Page 107 - WINE DINE AND TRAVEL WINTER SPRING 2022

Crunchy cheese curds and salty snacks
fueled my explorations.

A Beer Centric City German immigrants arrived in Milwaukee en
masse in the mid-1800s, shortly after Wisconsin
A giant Schlitz Park mural greeted me every opened to white settlement. They remain the
time I opened my room's curtains, testifying to the city's largest immigrant population and have an in-
city's claim as Brew City. Four of the nation's top tense influence on Milwaukee's home cooking and
breweries—Pabst, Blatz, Schlitz and Miller—have fine cuisine. But their legacy really shines when it
roots in Milwaukee. In the 1840s, there were more comes to beer past and present.
than 30 small breweries in the city. Today more The names of the beer barons of the early 1900s
than 30 craft breweries continue the tradition. sprout up everywhere. Their mansions and tomb-
The city's baseball team, contenders for the 2021 stones are tourist attractions, and they're memo-
World Series championship, is called the Brewers. rialized on historic buildings like the opulent
As one local wag commented, "Everything in Mil- German Renaissance Pabst Theater downtown.
waukee by law has to be beer related." Frederick Pabst's brewery was the largest in the
U.S. in the late 1800's. Its Romanesque compound,

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