Applefest Ale 2017 Debut

It's autumn in the extreme nort' so that means leafers, pumpkin hunters, and corn mazers are driving up north away from the city grind to tap into all the fun. Drive around Bayfield's Fruit Loop and stop in Erickson's Orchard for an apple cider donut or pie stick. As our local cider producer, our famous Applefest Ale depends on their magic blend of apples. We can't make drunk bubbles without the honey, which has been harder and harder to source. You are, no doubt, aware of the plight of the honey bee. For years, we have been buying honey from a family farm in Mason, WI and we're proud to say our raw ingredients are all Wisconsin sourced. Even our barley is grown in Wisconsin as part of our Midwest Hops and Barley  Co-op.

With the Applefest Ale fermenting away, bottling and kegging are just a few days away. So stop in and celebrate the apple harvest, the hard work of our farmers, bees, apple trees, barley crops, and hop bines. (Yep, it's a bine, not a vine. FYI) We debut our 2017 Applefest Ale on Friday, Sept. 22 at our Taphouse. Come in for a pint and fill a growler to take with you. Cheers!

Did you know honey bees had to tap 220,000,000 flowers to create the 110 pounds of honey we used in our 2017 batch of AppleFest Ale™? And each little badass bee visits 50-100 flowers in one round of collection. That's approximately 3,000,000 trips for our 110 pounds of honey.