District 14 Brewery

The second stop on my tour of Milwaukee’s breweries was District 14 Brewery on Lincoln and Howell in the Bay View neighborhood. The parking was tough, we ended up parking a block and half away, but that was before the blasted snows of April, so it wasn’t a problem. There are actually a bunch of cool shops in the area, we stopped into Halo Soap, a local soap company that uses all natural ingredients in their products, and Sparrow Collective, a small little store that sold a bunch of cute Milwaukee/Wisconsin themed knick-knacks and clothes. The brewery itself was really cool as well. They had a nice wood cabin-looking interior, and while it was a bit smaller than some of the other breweries I’ve been to, it didn’t subtract from the experience at all.

Now on to the exciting part: the beers. The coupons we had (courtesy of Wisconsin Brewer’s Guild) were for a half price flight and $2 off a growler fill. So, both me and my wonderful girlfriend got a flight. On mine, I got the Dirty Blonde, an easy to drink light beer, the Sour D, a surprisingly good sour ale, the Winter Solstice Barleywine, which was a very dark, rich beer, and another dark beer, the name of which eludes me. She got the Sour D and the Winter Solstice Barleywine as well, but she also got a lime shandy and a darker beer named for groundhogs. It should be noted that we went to this brewery about two months ago, so most of the beers are discontinued (at least until next year), and that’s why I can’t remember the name of a few of them.

The highlight of this tasting visit was easily the lime shandy. We are both big fans of summer shandy (the classic Leinenkugels weiss beer infused with lemonade), but honestly this beer was better. It had the perfect balance of being beer, but actually tasting quite a bit like lime juice, while at the same time the lime wasn’t too overpowering. It was a nice, easy to drink shandy, and if they ever get it back in, I highly recommend getting it. Unfortunately, they weren’t selling growlers of it, so we had to walk away with a different one, but we would have gotten that without hesitation given the chance. Another highlight was the WInter Solstice Barleywine. This beer was very dark, very rich, and had an almost ridiculous amount of alcohol in it: 13.4%. It reminded me a lot of the similarly named beer from Lakefront Brewery, however, it was rather expensive (it would have costed us $26 to get a growler, including the coupon). The Sour D was my second favorite beer from here. I am a huge fan of sour beers, in fact my favorite beer that I’ve ever had was the Cherry Bohemian from Exile Brewery in Des Moines, Iowa (It is now discontinued though). This Sour D only enhanced my love of sour beers. It was nice because it wasn’t too sour, but it also wasn’t super beer-like, a splendid balance between the two. A beer that neither of us actually got in our flights, they had a mango roasted habanero stout, which was really interesting. It was a stout, so very dark, but when you drank it, it tasted like a mango shandy, and then the aftertaste had a nice spicy nip to it. It was a really well done beer, I didn’t get it in my flight because I was afraid it wouldn’t be good, but it actually was excellent. The mango taste was well done, like the other beers it wasn’t too overpowering, and then the spicy aftertaste wasn’t overly spicy either, if they ever get it back I recommend trying it, because it was probably the most interesting beer I’ve had. We ended up going home with a growler of the Dirty Blonde, because it was cheap, and despite the initial taste of just plain light beer, it actually was quite good. It was easy to drink, and you could also pick up some mild citrus notes, which pulled the beer together nicely. It paired well with the Thai chicken meatballs we had that night. Also, seeing as it’s the only beer that they still have, it seems like it’s here to stay, so I encourage you all to go in and try it.

To sum up, District 14 had a lot more nontraditional beers than other places. The mango roasted-habanero stout was interesting, the lime shandy was amazing, and the Dirty Blonde was surprisingly good. The surrounding neighborhood was nice as well, I mentioned the two stores above, but there is also a wealth of restaurants in the vicinity, all of which at least looked good. It wasn’t the best brewery I’ve ever been to, but I would definitely recommend it to my fellow beer lovers of Milwaukee.