New Glarus Brewing Company

New Glarus, Wisconsin

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Crusin’ Rating:  C+ (moves to a B if you include the town tour)

Booze Rating: A 

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This week we are reviewing the one and only - New Glarus Brewing Company.  Hot off the heels of last week’s deep dive into Spotted Cow, we are now zooming out a little bit to do a split-review.

We went to check out New Glarus Brewery, to gauge the vibe - even though we’ve been there numerous times.  However - we will be completing the tasting part of the review at home!  New Glarus - while offering plenty of beer and seating when it’s warm out - isn’t conducive to a leisurely review at the brewery in the chillier months.  

For our visit - it was a cold winter's day where we were glad to be inside.  You’re allowed to purchase beer from the serving area and wander about the first floor of the brewery while you sip, or peruse the gift shop.  I am telling you right now, this is a brewery that absolutely needs a tasting room with more tables.  There’s a bench or two currently, a standing table or two, and a lot of open space.  There’s more seating available outside when weather permits but after COVID, New Glarus stepped back on hours for the gift shop/tasting area to only business hours - this makes it tricky to get there and enjoy the brewery in winter without taking time off. 

There’s new construction going on and I truly hope they will have a full-on tasting room with indoor seating, a fireplace, of even just some more tables for colder months.  I think a German beer hall would be a real winner here and make the trip out all the more enjoyable.

I’ll let the tour speak for the history of the brewery - but to say you don’t feel a little like Charlie walking up to Willy Wonka’s factory would do New Glarus a disservice.  As it has just about cemented itself as a fairy-tale place in Wisconsin - I hope that the glory days that we saw before COVID return - beer nerds doing rare exchanges in the parking lot, Illinois residents making their pilgrimages to pay homage to quality beer, couples bringing their dogs for a pint, families enjoying the weather - I hope it all comes back soon.  COVID - to extend the metaphor a bit, really did make it seem like the chocolate factory closed up shop and Wonka became a recluse there for a bit.

We’ve been to the gift shop multiple times, we’ve been to the beer depot multiple times, and we’ve even done the self-guided tour multiple times, it doesn’t really get old and there’s

always something new to notice.  I’m always going to be in awe of those big copper kettles.  And I’m always going to be chasing that hard had tour - that you currently have to book months in advance and is only hosted on Fridays.  

There is a free walking tour you can do that starts at the gift shop, a short video to watch, a small museum-like area, and you can walk down to the bottling line - which I still have only managed to see in full operation one one trip.  You can go downstairs to the beer depot to build your own six pack, buy experimental brewery only sours and wild ferments, or buy them out of stock of your favorite beer as I once did.

I’ll take a pause there and say New Glarus, hands down, makes my favorite beer of all time. I ask you, readers, to inundate their socials with requests for this beer as I believe it was last brewed pre-covid.  It is the Kristalweizen, Laughing Fox - and, it is my Roman Empire, the dragon I chase, the smoke I attempt to catch, and my heart’s secret desire.  I request it every year, and year in and year out I get turned down - I will continue my quest until it A) becomes permanent or B) they agree to deliver a case of it to my house once per week until the day I die.  It’s seriously that good - and if you have any lying in your cellar - please send it to me.

But I digress.

I will say, that part of the charm of visiting the brewery is the little Swiss town itself.  If you buy beers at the brewery, you get a coin for a little 8 ounce pour of a beer around town.  It was really this gift of a coin that lead to the first ever booze cruise - having a few at the brewery, riding into town proper, finding a bar to spend a coin at, grabbing some heavy and delicious swiss food, and then going to the next bar for someone else in the group to trade in their coin.  It makes for a fantastically quiet and fun Saturday any time of the year but best in chilly weather where you can find solace in some of the local shops in between, finding fudge, cheese, leather goods, or imported gifts - you can take your grandparents, your mom, your friends, or even once in our case, a visitor from Switzerland who said it really did remind her of some parts of Lucerne and small villages in the Swiss countryside.  Heck, you can even check out Bailey’s Run and Whiskey Run with the help of a driver or Uber and make a full day of it.  

I know that’s not exactly evaluating the vibe of the brewery - and that’s simply because it’s not much of a hang-out place these days, more of a gift shop that you can drink beer at in the winter - but, again, I hope that will change in the future.  

On to the beer - I will note that many bottles do not have ABV listed so these numbers were sourced from 3rd party sources.  

Pilsner (5% ABV, 45 IBU) - Pours medium golden with brilliant clarity.  Strong white head that dissipates quickly and leaves a thin ring with clingy bubbles left behind.  

I picked up on plenty of floral and grassy hop notes on the nose that denote bitterness and a grainy malt character with a little bit of fresh dough in there.  Hannah picks up freshly ground grains and bread dough on the nose as well as yeast.  

We pick up flavors of grassy hops again, a touch of malt sweetness, but only a touch and a strongly bitter finish without being overpowering yet still lingers after the quite dry finish.  This beer is clean, crisp, and has lots of carbonation to enjoy.  It’s straightforward and plenty serviceable and reminds me of other fantastic German Pilsner examples I’ve tried both there and at home. 

The head brewer has toyed with mixing the profiles of Czech and German styles here (bitterness present in German but rounded enough like a Czech, plenty of floral hops from both).

Other than a slow-pour I had from Working Draft a few years back, and a solid offering from Pitchfork Brewing, this might be the best Pilsner I’ve had - certainly the easiest to get at the best quality now that New Glarus is offering it as a new year-round.  

Raspberry Tart  (4.0% ABV) - This fruited lambic pours red with a brown tint and features a pink head with medium retention.

With a bouquet of broken raspberries that you can smell well before your nose reaches the glass, green grapes, and just a little bit of funk in there.  The flavor is rich raspberry, and slightly  jammy without being too sweet.  About as well balanced a fruit beer as you will find, with sweet and tart playing about equal parts.  We should note, this is not a sour beer, tart for sure, and you’d almost think with that lingering tartness in the finish - but it’s really a raspberry beer and not a sour.  We just wish the raspberries came from Wisconsin rather than Oregon.

Wisconsin Belgian Red (4.0% ABV) - This beer has a special place in Brother Bear's heart, perhaps his favorite beer and its an even trade when we smuggle four packs of this up to Alaska in exchange for precious offerings from Anchorage Brewing or 49th State.  

Garnet red in color with a off-tan head this beer features an aroma of sweet cherries, red twizzler candy, spice, and a deep complexity that suggests other red fruits - currants and raspberries - not unlike a wine.  It has a distinct red fruit skin quality in the aroma that, to me, is unmistakable out of a dozen fruit beers - almost a mineral twang to the fruity aroma - to some it can come off as slightly medicinal which I can see, but it’s barely there.  Up front, there’s cherry, dark bread, vanilla, lemon zest, and some sweetness.  The finish allows for some low baking spice to accompany the cherry, graham cracker, red candy, and tartness.  For me, this one is a tad bit on the sweet side, but really this is a great fruit beer without being wildly sweet or fake-tasting.  I do like that they use cherries from Door County, rather than Oregon.

Moon Man (5.0% ABV) - This “No Coast” Pale Ale features almost brilliant clarity with a off-

white, and quickly dissipating head that settles to a low ring with some great webbing on the glass.

Although this is a no coast pale ale, I would say its going to lean toward the west coast, although I can see where the “no coast” comes from. 

For a quick and dirty rule - West Coast IPA’s are hops bombs and focus on the hops above everything else, light on malt.  East Coast focuses on both, while the hops are definitely there, there’s also usually some fruit “juiciness” in there as well.  

Moon man, while there's some citrus, is light on the malt, but also isn’t a giant bitter hop bomb that overwhelms you.  It’s somewhere it between.  

On the nose there’s citrus, some resin, and definite dankness - wet pine, grass, forest floor, moss.  Tasting - this is a fairly inoffensive beer.  To my taste, only slightly more hoppy than the Pilsner.  There’s resin, a touch of citrus, pine, and enough hops to let you know they are there, but they don’t linger for too long after the finish - which is fairly smooth with bitter notes afterward leaning more toward citrus rind.  Overall a dry, but easy drinker that I have many a time snagged from a tap when Spotted is going to be slightly heavy, or I want to mix it up.  I think this is a great introduction to pale ales and a good stepping stone to see if you want to go further into some really hoppy stuff, or want to stick with something hoppy, but with some sweetness to it - it’s a good neutral ground and for those who love IPAs, you might find this one a bit too moderate and be better off with the scream IPA they now offer.

New Glarus is one of those breweries I have never had a bad beer from, plain as that.  They make some beers I am not a fan of, but even those I don’t like I have to admit are made well.  Some of them don’t fit into a specific category, and some blur the lines a little bit but really, it’s just a brewery that consistently churns out quality beer.  They might not be a micro-brewery, and whether or not they are macro is a topic of debate.  

If I could fault them, other than the tasting room, it’s that the brewmaster seems to want to stick to tradition so much that he won’t settle for anything other than German malts and yeasts which is great from a traditional standpoint, but not so great when keeping it local.  And, really, we can’t find raspberries in Wisconsin for the seasonal Belgian Red?  That one seems like an easy fix.  Am I a bit of a fanboy?  Sure, but it’s definitely been tempered over the years.  Have I learned enough now to know that, I can be a fan because the brewmaster does know his stuff and that he churns out good to great beer?  You bet.  You already know my thoughts on Spotted Cow.

You now know I chase Laughing Fox and will until days end.  I really enjoy the Pilsner, and when available, Dancing Man Wheat is my all-time favorite Hefeweizen to this day.  When you’ve had as much beer as I have had - to know that there are two from New Glarus that I hunt, and most that I won’t turn down - you know you’ve found a good brewery - well worth the trip from anywhere in Wisconsin at least once, just make sure to make a day of it or wait for warmer months.

Until next time, keep on crusin’, don’t stop boozin’!

To learn more about New Glarus Brewing Company, please visit their website at: newglarusbrewing.com or on Facebook: @NewGlarusBrewing or on Instagram: @NewGlarusBrewing