Monday 13th of August 2012 12:59:59 PM

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On a recent trip out to Milwaulkee for my cousin's beautiful wedding we had time to walk over to Water Street Brewery for a quick lunch and beer sampler. The brewery has just celebrated its 25 year anniversary, showing some impressive staying power in this beer-centric area.

The decor and age on this place is the best reason to try it out. This is a historic building from the 1800's and the fantastic brickwork makes it an unusual place to see. They have a huge collection of brewerania including an enormous beer can collection, bottle openers and tap handles, as well as some cool old WI beer signs.

The food was decent. My wife got a macaroni and cheese with lobster and shrimp, while I had the sausage platter made across the street at Usinger's. The spaetzel was horrid though. Service was excellent with frequent check-ins and knowledgable staff.

The beer. Not a reason to visit this place. I really wanted to like them when they arrived in an aged wooden eight-sample tray. The newspaper menu was pretty nifty with historic pictures of the building and beer information. All the lagers were filled with a strong butterscotch diacetyl flavor and aroma that indicates either poor fermentation temp control or bad yeast management. The ales were a bit better, with the best being a malty pale ale. The raspberry weiss was made with real fruit and that came out in the flavor and aroma, but the base beer was lost in it. After tasting these I looked around and all but one of the 15 people seated around us were drinking sodas or mixed drinks. This was noon on a work day, so that might explain it. Or maybe they are locals and know better.

Thursday 19th of November 2009 08:47:54 PM

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We arrived on a Wednesday evening and there were a few people in the place. Most were at tables having dinner with a few beers. We sat at the bar and had the sampler which included 9 beers. We had a lager, honey lager light, pale ale, raspberry weiss, Oktoberfest, weissbier, amber ale, brown ale, and a stout. The sampler was 8 dollars. The Oktoberfest was the best of the group. Our two servers took great care of us and both were very friendly. The breweriana memorabilia is fantastic. It’s a modern place in a nice location and is walking distance from downtown hotels and the convention center. It is more of a restaurant with a bar than a brewpub. We didn’t see anyone smoking in the place.

Friday 23rd of October 2009 02:59:19 PM

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Overpriced food in my opinion, $15.00 for a lunch "cheap fish fry" that doesn't even compare to the other ones in the city. The beer is well, my mom always told me if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. The service is normally pretty decent and the atmosphere is well "nice."

Great place for yuppies to have lunch. Won't spend my money there though...

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Sunday 24th of February 2008 07:57:38 PM

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When I was on BA, I used to joke that I was the only BA who liked Water Street Brewery. I've been five times, I think. Maybe six. I like their lagers, love their porter. Often their specialty brews are great. Occasional misfire -- didn't like their mead. The stout they do for IrishFest is fantastic. This trip, I had an enjoyable imperial stout. Potent, heavy, layered, and good. Their food is pretty good -- usually pretty tasty, sometimes mediocre. The servers are immensely friendly, which I love. (All over Milwaukee, servers are friendly. What does Chicago do to suck the happiness out of most of their servers?)The brewers make time to talk with you -- the head brewer gave me a porter recipe once, the ass't brewer explained the intricacies of their lagering tanks.

I love that the place always has people of all ages here -- be it lunch or after dinner, there are families. There are seniors at the bar. There are tons of good-looking young people. It's too big to be a pub, but it functions as one, in a sense -- here's where people come to meet. Lots of folks before events at the cultural center, or likely before events at Bradley. Kids from Marquette and MSOE.

Lots of beer paraphernalia on display -- mostly of Wisconsin breweries gone by. Nice glass facing the street... too bad it faces a parking garage, but still there's foot traffic and therefore people watching. Decent drinkable beers and the occasional "wow, this is great" brew.