Swigs: Retro post: Lake Michigan Circle Tour Day 1

My annual Lake Michigan Circle Tour began much as the last one only two months warmer. By saying no I was able to convince my customers to hold off until at last there are some swaths of spring emerald growth even in upper Wisconsin. Now I am in the Holidome ready to do my tasting duties. O how I suffer for drinks.

Just because the drive was so uneventful I start with a beer I figure to get the head juices flowing. Aecht Schlenkerla Helles Lagerbier does the trick and then some more. A glassful exudes marshmallow studded breakfast cereal eaten beside a hardwood campfire. The other Schlenkerla beers suffer from slight drinkabilty issues. Not the Helles Lagerbier. Smoky succulent gulps of malt are steered down your pipes by adult noble hops. Buy it by the case and take it camping. Drink your fill. It's 4.3% ABV.

Actually, there was one event during the six+ hour trip to Fond du Lac. I was accosted by a group of bearded men on belching motorcycles. Puff-chested guys like this will brag on how poetry and art is sissy and feminine. I don't know. Tooling around on what is essentially a giant vibrator under your crotch doesn't seem so tough. I let them go about their business without further incident. I had more important things to deal with – like Banana beer.

Sprecher Brewing Company has always attended to both beer and soda markets. With their African-style, fire-brewed banana Mbege Ale they have blurred the line between the two completely. I drank a third of the bottle just to see if there was anything else to say about it. I shouldn't be so harsh. I would probably drink it if I was playing out in the middle of a warm summer lake and it was the last beer in the cooler. It reminds me of Budweiser.

I give Sprecher's fire-brewed, African-style experiment another try with Shakporo Ale. Sorghum is the flavor base here and it is much less intrusive than banana to tender palates like mine though it is still sweet and soda-like. There is some hint of nuts or squash seeds in the Shakporo. It is drinkable enough I suppose. I guess the fact that I drain-poured more than half and I'm alone in a Wisconsin hotel room is telling enough.

Don't worry about me. I've got plenty. I'll toast the moon with a bottle of Viña Alarba Rosé. It's all berries and marsh. I feel like a bear; a raccoon that escaped roadside fate; a migrating bird with luck to fly over a protected wetland. Tomorrow I drive to the northern Michigan/Wisconsin border, eat string cheese, and drink Tyranena beers.