The line to get in was immense, stretching down the majority of Exhibition Hall. There was some slight confusion—on the part of your gustatory nomad—as to how to get in, since one line moved one way and the other moved the opposite way. It turns out one line was for the coat check, which was gleefully sidestepped in order to get closer to the festivities. The fest was sold out, which should come to no surprise given what the fest was sampling.
On his way in, your gustatory nomad had already noticed people toting string necklaces strung with pretzels and/or Ritz crackers, which turned out to be an accessory a sizable number of attendants wore, ranging from matinees of wafer and pita chip to whole lariats of baked, salt-studded pretzel loafs. And to think this was only on the way in!
The arrangement of the Isthmus Beer & Cheese Festival is bare bones: A bunch of booths and tables arranged in clusters, festooned with banners proclaiming the names of breweries and creameries, hemmed in by girders and concrete. There were water stations and orange buckets to dump your beer in, should you tire of it. Your gustatory nomad would like to imagine these buckets eventually went the way of Eddie’s jug in “Cannery Row” by John Steinbeck—drunk by the jubilant staff as a sort of punch, a whole inseparable elixir of fizz and flavor.
This is just a fantasy.
But the Isthmus Beer & Cheese Festival is not. There, once a year, you may find some of the finest fermented goodness ever consolidated in one space—at least in a really really big space that charges a measly $40 for (general) admission
You get a glass at the entrance; this year was sponsored by the brand new Wisconsin Brewery Co., as far as your gustatory nomad can tell from the glass, which bears both the aforementioned brewery logo as well as the festival logo—a cheery cheese wheel imbibing a frothy brew. Delicious.
The fest is immense, with 60 breweries/brewpubs and 20 cheese/dairy producers on display, along with local food purveyors like Glass Nickel Pizza, Banzo, Willy Street Co-op, WiscoPop!, etc. With that many breweries crammed into one space, ranging from established favorites such as New Glarus, Sprecher and Blue Moon to smaller setups like One Barrel Brewing, Vintage and Lazy Monk—not to mention the gob of creameries all centered in one cube of cheesy conviviality—it was hard for your gustatory nomad to orient himself.
To go into what smells/tastes were offered at this year’s fest would be to laborious for everyone involved, but your gustatory nomad was able to scavenge enough info to placate you, the reader, and give you some pointers on what was the best at the Isthmus Beer & Cheese Festival.
We’ll start with beers. Right out of the gate, your gustatory nomad was privileged to sample a glass of Drafty Window from the good folks at Hopothesis Brewing Company in Chicago, Illinois. Drafty Window is a farmhouse ale named for Sir Isaac Newton—based on his purported comment during a session of parliament where he asked someone to close a (you guessed it) drafty window. There is nothing curt about this beer, however; it’s smooth and just a bit fruity but very quaffable.
Another highlight was from 3 Sheeps Brewing—their First Kiss Imperial IPA, a heady, bitter brew that simultaneously flirted with sweeter tones. Although not advised for the faint of heart, at eight point two alcohol by volume (ABV), this Sheboygan brew is a delight for hopheads.
This next beer comes from a Madison establishment, Next Door Brewing, over on Atwood Avenue. Next Door’s Ady, an oatmeal stout rounding in at about six point five ABV, is a filling yet decidedly delectable beer, sweet but not overly so, deliciously drinkable for those who don’t admire bitterness in their beer.
Finally, we have the Brown Porter from Wisconsin Brewery. A new brewery out of Verona, they’ve established themselves in bars across/around Madison already—if their sponsorship of the festival is any indication—and their porter is a winning entry both to their line of beers and to the line of beers offered in town. Your gustatory nomad was lucky enough to taste both the regular version and one brewed with Barriques coffee beans.
Now we’ll move on to cheeses. Your gustatory nomad will admit, amidst the flurry of creameries offered, he ended up choosing two cheeses from the same company as highlights, but they were chosen to the benefit of the reader and not to the denigration of any party involved—same goes for beer.
The first recommended cheese came from Crème de la Coulee, a Madison creamery, which was sampling bandaged cheddar. Aged in cheesecloth, this kind of cheddar differs highly from your normal cheddar in color—certainly not fluorescent orange/yellow, more of a paler, milkier hue—and taste—less sharp, more earthy, grassy, long lasting like the fading note at the end of a symphony.
These next two cheeses came from Harmony Dairy, an outfit out of Stratford, WI. Their first offering was well in line with the theme of the festival: A nut brown ale caerphilly cheese, otherwise known as Welsh miner's cheese—flavorful and subtle, a beautiful white cheese traced with reticulate brown spindles. The second (a great surprise to your gustatory nomad) was an abergele cheese made with garam masala, which added both sweetness and spice to the mix. A winning combination on both fronts.
Finally, there’s Ellsworth Cooperative Creamery, out of Ellsworth, WI, which was exclusively selling cheese curds. And let it be said that your gustatory nomad adores curds. Ellsworth offered a variety of flavors—including Taco, Cajun and Ranch—but the straight, Natural curds were the true highlight.
Although these were by no means the only beers and cheeses sampled by your gustatory nomad at this year’s Isthmus Beer & Cheese Festival, they were the ones he chose to highlight—a winning crop out of a group of winners. And while it was wistful to leave, it’s easy to imagine, at the end of the day, everyone at the fest went home satisfied, chock full of fermented goodness.
