Tip's Food and Travel

I have been living in Wisconsin for almost 2 years. Wisconsin is the land of cheese and beer.  We have more than 90 breweries! and almost as many cheese factories.

I live in Madison and we went to Isthmus Beer & Cheese Festival 2 days ago. It was at the Alliant Energy Center Exhibition Hall. The event was from 2-6pm and the tickets were sold out! (about 2,000 tickets) When we got there, they gave us a map, so we could mark down our favorites. Let me tell you first, I’m not a cheese lover but I do like a few kinds of cheese and I do like to at least try every kind of cheese too. My two favorite cheeses are Muenster and Colby.

Karben4 Brewing just had their grand opening the same day as the festival! They are Madison’s newest brewery located in the old Ale Asylum location. They had a very long line most of the time. Many people liked their Black IPA.

Karben4 Brewing

Ale Asylum  moved to a new location to expand their capacity last year. Hopalicious is probably their most famous beer.

Ale Asylum Brewery

Woodman Brewery,Dennis is doing a lot of very unusual beer flavors. Here he had a BBQ flavored beer.

Dennis Erb from Woodman Brewery

I saw a lot of organic cheeses at the fest.  I could even taste the grass flavor from the cheese! Cheeses from Crème de la Coulée Artisan Cheese are very good and made with milk from one particular farm.

The St. Brigid from Creme de la Coulee Artisan Cheese

blue cheese from Creme de la Coulee Artisan Cheese

Some of this cheese is made from water buffalo milk just like the best mozzarella cheese from Italy.

cheese from Cedar Grove

I LOVE cheese curds. You can hear the squeaky sound when you chew the fresh cheese curd! It is really awesome. I never had this kind of cheese anywhere else.

a variety of cheese curds

bleu cheese from Castle Rock organic farm

It was not just beer and cheese but also other foods such as smoked trout, sausages, chocolate. I couldn’t stop myself to buy chocolate with sea salt. It was really yummy. I think beer and chocolate  isn’t a bad idea 🙂

Chocolate with sea salt