Every Wednesday night, The Bomb Shelter hosts Milwaukee’s premier beer tasting club, The Sud’s Club. The Sud’s Club has been meeting every Wednesday night at The Bomb Shelter since the bar’s inception just over a year ago. The club tends to focus on a specific genre or family of beer each week and offers one full beer during the tasting and then samples of 7 or more beers throughout the night. The club costs $5 to join, which get’s you a serialized membership card along with a tasting card you can use to track and comment on the beers you’ve tasted, and then $5 for any week you go to a tasting.
The Club has a rich diversity in it’s membership, ranging from complete beer tasting novices to brewmasters from several of Milwaukee areas microbreweries, so new comers should not feel at all intimidated and beer aficionado’s will find plenty of others with comparable experience to compare notes with. The club has been quite successful with over 350 members, and more who sign up each week.
The club has been successful. These are the tracking cards current members use to document the beers they taste. They return the cards to the bar after the tasting and get the same card back each time they come to a tasting
On weeks where the club does not focus on a genre of beer (Stouts, Porters, Ales, Belgian Style, etc) it will generally focus on a particular Brewery…usually a micro hosted by The Owner, Brewmaster or Representative of said Brewery. Some past meetings I have attended have included Left Hand Brewery in Colorado, Summit Brewery in St Paul, Sprecher Brewery from Milwaukee, and Goose Island Brewery in Chicago.
These meetings tend to be my favorites as there are always interesting stories to learn such how the owner started the brewery or how the brewmaster stumbled upon their current best selling beer’s recipe. During Left Hand’s visit I found out about the Indian heritage the Brewery acknowledges by the different Indian blanket pattern found on the label of each of it’s beers. I had tried and became a regular drinker of several Left Hand beers before finding this out and had never noticed the blanket pattern on their bottles.
In all instances though, the club primarily serves as a means to educate all levels of beer drinkers. When I first started going to the club I couldn’t tell you what the difference between a pilsner and ale was, or what characteristics might separate a porter from a stout. I also did not understand what ‘hoppy-ness’ meant or how different types of yeast might give citrus or floral highlights to beers that originally I would have attributed to fruits being added during the brewing process.
Perhaps the most rewarding aspect the club has done for me is that it has vastly expanded the types of beer I enjoy. Before attending the club I was pretty much a straight Irish stout man. Now though, I can enjoy a good hefeweizen, Red, or Porter, and have recently developed a keen enjoyment of ‘hoppier’ beers such as India Pale Ales. I’m even beginning to be able to identify the speficic type of hops that may be put in a particular beer…something I thought I would never be able to do when I first attended the club (many beers all tasted the same to me back then).
This Wednesday the club featured home brews. Including several from first time home brewers who were inspired to try brewing their own beer from attending The Suds Club. Also on the roster that night was the brewing of The Bomb Shelter’s second home brewed beer – An American Pale Ale that would include home grown hops from one of the Sud’s Club members. Last Fall the Bomb Shelter and Sud’s Club brewed a Porter which was labeled ‘Bomb Shelter Plutonium Porter’ and was handed out to members in early 2009.
The featured beer for the night was from Marc Buttera, owner of Oso Brewery and was Labeled, ‘Rusty Red’. Though this beer is technically not a ‘homebrew’ as Oso is a microbrewery, the brewery itself came about as a result of Marc being a home brewer for over 13 years.
The next beer came from Wally and was a true home brew called ‘Starlight Ale’
Matt and Jenn followed with their first home brewed beer, ‘Toothless Clown’. They then continued for their friend Eric (who could not make it) who had brewed two beers: ‘eSee Honey’ and ‘Off the Clock Bock’. Both of these beers were quite good by my opinion especially for a first attempt.
Finally Mike offered some non-beer home brew in the form of a home brewed Saki and a home brewed Honey Meade.
Eric's 'eSee Honey'
Matt and Jenn explain brewing their first beer, 'Toothless Clown'
Matt Explains Eric's two beers, 'eSee Honey' and 'Off the Clock Bock'
Mike talks about his home brew, 'Starlight Ale'
Eric's 'Off the Clock Bock'
Let the brewing begin!!
Closeup of the home-grown 'Milwaukee Hops' used in the Bomb Shelters Pale Ale.
Mark talks about Oso Brewery and his best seller, 'Rusty Red'