadillo con Carne recipe that she always made for us when I was growing up.  Since I became vegetarian 8 years ago, it's been a while since I've had my mom's version!  But I visited recently and was able to make this out of some things she had around the house.The key ingredient in vegan-izing the recipe is finding a suitable sub for the Carne de res (not that I'm vegan, but there aren't any animal products involved besides the beef!)  

Shakeology Chocolate Mug Cake!

I made this Chocolate Mug Cake with my mom, who's been doing the 21 Day Fix by the makers of Shakeology (which she's been using for years).  She's a firm believer in their product ever since she became a Zumba instructor at the age of 53.  She believes she wouldn't be able to do all that she does if it weren't for her daily dose of Shakeology every morning.  In any case, I was intrigued by the product and she REALLY wanted to try out this mug cake recipe, so while I was visiting, we went for it!

Well, to be honest, I thought it was just ok.  But to be fair, we only made the base recipe and didn't add any of the extra, including honey or peanut butter.  I'm thinking it would have been better with a touch of honey to sweeting.  However, I did eat it with some strawberry Greek yogurt, and it was AMAZING.  So all was not lost!

But for a cake fix, it really can't be beat.  1 mugful is 2 servings (which is why my mom waited until I visited before trying the recipe), and each serving is only 130 calories, 12 g protein, 12 g carbs, and 4 g fat.  Nice healthy alternative when the sweet tooth hits.

Depending on how much time I have (and how many calories I can spare), I may work a little to improve the taste of the recipe.  In any case, yay for being able to fit cake into a healthy diet!