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New Brewery! (Sort of) The West Bend Brewing Co.: Lithia Beer.

Posted in Uncategorized on December 19th, 2010 by Brittain

Touted as “The Beer That Made Milwaukee Jealous”, this brewery has had it’s ups and downs. Originally founded in 1848 in West Bend Wisconsin, by Baltasar Goetter (not to be confused with Gaius Baltar) the brewery has been closed and re-opened several times due to various reasons such as that black emptiness known as prohibition, and then later in 1972. It has recently reopened in 2010 after a 2 year research and reintegration process to see how it would catch on. The first new batch was originally brewed by The Riverside Brewery in downtown West Bend, and went over quite well. It is now brewed by Sprecher Brewing, but it would seem that if it takes off, they will brew it themselves at some point. The current owner, Gunter Woog, has a very strong affinity for West Bend and the Washington County area, and wishes to have it “exclusively based” there “where it belongs”

The name, Lithia, originates from the fact that it was brewed with lithium that occurred naturally in the Milwaukee River, where the brewery drew its water. This follows through in the current recipe as it is touted to be brewed with mineral water, which from what I can tell, lithium is part of that.
I recently ran into this at a free tasting of their first beer, Regner Red Ale, at Discount Liquor – Waukesha. It was decent. It was rich and malty with little bit of bite to it, and hints of caramel and chocolate. It seems rather close to the Sprecher Red ale, but is slightly drier and more bitter.
They plan to follow up their Regner Red with other seasonals such as Bender Blonde Ale and a Christmas beer, though that seems to be for next year. Hopefully that holds true as we look forward to having a different lineup next year for the 12 Beers of Christmas.
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