Category: Beer
The craft brewing scene has grown tremendously on the peninsula in recent years. Door County breweries have popped up in Egg Harbor, Sturgeon Bay, Baileys Harbor, and Ellison Bay, with two more just across the border in Kewaunee County.
Whether you love IPAs, Belgian saisons, ciders, or lagers, one of these Door County breweries will quench your thirst.
Door County Breweries
Door County Brewing Company
2434 Cty F
Baileys Harbor, WI 54202
(920) 839-1515
www.doorcountybrewingco.com
Founded in 2012, Door County Brewing Company is a family owned craft brewery. Owned and run by the McMahon family, Door County Brewing Company is located in Baileys Harbor and uses as many ingredients for their beer from Door County as possible. Their tap room features Wisconsin cheese boards and curds, live music, and they frequently bring in food trucks.
Island Orchard Cider
12040 Garrett Bay Rd
Ellison Bay, WI 54210
(920) 854-3344
www.islandorchardcider.com
Located on the northern tip of the peninsula, Island Orchard Cider makes its home in Ellison Bay. Island Orchard Cider owns an orchard on Washington Island where they grow the apples for their ciders. Their tasting room and cider pub offer customers an opportunity to see the cider making process.
Shipwrecked Brew Pub
7791 Hwy 42
Egg Harbor, WI 54209
(920) 868-2767
www.shipwreckedmicrobrew.com
Shipwrecked Brew Pub was the first microbrewery in Door County, opened in 1997. Housed in a historic building in the center of Egg Harbor that dates to 1882, the brewery and restaurant is open year ’round. Brewmaster Rich Zielke is in charge of brewing the hand-crafted Door County beers. Shipwrecked offers an extensive menu in their restaurant and also operates an inn.
Shipwrecked burned in a fire in August of 2017. Its owners hope to rebuild in time for the 2018 summer season.
Starboard Brewing Company
151 N. 3rd Ave
Sturgeon Bay, WI 54235
(920) 818-1062
www.starboardbrewing.com
Located in downtown Sturgeon Bay, Starboard Brewing Company is Door County’s first nano-brewery. Their tap room offers their in-house brewed craft beers, Wisconsin cheeses, smoked salmon, and more.
Kewaunee County Breweries
Ahnapee Brewery
202 Clark St.
Algoma, WI 54201
(920) 785-0822
www.ahnapeebrewery.com
Ahnapee Brewing stretches back as far as 1868 and is an integral part of beer-making in Wisconsin. This tap room offers flatbread pizza, snacks, small-batch beers and tasting events.
Thumb Knuckle Brewing Company
E0208 Hwy 54
Luxemburg, WI 54217
www.thumbknuckle.beer
Newly opened in 2017, Thumb Knuckle Brewing Company is located in Luxemburg, Wis. The brewery has three beers available with a fourth in the works. The tap room also offers its own soda and growlers.
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Cheers!: Hopping to Conclusions
Not being a hopaholic, I involuntarily shuddered upon pulling out from the magic fridge a bottle of Hopalicious from Ale Asylum of Madison. The bold declaration on the label did not reassure me: “Eleven separate additions of Cascade hops give this American pale ale its lush citrus aroma and bold hop flavor…” Hmmm, I […]
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Beer & Wine Tasting, Sheepshead & More Weekend Plans
You can feel it in the air…the first weekend of spring is nearly upon us! Celebrate the coming season with a traveling theater show, a taste of some regional brews or an afternoon of Sheepshead to support an upcoming tree planting project. Friday, March 18 Dinner & A Murder Mystery Join the actors of Rogue […]
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I love a good beer story. This one arrived in my email recently: “The story of Orval [Trappist Ale] begins around 1070 AD. “Princess Matilda, a Duchess of Burgundy, was passing through the forest in what is now Belgium with a group of travelers. They stopped to rest near a clear spring, and as Matilda […]
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Ephraim Sets Date for Alcohol License Info. Meeting
Ephraim will hold an informational meeting on alcohol licenses on Wednesday, March 23, at 6 pm in the village hall. The village will bring in Claire Silverman, legal counsel with the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, to act as the informational authority on the details of the beer and wine referendum. The board hoped to have […]
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Cheers! Breakfast Beer for Dinner
One of the many great things about bachelorhood is being able to eat and drink what I want when I want. Life – and that includes meals – becomes a series of compromises when you share space with another human being. For example, I had a hankering for breakfast for dinner the other night. A […]
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St. Pat’s Parade, Home Brew How-To & More Weekend Plans
The Door Peninsula is bustling with late winter activities and this weekend is no exception. Join the party in Sturgeon Bay during the annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, take home some knowledge on home brewing, or help the local bluebird population grow with a do-it-yourself nest box program in Baileys Harbor. No matter your interest, […]
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Door County Brewing Co. Releases Limited Edition Farmhouse Ale
Le printemps goes on sale March 1 through May 1.
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Cheers! Monkberry Moon Delight
Paul & Linda McCartney’s remastered, 180-gram version of Ram arrived in my PO box today. All day I looked forward to being home and spinning my new disc. Ram is the only recording attributed to the couple. It was released in 1971, a year after the breakup of McCartney’s former group. He refers to it […]
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Learn How to Grow Hops at The Hop Garden
The Hop Garden will conduct two commercial hop-growing workshops at its seven-acre hop yard, five miles south of Belleville, Wis., or about 20 minutes south of the Beltline from Madison. Workshops will be led by Rich Joseph, co-owner of Joseph Staudt Hop’s and The Hop Garden. The Commercial Hop Growing Workshops are designed for the […]
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Cheers!: Pale Ale, Chicago Style
A couple of Chicagoland beers made it into the magic fridge recently, courtesy of my colleague Myles Dannhausen, Jr., who was up from his Chicago digs for the recent pond hockey tourney in Baileys Harbor. He asked if he could bring along any beers that we can’t get here. I suggested a couple of Michigan […]
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Touring Tavern History: Historical Society Plans Tavern Bus Tour
It is a Thursday morning and Trudy Herbst isn’t drinking but she is surrounded by tavern life in her Door County Historical Society (DCHS) office. She thumbs through Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin’s Historic Bars and Breweries by Jim Draeger and pulls up a photo of the Red Room’s beer prices back in 1950. […]
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Cheers!: Today’s Mighty Oak Is Yesterday’s Nut
After breaking my favorite tulip glass and cutting a finger as I foolishly tried to catch the falling, already-broken glass, I needed a pick me up. And there it was, sitting in a box on a window shelf on a cloudy and foggy 36-degree day – a bottle of Innis & Gunn limited edition Bourbon […]
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Five Stops on Door County Historical Society’s Tavern Tour
Pull up a barstool and join the Door County Historical Society as it embarks on “There’s a Tavern in the Town,” a narrated bus tour of Door County’s Historical Taverns on Feb. 27. The concentration of bars in Wisconsin is representative of its strong tavern culture. Through the years, so many of Wisconsin’s older tavern […]
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Sometimes when I go to buy beer, I have no idea what I want. I’ll walk right past things that usually intrigue me, walk past the latest in the seemingly endless parade of new and increasingly outrageous craft beers, and suddenly, bam! Some mysterious part of my brain emphatically tells me, here is the beer […]
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Door County Beer Festival Tickets Now On Sale
Tickets for Door County’s largest craft beer event of the year went on sale Feb. 1. The Door County Beer Festival returns to Baileys Harbor June 18 with more than 150 craft beers, live music, and local chefs. You’ll want to secure your spot in the tent early, as tickets are limited to just 1,200 […]
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Raise Your Glass with the Happy Schnapps Combo
For nearly three decades, Fish Creek’s Winter Festival has become the Door County event most known for a hodgepodge of random, hokey events and competitions – an oversized kickball tournament, minnow racing, a bike toss, and a Stumpf Fiddle Contest among them. So it’s only appropriate that the fun and games are accompanied by as […]
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Door County Beer Festival Tickets Now On Sale
The Door County Beer Festival returns to Baileys Harbor Saturday, June 18 with more than 150 craft beers, live music, and local chefs.
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DC Brewing’s Pastoral Farmhouse Ale Now Made with Local Barley
Door County Brewing Company recently announced that their Pastoral Farmhouse Ale will be brewed with locally sourced barley and yeast. In addition they have re-labeled Pastoral in honor of Door County’s Belgian heritage. The familiar recipe will incorporate Door County-grown barley as well as a new blend of yeast strains derived from the peninsula, which […]
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Cheers!: This Sheep Has Sharp Teeth
It was the coldest day of the year, to date, and I came home from work thirsty for a beer. I reached into the magic fridge and pulled out a bottle of summer ale that I must have missed last summer. Usually, one reach in and I’m satisfied, but a summer ale wasn’t going to […]
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Starboard Brewing Company to Host Next Buy Local Mixer
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