Week two was dedicated to innovative beers and recipe design. Russ Klisch led the presentation on the innovative beers that have come out of Lakefront Brewery. He touched on the story behind their first, and ahead of it’s time, gluten free beer “New Grist”, the inspiration and sourcing of a beer made from 100% Wisconsin products “Wisconsonite”, the push for the country’s first organic beer “E.S.B.”, and into the more recent barrel aged “Black Friday” beer releases. In addition, he touched on the “My Turn” series and the inspiration for how that product line got started.

After Russ’ presentation, Kevin Wright from Third Space Brewing led a tasting panel of Russ, George Bregar of Company Brewing and Tommy Vandervoort of Enlightened Brewing, through three unique beer styles. The group tasted and identified the ingredients in three saison beers, three IPAs and three stouts. The goal was to identify different flavors in each beer within the style and how the flavors were created. After the group tasted all of their samples, we broke into two teams to start writing a recipe for each brew day. Team Ale House, under the guidance of Kevin Wright, wrote one recipe and Team Company Brewing, under George’s guidance, wrote another recipe. Both recipes are to be brewed during class for week three, Brewday.