Two Great Tastes

I completely spaced on this for the past several days.

Capital Brewery got onto the front page of one of our newspapers, the Wisconsin State Journal. The piece talks about their Island Wheat which has surpassed the Wisconsin Amber as the brewery's best seller. Not only has it given Capital more capital but it has also bolstered the economy of Washington Island where the wheat in the beer is grown.

A chef's quest to secure local wheat for her bread has now grown to supply Middleton's Capital Brewery for its popular Island Wheat variety of beer. The wheat for the beer, sold only in Wisconsin, is grown only on Washington Island, a 35-square-mile, 14,000-acre island that is reveling in this revival of its agricultural roots.

"With Island Wheat, we've hit a home run, but it's for all the right reasons," brewmaster Kirby Nelson said.

"Getting to know the grain as opposed to ordering it from a malting company or a broker, getting to shake its hands as it's coming out of the ground in this very unique area, I really do think makes for a much more unique product with a wonderful story behind it," he said.

Also check out this article from the WSJ about New Glarus' Spotted Cow.

"Spotted Cow has been an enormous hit, and we are now the target of every brewery in Wisconsin," said New Glarus Brewing brewmaster Dan Carey. "Beer is a geographical thing, and it should be tied to the environment."

The inspiration for the beer came after a visit to Old World Wisconsin in Eagle where Carey saw a replica of a German homestead that included a crockpot of beer. Many of those who work at the brewery also are dairy farmers, he said. Like Island Wheat, Spotted Cow is only sold in Wisconsin. The success of the flaked barley brew can be credited to its name but also its taste, Carey said.