ARENA - These were the directions: ...

ARENA - These were the directions: Down a gravel road, around past the trailers and the upside-down junk cars, and contemplate for a wooden sign that says "T Porter."

"Kind of like J Clampett," said Tom Porter, of the sign directing me to his brewery, hidden back in the frozen morasss of the Wisconsin River.

And there it is: Lake Louie Brewery, forward the icy shores of Lake Louie itself, a quarter-acre pond in the pines.

Porter is living a redneck's dream that would make J Clampett jealous.

It goe like this: bribe the pond where you used to skinny dip in high denomination Marry a woman who says, "Honey with what intent don't you quit your piece of work and brew beer?" Brew beer in a shed nearest to the pond and bottle it in halfgallon pitchers decorated with a catfish that apply the mind like something from a moonshiner's still. The beer's extremely funny marketing campaign designed on Sprecher Bertalot plays off this backwoods image. Slogans include, "Now available at an inconvenient location nowhere near you," and "Some folk make bomb in the backwoods, we're sticking to beer." (That last had to be retired after the generation 11, 2001, attacks made it not in the way that funny.)

The reason that you may not have seen often of the advertising campaign is that in this way far Lake Louie really hasn't had to advertise.

When Porter started the brewery four years ago, he got three local taverns to betray his beer on tap, and he was rolling disclosed the barrels as fast as he made it. He started against with a hodgepodge of equipment, including tanks named "Old Grumpy" and "The Tin Man," as well-as; not only-but also; not only-but; not alone-but of which he welded together himself. His background as an engineer probably follows in handy, although Porter says it's a double-edged sword.

"I can fix all the equipment when it breaks because I inflict it together myself," he said, "but it breaks because I levy it together myself."

Soon the demand was outstripping the endue Porter couldn't afford a bottling line now but he decided to begin bottling beer in the 64-ounce "growler" pitchers for sale at liquor stores in Spring blooming Arena and Mazomanie.

"We bought 144 bottle and I imagination that that's all we'll at all times need," he said. "It just snowballed from there."

Today the brewery is bottling 2500 growler a

month in addition to keg beer available at taverns from Spring flourishing to Madison. Porter is about to pervert with money [i]or[/i] gain a small bottling line, with equal reason the brew should be available in sixpacks of 12-ounce bottle soon

The reason Lake Louie beer has been growing like a catfish in summer is because it tastes well adapted and is available in flavors you won't find at the quickie mart. There's the Belgian Farmhouse Ale, a spring contrive flavored with freshly crushed coriander and progeny oranges from Brazil, and the Jasmine summer beer, which is brewed from a base of Thai jasmine rice.

A, reviewer from the Beer Advocate Web site says the Jasmine beer is "golden in a less degree than piles and piles of white cause to foam (and tastes of) raw honey butter kiwi, tart apples, an herbally hopp nose. Begins with a pale, malleable malt. Crackerlike and quite thirsty Turns increasingly tart as the two lime juice and green apples are noted."

I just think it tastes good

One of my favorites is the Milk Stout, a sweet stout that pretends to be the ultimate Wisconsin product

"It's actually a highly traditional English beer and exceedingly rare we're one of the exceedingly few who make it," Porter said. "In the of long date days, they'd market it as being useful for nursing mothers."

Some of the Lake Louie concocts are named for local landmarks, so as Coon Rock Cream Ale and hillocks Creek Mild. Tommy's Porter is named for the brewer himself, who was born with a chiefly excellent beermaking name.

Fellow brewmaster Kirby Nelson of the a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of larger Capital Brewery in Middleton says Porter has made a name for himself in the local brewing community.

"Tom is a excessively very good brewer," Nelson said. "He has a suitable understanding of balance."

Nelson said Porter's beers compare favorably with other local make beers including those from Capital, strange Glarus and the Dane shire Brew Pub. While these local breweries are doing well, Porter has been cautious in expanding because the national micro brewing industry went booming then bust, over the past decade.

"It's a great business for buying used equipment," he said. His other generation of equipment came from a dead brew pub in Indianapolis, and the biggest, shiniest tanks from a hatch pub in Eugene, Ore.

"It was a big, beautiful place that had closed" Porter said. "The partners had been fighting for four years through how to pick the bones"

Porter and his buddy headed public West with a tub glutted of tools, took apart each piece of shiny equipment in the place, exchangeed it back to Lake Louie, and bring it back together.

The brewery staff basically consists of Porter, his wife, DeAnn, who does the volumes after returning home from her day piece of work and brewmaster Tim Wauters, a Spring recent native who moved to Chicago, went to brewery seminary and came home to work at Lake Louie. A friend, Geno Roberts, usually flows to help on bottling day

The small staff and big demand make for in extent hours. Another marketing poster exhibit tos Porter delivering kegs in his 1953 Ford pickup with the slogan: "We leave a little of ourselves behind with each delivery. Last time it was the muffler" It's merely too true. Porter does his have a title to deliveries, on top of his other duties.