Beer Tasting in Sheboygan

Sometime last week, Nate noticed a tweet about an upcoming beer event about an hour north of us, called Sipping on Sheboygan's Shores at Blue Harbor Resort (we really were sipping on the shores!).

We didn't have plans for Saturday afternoon into evening, and because we love beer, we thought it would be a good idea to sign up for it. There wasn't a ton of information for us to read before the event, but we figured it would be a pretty good deal--it was $40 a person or $75 for two, which included beer, wine and food, so we went for it. yes, we drank beer from wine glasses. I liked that the beer didn't get too warm.

The event was a fun time, and we definitely got our money's worth. It's always fun to go and try new beers and even some favorites. Most of the beers were local, while there were a few nationwide distributors there with familiar brews. We each sampled at least one beer from each of the stands. Those breweries included:

• Ale Asylum


• Capital


• Dogfish Head


• Grumpy Troll


• Hinterland


• Leinenkugel


• New Belgium


• New Glarus


• Sprecher


• Silver Creek

Some beers were better than others (we tried Young's Double Chocolate Stout mixed with Raspberry Lambic--yuck! I actually had to throw it out. Waaay too sweet).

It was nice that there was food available--always an important thing when you're drinking for three hours in the afternoon. There were a few local restaurants that had food available. One of our favorites were these open-faced Reuben sandwiches and chocolate cupcakes. There was also ravioli, which I thought was weird. It was probably more for the wine drinkers, but it's not the easiest thing to eat when you're sipping. Also, the resort's restaurant had some food available. It, too, wasn't all that easy to eat for a tasting event, but it was good--beer cheese soup, pork tacos, cured meats and pickled vegetables.

All in all, it was a nice event, and I'm glad we made the trip up there. It wasn't too crowded, or it was spread out enough, that made it manageable and enjoyable.