We just got back from Madison spending the weekend up there with our friends Scott and Marcia Schroeder, Dave and Pat Heusmann, and Tom Kakert for the Iowa/Wisconsin football game. Madison is always a great time and a wonderful city.
Before we left, Dave's barber told him that we had to go to this place called the Brocach on the state capitol square in downtown Madison. He said it was a great bar. Well, any bar that serves a lot of eclectic beers is on my agenda!
The Brocach is on the south side of the square, directly across from the Wisconsin State Capitol building. Brocach, in Gaelic, loosely means a "Fox Den" or, more appropriately for Wisconsin, a "Badger's Den". The crowd was mixed for a Friday night with a lot more college aged kids in the place than middle aged people like us.
They have two bars in the Brocach - the main bar downstairs, and when it gets busy, they open up the upper bar. We opted to go upstairs and go to the smaller of the two bars. They had all the traditional beers on tap - Harp, Guinness, Bass. One thing I liked is that they had Smithwick's on tap, a nice Irish brew that I first had last year in Ann Arbor. Smithwick's (pronounced "Smitticks") has a good flavor to it and a nice little bite.
The girls all opted for "foo-foo" drinks while the guys bellied up and went for the beer. They had New Glarus Brewing Company's Spotted Cow on tap and Dave went with one of those. Just like me, Dave didn't care for it. In fact, I know that New Glarus is reknown for their beers, but I have never cared for the taste of most Belgian style beers. It was all he could do to choke it down.
They have food at Brocach, it appears to be a little more upscale than regular bar type food. And they have a nice selection of Scotch's, as well. The crowd is a little older through the day and early in the evening, and on the weekends it tends to skew more toward a younger crowd. But if you're in Madison and have some time on your hands and want to get a beer downtown, I'd say this is the place.
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