You’ll remember last month I asked for your help in deciding where to go for a weekend trip. After talking with some Chopping Block students last week, my wife and I decided to go up to Wisconsin for the weekend. They recommended doing a brewery tour and checking out the downtown area. So, that’s what we did. We combined that with the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus’ Christmas Follies Concert to make a wonderful, long pre-holiday weekend. The concert was great and included classical Christmas songs followed by a more whimsical medley, as well as a costumed samba line. I highly recommend checking out their shows.
Photo Courtesy of Lakefront Brewery
After that, we headed up to Milwaukee for a few days. It was a quick, easy drive with almost no traffic since we drove during the day. We started out with a tour of Lakefront Brewery, just north of downtown. The staff was very cool, and it’s nice to see other people enjoy their job as much as I do. You can tell they really love their jobs, but then again if I brewed and “sampled” beer all day, I’d probably never complain about my job either. They also had a business fair going on in the beer hall, which was a great way to support the local economy. The booths had everything from crafts to artisan meats and cheese. After that, we bar hopped our way back to our hotel trying out some of the smaller micro-breweries and cafes. Sadly, I wasn’t paying too much attention to which ones we actually stopped at, but everything we tried was really delicious.
Our next playground was the Historic Third Ward. It is a redeveloped area on the southeast side of downtown. What a fun spot! We’re both kind of artsy, and this was 
perfect. It is an eclectic mix of shops, restaurants, theaters, and boutiques, selling everything from high end art that is amazing to well, some things that would only appeal to others. We grabbed a late lunch at Coquette Café, which is a cute little French café, right in the middle of the Third Ward. After that we spent the rest of the day bumming around, but I don’t think we saw even a quarter of the area. You could easily spend a day or two just walking through all the stores. Apparently, the nightlife there is pretty good also, although we didn’t have time to check it out. We will next time! Wisconsin is a great little weekend getaway, and it’s so close to Chicago.
