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As I was driving south on Highway 27 from Hayward, I realized that I had completely forgotten to take any pictures of the giant fiberglass muskie there at the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame.
Oops.
It had been about 17 years since I had last been to the town that I think of as the Wisconsin Dells of the northern part of the state. Not wholly apt, I grant you, but, in addition to fishing, the town celebrates the area’s logging history (it is in Sawyer County, after all) by being the home of the Lumberjack World Championships where contestants chop and saw in various way, speed climb poles, and attempt to run down a series of floating logs (a.k.a. – boom running), amongst other competitions.
In February, Hayward plays host to the Birkebeiner, the largest cross-country skiing race in the country, which attracts skiers from around the world.
Tourism just seems to be an outsized part of the town’s economy, hence my identification of it with the Dells. I suppose it just needs some kind of fall harvest festival, such as for cranberries, and Hayward will have all of the Up North bases covered.
My last visit to Hayward included a stop at the Angry Minnow Brew Pub which had been open only for a year or so. I recalled being there on that snowy night in 2005 but had completely forgotten what I had eaten and drunk. And so I have scoured the archives and found what I wrote about my stop there 17 years ago:
“I went to The Angry Minnow and had the best food of the whole trip - a grilled hunk of pork loin. I also had a pint of their stout which was also excellent.”
On my visit last month, I had come from a hike and was thirsty and needed something in my belly. I believe that I pulled into town just as the brewpub was opening as I appeared to be the first customer of the day.
The Angry Minnow is in the former offices of the Northern Wisconsin Lumber Company (and who knows what else it has been home to over the years) and is a gorgeous place. Vaulted ceilings, stained glass, and, of course, lovely wooden everything give the place a wonderful old-timey vibe. It’s not difficult to imagine a lumber baron from back in the day stopping in for lunch with his secretary on his shoulder and enjoying a cold beer from, oh, the Northern Brewing Company up in Superior or perhaps the Phoenix Brewing Company in Rice Lake.
I know nothing about Hayward’s brewing history. The northwestern part of the state gets short shrift in the brewing history books (Book. Singular. - ed) I own and, I would argue, this persists today with breweries in that part of the state playing second fiddle to ones in, well, just about any other part of Wisconsin. While some beer from the northwest is available here in the south, it is breweries in the Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay areas that dominate store shelves and tavern taps.
While there are, no doubt, multiple reasons for this, the main one is surely that a lot of beer from that part of the state simply isn’t distributed down here. It is the Twin Cities and not Milwaukee-Madison that is the closest big market for them. This means that a venture to that part of the state is a real treat for me as I am able to sample the tastes of a region that are, by and large, unavailable to me at home.
In a repeat of history, I sat down at the bar and promptly ordered the stout - Oaky’s Oatmeal Stout. While there were several other brews on offer, the stout had the most appeal for me. As I explained to the bartender after we’d struck up a conversation, I am not a fan of American pale ales and IPAs and barrel-aged brews tend to be too much barrel and not enough beer for me. The peach Gose was mildly interesting but I tire of fruited beers. Besides, I was keen on something heartier.
The stout on tap was laced with nitro and so my glass had a lovely bubble vortex that my cheap camera phone was not able to capture. My beer was accompanied by a bowl of chili which was very good. Before forgetting to get that snap of the giant muskie and hitting the road, I bought a mixed 4-pack that included some Oaky’s.
While my pour at home did not have the visual elan of the nitro pour up north, it did have a lovely tan head of loose foam that stuck around for a spell. The beer was a deep, deep reddish brown that repelled all light that attempted to penetrate it. My nose caught roasty grain, a dash of caramel, and a bit of grassy hops.
A medium dose of fizz greeted my tongue on the first sip which stood in stark contrast to the smaller nitro bubbles. However, the oatmeal here provided a medium-bodied smoothness underneath. Roasted grain and coffee flavors were prominent while an apple-like sweetness and some spicier hops helped out from behind. On the finish, the sweeter flavors disappeared leaving coffee to be joined by dark chocolate and increasing spicy hoppiness.
Things ended with medium levels of both dryness and bitterness.
My assessment from 2005 holds today. This is an excellent beer! The thing is, it isn’t particularly stout. While I enjoyed the roasty and coffee flavors immensely they were never in your face. There is an aura of restraint here, with the flavors lovingly choreographed to be tasty without being imposing. It proved to be a perfect accompaniment to the chili and hearty enough to make my aging joints forget the walk they had just endured. Yet I felt able to hit the trails once again after my pint had been emptied.
One of northwest Wisconsin’s finest craft beers.
Junk food pairing: you need a bag of prime rib potato chips to go with your pint of Oaky’s Oatmeal Stout. And someone needs to devise venison flavored chips.
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