2024's Top Drink Experiences
From bug beers to big beers and everything in between!
We’re at the dawn of a new year, and while I’m looking forward to everything 2025 has to offer, I’m also reminiscing about all the drink experiences I’ve had in the past year. 2024 was a year filled with a mix of annual events I attend as well as a lot of new adventure.
To come up with my list of top experiences, I scrolled back through my Instagram (@drinkswithdarin) and relived the memories of 2024. I wanted to make a Top 10 list, but I had a hard time winnowing it down. To combat this ever growing list, I ended up combining multiple items into their own categories. And because of this consolidation, I scrapped the impossible task of trying to rank them at all.
So, without further ado, I present the DrinksWithDarin Top Drink Experiences of 2024:
Bug Beer
Cicada fever was all the rage this summer with the rare emergence of two breeds at the same time that hadn’t occurred for 200 years. This massive influx of bugs didn’t quite reach us all the way up here in Madison. You may have heard about a brewery in Chicago offering Malort infused with cicadas. Not to be outdone, Topsy Turvy, a Lake Geneva brewery, created a brown ale made with cicadas. I can’t recall exactly what their process was to create it, but I did know that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for this once in a lifetime chance at trying something new.
I convinced one of my friends to drive down with me on a Saturday, because misery loves company. We each order a 5 oz. pour of it to try, because who really wants any more bug than that. It was an interesting beer to say the least. It had a real earthy and dirt like taste that sat on the tongue for a bit. It was like if you drank an earthy mushroom beer and then followed it up with a face dive into a sandbox.
Do I regret trying the beer? Definitely not, because I do enjoy seeing people pushing boundaries and experimenting with what beer can be. Will I ever try a cicada beer again? Absolutely not. But there’s always a chance I’d try a different bug beer.
Badgers, Mallards, and Night Mares, Oh My!
Having a drink at the ballpark is one of things that make sporting events so enjoyable. Combine having a beer under the sun, while watching two teams battle it out, and it doesn’t get much better than that.
This was the first year alcohol sales were allowed at University of Wisconsin sporting events. Drinking a few craft beers in the Kohl Center sure helped make it easier watching my Indiana Hoosiers continue their struggles against the Badgers here in Madison.
In the summertime, I headed out to Warner Park, on the north side of town, to watch the Madison Mallards summer league baseball. And at the ball park, I had to have a baseball themed beer from Broken Bat brewing. The Mallards also had souvenir duck boots to drink out, but it was a little cost prohibitive for one person. Maybe I’ll try it out next season and report back. The summer also so the debut of the Madison Night Mares softball summer league, also played at Warner Park. It’s great to see the growth of women’s sports leagues in Madison and I’ll continue to attend when I can.
Finally, the fall brought Badger Football. There’s still some kinks to work out with how alcohol is sold at Camp Randall, but once you get that beer, it’s magical watching football in the stadium. Just don’t spill it during Jump Around. My beer of choice for the games was Potosi’s Varsity Golden Ale. It’s a lighter beer and 20% of proceeds go to support UW NIL deals, so it’s a win-win for everyone.
The Greatest Beer Festival in the Land
The Great Taste of the Midwest isn’t just any beer festival, it’s an event in three parts. From ticket sales in May to the pre-parties on Great Taste Eve to the actual event held in Olin Park on the shores of Lake Monona the second Saturday of August. I’ve been attending every year since 2019, and it one of my favorite events on the calendar each year. And each piece of this event has it’s things that make them special and add to the culture surrounding beer in the Midwest.
In-person ticket sales usually happen the first Sunday in May at select bars and breweries around town, with each location only having a set number of tickets. I usually choose to go to the Malt House for sales for multiple reasons. One, because it is one of my favorite bars in Madison. Two, because of it’s proximity to me. And three, because I can usually show up a little bit later in the morning and still be guaranteed a tickets. This past year, I showed up around 8am with a camping chair and a cooler with beer and snacks. Since sales don’t start until noon, it creates a sense of community with other beer enthusiasts sharing bottles in the parking lot, talking beer, and making new friends (even if temporarily). I enjoy the camaraderie and general excitement in the air each spring that this brings.
On the Friday before the festival, in the heat of the summer, tap lines are flowing with beers and special events from breweries across the Midwest. There’s so many outstanding events and it’s hard to narrow down which ones to stop at, so I usually take at least half a day of and start early to make sure I can get to the ones I want. And for anyone that wasn’t able to obtain tickets to the festival itself, this is a great way to still experience beers from around the region.
Finally, it’s time for the festival. Imagine if you will, a beautiful sunny day, beer tents spread throughout the expanse of the rolling hills of the park, and thousands of patrons sampling the finest ales from breweries near and far, all with great views of the Capitol and Madison’s skyline in the backdrop. You only have to wait in long lines if you want to try a limited timed tapping of a specific beer. Otherwise, you just walk up to the nearest brewer, ask for a sample of whatever they’re pouring, and you’ll have good beer filling your glass all day. It’s a magical experience, and I can’t fully do it justice in words. The best thing to do is just experience it yourself. There’s a reason I go back every year. And maybe I’ll see you there this year too.
Hyper-Local Beer Festivals
I’m hoping that in 2025 we will see more hyper-local beer festivals like the few we had here in town this year. What I mean by that can be evidenced by Working Draft’s Czech Fest and Giant Jones's Barleywine and Belgian Beer Fests. These local breweries chose styles of beer they brew and showcased them on another level by filling their tap lines with most of their in-house brews and a few guest taps that defined the styles. The deep dive into these styles is what makes these kind of events special.
Giant Jones was built on big beers and they’ve been hosting Barleywine Fest in the spring for the past few years and Belgian Fest in the Fall for the past two. For Barleywine Fest, the tap lines are made up of multiple Giant Jones beers as well as guest taps from lots of other local breweries to provide you with all the big beer you could want. And this year’s Belgian Fest had a variety of styles as well as some Belgian imports that I hadn’t ever had before.
On the lager side of things, Working Draft hosted a weekend filled with Czech-style beer served up with the accompanied cuisine from local restaurants. Pretty much every beer was on draft was on a Lukr faucet (side-pull), and you could get any beer in one of the three Czech pours (Mliko, Snyt, or Hladinka. It was a veritable celebration of Czech lager, and never having a Mliko pour before, it was fun to kick off that weekend with a Mliko toast.
Bourbon by the Water
Getting into whiskey can be intimidating. There are so many different brands and it seems like everyone and their brother is starting up a brand these days. Plus with all the variation within the category, it’s hard to know what you like (at least for me it feels that way).
This year, I was able to get a last minute ticket to attend the 2nd Annual Sugar River Bourbon festival held at Seven Acre Dairy Co. in Paoli. Going into it, I had no idea what to expect. But what I found was an intimate little festival in a picturesque setting. There were about 20-30 different purveyors sampling their wares at the festival. And since it was so small there weren’t really any lines at all. I got to try bourbons, ryes, and plenty of other spirits as well. I discovered some new distilleries that I hadn’t heard of before. My favorite of the day was Nearest East Distillery out of Tennessee. And I even found a new to me Wisconsin distillery that I enjoyed, Blue Ash Farm out of Argyle.
This was a great spot to explore my tastes and grow my knowledge of the category. I had a fantastic time and I’m going to try to prioritize attending this festival in the fall every year if I can.
Drink Weeks
Drink weeks have been a thing for a while. Every year, Negroni Week is celebrated internationally. We used to have Madison Craft Beer Week during the heyday of the craft beer explosion. But now we only have a few different weeks with focus built around a certain type of drink. Some are driven by organizations in the community and others I’ve created as my own personal little journey.
For the past few years, The Cap Times has sponsored Madison Old Fashioned Week. It’s a week where people can vote for who has the best old fashioned in town. Around 20 bars or so participate each year where they craft a special cocktail for the week. I enjoy making my way around town and trying the most interesting ones. From fancy cocktail bars like Merchant to college haunts like SconnieBar and Jordan’s Big 10 participate. I sampled around 10 different ones this year. And surprisingly my favorite wasn’t from who you’d expect. SconnieBar came out on top for me with their Royal Vanilla Berry old fashioned that I absolutely adored.
The other week I enjoyed wasn’t really a week, but more of a whole month experience. 2024 was the second year of my annual OktoberQuest, where I made it my mission to try as many Oktoberfest style beers from local breweries. I peppered in some side quest with various tap takeover and other Oktoberfest events around town as well. Over the month I ended up trying 24 different beers from breweries in the greater Madison area, with some little day trips involved to include towns a little further out. Who needs sponsored events, when you can make your own fun and enjoy the ride.
Traveling to New Destinations
This past year I was able to travel to new places domestically than I have in a while. All beer destinations in their own right, but that wasn’t the main reason I visited any of the three.
At the end of the summer, I drove up to Marquette, MI to run my second ever half marathon. The race was on a Saturday over Labor Day weekend, which gave me a lot of time on both ends to explore the various drink destinations in the city. Barrel + Beam was my favorite brewery in the area by far. Their beers are fantastic and although their brewery is a little bit outside the main part of town, the setting atmosphere was sublime. All of the other breweries were pretty great too, including Blackrocks and Ore Dock. I also stopped at The Honorable Distillery and ended up bringing home a bottle of their gin after tasting through a gin flight.
In the fall, I was flown out to Denver for a work conference. In my down time, I took the light rail into the city to explore a few breweries. You can throw a stick in any direction and find a good brewery, but I mostly stuck to the River North district where there is a solid mass of breweries. Bierstadt Lagerhaus is famous for it’s lagers, and well deserved. Ratio Beerworks and Our Mutual Friend were two other really good ones I visited. On my last night in the city, I made my way to Hell or High Water Tiki during their Beetlejuice popup. This bar was everything I wanted out of a tiki bar, and I would make it a must stop on any Denver visit in the future.
Finally, the last city I visited was Nashville. It was actually my third trip to that city, but the first time I was able to explore East Nashville more fully. Barrique Brewing was by far the best brewery in the city and their lager program is top notch. I think I went to a total of near 10 breweries on that visit. But, the other drink experience I adored was a tour and tasting of Corsair Distillery. We were the only two on the tour and then went on a taste journey through about six of their spirits. And since we flew down and checked a bag, I bought a bottle of their Triple Smoked Whiskey and Barreled Gin to bring back to Madison as my bar selection continued to blossom.
Milwaukee Meanderings
I spent a lot more time exploring Milwaukee this year than I had originally expected. I have my favorite spots in that city that I like to stop in whenever I get the chance. But I also made some time to visit new places as well. New to me brewery visits included Wizard Works and Dead Bird Brewing. It was my first time attending a concert at the American Family Amphitheater to see Avril Lavigne’s greatest hits tour. And in December, hanging out in the city during the Santa Cycle Rampage and then being at Lakefront Brewery for the post-ride party. That was like a holiday fever dream where Santas, Elves, Grinches, and other holiday characters rode across the city on bicycles and then down good beer along the river outside of Lakefront. It made me want to join a ride like that next winter.
The best experience in Milwaukee was a fun filled day that started with renting a paddle tavern to cruise down the Milwaukee River in. Our small group reserved an entire boat for ourselves and that’s the best way to do it. It’s BYOB, but they do make one stop at Boone & Crockett. In my opinion, that bar stop was only worth it as a bathroom break, and I would’ve rather spent more time on the water drinking and partying with my friends. After the boat tour, we had time before our dinner reservation, so we walked over to Safe House, a spy themed bar. It was worth it to experience once, but that’s all. The second bar we went to was Pufferfish, a rooftop tiki bar, where they serve up some excellent drinks in fun glassware. Rooftop bars and tiki bars are some things Madison is severely lacking in, and that was what made Pufferfish worth it it my book.
Social Media Connections Come Alive
Martin Foys, an English professor at the UW, runs the cocktail Instagram account @theginpennant. We’ve connected online about different cocktails and the craft behind them. But I’d never met him in person. That is until Christmas Eve.
I was lucky enough to be invited over to enjoy a Christmas Eve evening where him and his wife opened up their home to many guests and shared cocktails and general merriment all day long. We went over in the evening and were able to try the two smoked drinks on his home menu, the Nut Hut and the Scotch Neg. The second one is a scotch riff on the Negroni, and I was something special.
It was so fun talking with him and his other guests. Martin’s passion for cocktails is evident and seen in the care he takes with each drink. It makes me want to get back into playing around with drinks again on my own.
And if you want to experience the Gin Pennant, you can book a private experience, or find him at some popup dinners with The Deliciouser. I’m gonna want to have a private event sometime in 2025 to enjoy more of those drinks.
New Beginnings
There’s something special about new beginnings. The atmosphere is full of joy and hop for things to come. It’s exciting to see people start their new ventures and take that big leap to share their passions with the world.
We saw a slew of new openings last year, with the biggest being Public Parking on East Johnson. This bar has only been open a few months and is already one of the best in the city. I’ve been there multiple times already and the drinks have been nothing less than stellar. Their recent British Bake Off popup was fun and exciting and a great way to showcase their range. I’m looking forward to great things from them over the coming years.
Besides Public Parking, the north side got a new bar run by a longtime Madisonian and former Vintage employee. The Northside Lounge is a kind of like an art deco inspired dive bar, chic but charming in it’s own way. It’s becoming one of my favorites in the area. And speaking of lounges, The Rusty Bee Lounge opened in a new development in Fitchburg. It’s cool to see that part of town continue to grow and expand and bring in new businesses. People who live there deserve some nice local joints too.
The final new opening I want to spotlight is the Lone Girl Brewing taproom on East Wash. This is part of the beginning of what may become a new trend of established breweries opening satellite locations and brewery consolidation. I don’t foresee too many new breweries opening up, so these kinds of locations is how I expect the brewery industry to grow in the coming years.