An amazing wedding weekend

This past weekend I came to the culmination of a journey that began a year ago. I married a woman who is a beautiful match for me. We held our wedding in the chapel at our parish, with a beautiful solo cellist playing Bach's Solo Suite #1 in G. The entire day went perfectly, and I couldn't have asked for a better wedding. The flowers showed up on time, and the photographer was amazing. All of our friends and family were beyond helpful, and really showed us how much they cared for us. The deacon gave a wonderful homily, and we got to include our loved ones who have passed on in the special prayers of the day.

After the wedding, some of us went to a local taproom that has some great backdrops for photos. It was a great time and a great way to unwind before the reception dinner. When we arrived at the restaurant everything was in motion and taken care of with an amazing and helpful staff. The food was amazing, and our best man and maid of honor gave wonderful tributes to us. I then got to top it all off by surprising Lisa with a video I made of pictures of our journey together.

By the end of dinner Lisa and I both started coming down from the high of the day and realized just how exhausted we were. By the time we got to the hotel that night, half-way to Duluth, we collapsed into bed, content and happy from a wonderful celebration. We then spent the next few days hanging out on the North Shore, visiting Gooseberry Falls, some great restaurants, and some wonderful beer. We even found an awesome new soda shop that sells over 500 different types of pop.

Now that we've arrived home we're both still slowly coming down from the emotional high, but happy to be starting a new life together. It's been an amazing year. If it wasn't for some good friends I would have certainly messed it up and passed up on the opportunity to marry a woman who is more loving and caring than I've ever experienced in my life. I feel remarkably blessed to have Lisa in my life now, and I'm working hard to be the man she deserves and treat her with the respect that she is due.

So as this new chapter in my life dawns a new, I want to say a thanks to all those who have stood by me over the past few years, and who are willing to support us as we continue to grow in our life together. Here's to the next chapter of life, may this happy beginning be just a foretaste of the amazing future in store.

Leinenkugel's Brewery Tour

Lisa and I had a weekend to ourselves, and so we decided to do an impromptu trip out of town for the night. Because of Lisa's work schedule we literally had 24 hours, since she finished at noon Saturday and started at noon on Sunday. So with that limitation in mind I tossed out the idea of doing a trip to Chippewa Falls and visiting the Leinenkugel Brewery. Chippewa Falls/Eau Claire, Wisconsin is just over 100 miles from the Twin Cities so it is a great distance for a quick trip. We probably could have even gone back and forth in the same day, but we decided to get a cheap room at the local Days Inn.

The first thing to mention is that there aren't any pictures in this blog entry. Leinenkugel does not allow pictures inside their facilities. I could have taken a couple shots of the Lodge, but decided to just keep the phone put away. The Lodge is where you start your tour. It's a combination gift shop and tasting room. It's amazing how many pieces of merchandise you can slap a corporate logo on. You name the style of shirt and they probably had one there with the Leine logo on it. We decided to hold off on tasting until after the tour. As we found out, that probably wasn't the best idea.

The tour started, and our tour guide was very vocal and fun. We learned a bit about the history of the brewery, how it's the 7th oldest working brewery in the country, and where the original structures were. Similar to Schell's, this brewery was founded by a German immigrant family in the 1800s, and remained in the family ownership until 1988 when it was bought by Miller. The brewery is still run by the Leinenkugel family, and is still considered a craft brewery because of it's size, and the fact that they still add various ingredients by hand. My sense is that this is a similar arrangement as Goose Island in Chicago. They seem to be able to continue to produce the beer that they want, and then have the Miller distribution network. I really don't have a big issue with the large beverage companies owning craft breweries, as long as they leave them alone and let them do what they do best.

Most of the tour was standard "here's how beer is made" type of stuff. One interesting part is that they still use the horizontal fermenters, and haven't changed to conical ones. Given the shape of their building I doubt that will change any time soon. They also touted that their boil kettles are topped with copper, as an homage to brewing history. We also got to see the bottling and canning lines, and the big machine that they use to pasteurize the beer. At the end of the tour Lisa also got to chat with the tour guide and learned that they were in the same fraternity, and that the tour guide was also an opera/vocal student. So that was fun for her.

Once the tour was done we headed back over to the lodge to get our 4 samples. However, the way the bar was set up it was REALLY tough to get people's attention to actually get your samples. We kept having to move around the bar to find an open spot because some people would just park there and drink their samples one right after the other, not realizing that there was a line of 20 people behind them. Because of this I only used up 3 of my samples. However, since Lisa doesn't drink I was able to have her nab a couple more for me to try. All the confusion was further compounded by a wedding party that showed up and was taking up a lot of space as well. Needless to say, this was the least fun part of the trip. At least you get to keep the tasting glass. Overall, Leinenkugel was the least favorite tour I've been on, not because the information was bad, but it was all very staged and corporate. I don't think it's one that I would do again, but I did mostly enjoy myself.

We then headed out for some dinner and found Milwaukee Burger Co.,. This is a nice place, with beer flights and decent cheese curds. I was happy to get a flight of beer that consisted of a lot of stuff that I can't get here in Minnesota, namely New Glarus. I liked a couple of them well enough that we hit a store on the way back to the hotel to get some to bring back to MN. 

We finally crashed in the hotel room, only to discover that they don't have Food Network. So Lisa channel surfed a bit and found the Indiana Jones movie marathon on USA Network. So I got to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull finally. I barely stayed awake to the end, and then we collapsed. Today, it's back to MN and the beginning of the school year gets going in earnest. It was nice to have a quick trip away to finish out the summer.