HoppinBreweryTour.com

Tour Stop 89 - Geneva Lake Brewing Company - 6/30/2019

Experience before you go . . .

Now one thing I've learned in retirement...and you all thought I was done learning, is that retired folks love to travel, love to relocate, love to pick up new undiscovered hobbies and they love to meet new friends. Now this friend category is very interesting. Over the years unless you have Unabomber tendencies you've made a lot of friends. Some life long, some not so long....and you've come to love most your friends and hopefully you spend time with the ones you enjoy being around. But when you get into this retirement thing and you're in the meet new friends mode it really doesn't matter where you're from, what you did or what you didn't, all that matters is do you have fun hangin with these new friends? Go out and hang with new friends, if you had fun repeat, if not, don't repeat. This retirement thing is a pretty easy thing.....do what you want and when you want and with who.

So when our new Tuscon friends flew up to Naperville and then we both drove up to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin for a weekend of fun with some more new Tucson friends, it was just what the retirement doctor ordered. And what a weekend it was! I don't want to bore you with all the details, okay maybe I'll just bore you a little. For those of you that don't know Lake Geneva. It's a beautiful lake and since it's less than 2 hours from Chicago, over the years it's become the summer playground for families such as Wrigley (Cubs), Maytag (Washers), Schwinn (Bikes), Pritzker (Governor), Mecum (Auto Auctions) just to name a few. Lake frontage goes for around $30,000/ft so make sure your piggy bank is full if you plan on buying. Most home sales are behind the scenes and a lot of home swapping goes on. So as we submerged ourselves into the tranquility of upscale lake life, can you pass the Grey Poupon please!!

To take the words from one of my favorite Country Western songs sung by Luke Bryan........Huntin, Fishin and Lovin every day to Boatin, Drinkin and Havin so much fun. And of course you got to throw in Laughin and Goofin. We shoreline boat toured all the beautiful homes drinkin wine, we ate fabulous food drinkin cocktails, we attended an Oakridge Boys concert drinkin beer, we head bopped on the dance floor at Chucks at midnight drinkin more beer, we golfed an exclusive 18 holes course on a gentleman's 350 acre backyard property drinking Bloody Mary's and of course we played an outrageous card game called "S**T Happens" while drinkin tasty craft beer at a local brewery.....I did say this all happened in a 24 hour period didn't I. And there was a lot of drinking water thrown in the mix...doctors orders! So much fun, so little time!!

I got to tell you Geneva Lake Brewing Co. was a pleasant surprise on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Not much to look at from the parking spaces but once you're in and you get that big welcome grin from Will behind the counter you start getting that craft beer kinda feeling. I ordered a flight of their finest and the other three not really familiar with what a flight was followed suit. Will started pouring twenty, 4 oz small glasses of beer and arranged them on four flight paddles with the accuracy of a seasoned professional. Some of the standouts were Cedar Point Amber (5%, 26 IBU), No Wake IPA (72%, 50 IBU) Weekender Wheat (4.6%,14 IBU), Implosion Double IPA (9.3%, 85 IBU) and Imperial Cherry Stout (10.6%, 45 IBU). Since there was no bar, big picnic tables and some high tops offer adequate sitting. We spread out on one of the picnic tables and commenced craft beer sipping.

A box of dominos caught our attention so a competitive game of Mexican train started up and all was good, for the time being. Someone won the first train, I'm kinda thinking it was me but instead of playing the official 12 more our attention shifted to a small blue box of cards with the name, "S**T Happens"! Not knowing how to play someone deals everyone 5 cards, we look at the cards and each one has a outrageous crazy event (side note....many of which are not up to even Hoppin' Brewery Tour standards) with a score of 1-100 assigned, with 100 being the worst, or the best, or the funniest. We went around the table reading the cards out loud and everyone guessed the assigned score. You're seeing where this is going right. The sipping of the beer with its effect, the outrageous cards, the laughing started, the louder we got, forgetting we're pretty closely seated with other folks which some unfortunately left, and after 15 minutes or so we were pretty much the only ones still there. Normally guys our age are very aware of our surroundings but for some insane reason that day and at that very moment it's as if the four of us were in an episode of The Twilight Zone. Laughing, carrying on as if we were school aged kids at summer camp with no worries in the world. It was epic!!!

Geneva Lake Brewing is a definite "gotta go" on the HBT list. Check out the beers, the games and say hey to Will. He'll probably remember us and he'll say, "oh those guys"!

Until next time and remember.....

Go get'cha one!!!