New Glarus

On our way to Madison last weekend, we took a side trip to the cutest little town in Wisconsin. New Glarus is Swiss inspired, with a whole collection of Alpine inspired shops and buildings. It was quite adorable, but we were there for a very specific purpose... to visit the famous New Glarus Brewing Company!

 

We tasted while we toured, and took some awesome (*sarcasm noted*) iphone pictures to document our adventure. They built this new brewery just a couple years ago, and it was the most shiny new brewery we've ever visited. There was a self guided tour, which sounded fun. Really, though, it just meant "self guided walk around and guess what stuff was". A map or info sheet could have gone a long way! They seem to have built this brewery with visitors in mind, so it was surprising that the "tour" was so lame. Luckily, we know how the brewing process works!

I would have loved to have learned more about the actual brewery. For instance, they have a female president of the company, which is pretty rare in the beer world. They're also #21 on the list of largest craft brewers by volume, which is pretty impressive considering they're only distributed in the state of Wisconsin.

There was a tasting room, which is always a highlight of a brewery tour, obviously.

A fancy lunch at the brewery.
Cheese Curds, Meat Sticks, and Beer Flavored Chips.

I like their attitude!

New Glarus was a fun brewery to visit, and I'd probably go back on our next visit to Madison. The setting is beautiful, surrounded by rolling hills. I imagine it's quite lush in the summer, and the beer tastes good year round. If you're in the area, take a detour to New Glarus to check the brewery out!

The Band You Need to be Listening To

I know you've seen this picture before. A band, kind of far away, with lots of strangers' heads in the foreground. They're rocking, but could be anyone. Oh, and it's blurry, because it's a cell phone picture taken without a flash or any fancy camera tricks. So why am I torturing you with these crappy pictures?

This is The Head and The Heart, and I want everyone to know how awesome they are. We saw them at the Vic last week, and the show seriously rocked. They're from Seattle and have been playing shows in Chicago for about a year now. They started at Schuba's, a tiny little club at the back of a bar. That was only one year ago, and this past week they sold out TWO shows at the Vic, which is one of the biggest venues of its type in Chicago and has a capacity of about 1,400.

If one person reads this and has a listen, I will be happy. Because as soon as you listen you'll be hooked, and I like sharing good music with people. So put down the Katy Perry CD, and listen to these guys! Look, I'll even make it easy for you. Click here to link to YouTube, and hear The Head and The Heart for yourself. You can thank me later.  Enjoy!

Running Away!

You know the phrase "Sometimes, live gives you lemons"? Well, I don't think that phrase is specific enough to how the last couple weeks have been around here. I think a better phrase is, "Sometimes, life gives you giant, sour, terrible lemons". Yeah, you might still be able to make lemonade, but it's going to take a lot more effort to do so. While I don't feel ready to talk about the specific lemons that I've been dealing with, I do want to share my favorite fix for a shitty day/week/month/etc.  GET OUT OF TOWN!!

We decided to spent Saturday night in a place that we've talked about visiting for years: Madison, Wisconsin. It's just a few hours from Chicago, and is know to have a great food/beer/culture scene. It's a nice college town, bigger than Columbia, Missouri, where Joe and I met as undergrads. It's the state capitol, and the home to tons of beer-centric bars and restaurants.

The capitol is a beautiful building, and it's open to for the public to visit. The domed building had tons of mosaics, columns, and beautiful architectural details. It was so calm inside, too... especially compared to the huge protest going on outside! It had been one year since the governor of Wisconsin signed the collective bargaining law, and about 35,000 people showed up to protest and rally for his impeachment. No wonder it was so hard to find parking downtown!

We spent the evening eating and drinking downtown. We had a couple beers at The Great Dane, a local brewpub, then found a great little Italian place for dinner. There were a number of great sounding restaurants around town, but more than once we were told there would be a 90 minute wait! Um, no. This place, Papavero, was an excellent option for rustic, handmade Italian food. And of course, we had to end the night with a couple more drinks, so we went to The Old Fashioned, which had about 1,000,000 beers from Wisconsin on the menu. Sensing a theme yet?

Sunday morning we went to check out the University of Wisconsin campus. It's on the edge of a huge lake, and the spring-like weather yesterday made it perfect for wandering around. So many people were out taking advantage of the beautiful weather, and we enjoyed wandering along with them. Imagine how nice this must be when the trees are all green!

And now we're home, and in the process of making lemonade with said lemons. Yeah, life doesn't always go as planned, but we're healthy and happy in our relationship, with a lovely home and great friends. Our jobs are good, our families supportive, and it's almost SPRING. So we'll look towards the future, which will most likely include another trip to Wisconsin in the warm weather months...

Any other weekend getaways near Chicago that you'd recommend? I've still never been to Michigan, so a visit to the east is going to have to happen soon!

Hibernation

I can feel it... spring is around the corner! This mild winter has not snuck up on us yet, and I am pretty confident it's too late for any crazy snowstorms at this point. The temps are regularly in the 40's, and I know it's only going to get better. Can you feel it too?



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But I'm not going to lie to you. I think it's time to admit I'm in hibernation mode, and I think I'll be staying there for at least a few more weeks. We've been pretty social, but I'm also soaking up the cozy nights at home, snuggled up on the couch. We're still eating lots of soups and stews, and it's rare for us to leave the house once we're home from work. It might seem a bit anti-social or lazy, but I kind of love that about this time of year. Soon those daffodils will really be in bloom, and I'll be packing away my sweaters and scarves. So I'm sorry, the blog might be sleepy for a little longer... but I promise I'll be full of fun Chicago excitement come springtime!  For now, it's back to my cave...


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Lately, around our home...

It all started with a simple picture, and the inspiration to paint our kitchen. A simple task ended up taking a weekend, thanks to a poorly hung shelf that had to be taken care of. Two days and too many trips to the hardware store later, and the picture was hung, the paint dry, and a lovely (aka boring) shelf was securely hung once again. What a difference a simple coat of paint can make!

Then we felt all sorts of inspired, and I decided to use some recent "pinspiration" to get things a bit more organized around the kitchen. I hung my measuring spoons and cups inside the cabinets, using easy to remove hooks, and added a hanging basket on the inside of the cabinet under our sink. This freed up a drawer for my spices, and some cabinet space for assorted teas and teacups. Now everything has a place. Three cheers for clear counters!

This cute little owl helps add some cheer to the kitchen windowsill, don't you think?

And I always love our little chalkboard wall, which we change up depending on the season. It's currently a tribute to our brewing exploits :)

Then there's the living room, where I got downright crafty! I made two different canvas paintings, using spray paint, painters tape, foam letters, and ever a real paintbrush. I still have very little artistic talent, but I will say that painting was really therapeutic! I probably won't do much more spray painting until it warms up, though, because it got freezing in our place with all the windows open...



It is hard to tell here, but the white canvas says "Happily Ever After".
The blue picture is an underwater fish picture from when we went snorkeling in Mexico.
The wedding picture is in a cool textured frame.
And the tiny picture is a drawing of a building from Maastrict, where my parents lived for five years.

   

 

This spring we have two big projects coming up... the kind of projects where you hire professionals! We're redoing our single bathroom, and getting rid of the tiny little pedestal sink. We're also getting granite in our kitchen. Don't worry, either, because I'm sure I'll have PLENTY of pictures to show when we make those big changes!

Who is on pinterest? Find me, and lets follow each other!

Rockwell Brewing: Sharing our beers with the public!

Last weekend we got the chance to participate in an exciting beer tasting festival that was specifically for showcasing home brewers. Joe and I partnered with our beer loving friends Angela and Pedro, made a whopping 25 gallons of beer between the four of us, and brought them out to Wicker Park on a cold winter day.

Brew HoHo was coordinated by my friend and coworker Won, a talented chef who knows way too many people who love beer. He's not a brewer himself, but this was his third time coordinating a group of brewers into an event like this. There were a lot of passionate and inventive home brewers sharing their creations to a crowd of about 250 people... a huge turnout!

We had so much fun sharing our beers with everyone, and got some great feedback. People loved what we had brewed! It sounds like our most popular was the Imperial IPA that Joe made, but all five brews were in demand throughout the day. It was a kind of overwhelming experience, but once we were there and had everything in order, we were able to just enjoy ourselves! We met some cool people through the experience, and look forward to continuing to explore the brewing community around Chicago. If you live in Chicago, let me know if you want details about the next event in April!

Three quarters of Rockwell Brewing

We baked our spent grain into all kinds of yummy treats!

All the brews on display

South Dakota, Instagram style

Had to add a few more pictures of our trip to South Dakota, taken on my iphone. 

Dad & Little Sis

Cheers!

Independent Ale House in Rapid City

Mt. Rushmore

High Rollers, Deadwood style