Great Dane Brewing Company, Madison WI

4 July 2023

I visited Great Dane’s downtown location in a very interesting building just a couple of blocks from the state capitol building.

The interior photo is from the older, three-story building part where I sat; the other part to the left in the exterior photo is much more modern on the inside.

Great Dane has a good variety of items on tap as well as a full bar. All of the Green background plaques are their regular brews; the other nine are seasonals.

I ended up doing two flights to sample as much as I could, and each flight is described right-to-left, front row first. I haven’t looked up ABV numbers for their core beers, so I’ll just list everything by name and you can see additional info for some by zooming into the photo above.

For this first flight, which was the top row from the beer list, there really wasn’t anything I didn’t enjoy. It’s easy to see why these are six of their flagship beers.

Stone of Scone Scotch Ale – It was a bit maltier than I would have preferred but I really enjoyed this.

Verruckte Stadt German Pils – This is a delightful Pils, very clean and easy to enjoy.

Peck’s Pilsner – A bit heavier than the previous Pils, Peck’s was still a great beer and enjoyable.

Crop Circle Wheat – While it was very difficult to pick a favorite from this flight, the Crop Circle just might have been it. It’s not overly wheat-y as some of this style can be; it was just extremely pleasant.

Old Glory American Pale Ale – As with yesterday’s pale ale, this was a very mild version of this style. That didn’t make it bad, just something that could be enjoyed all day long.

Devil’s Lake Red Lager – I tend to shy away from reds as I don’t often really enjoy them. This was the exception and I wonder if it was because this red is a lager rather than an ale. Regardless, it’s definitely one I would do again.

With the exception of the first beer, this flight was exclusively made up of seasonal beers. The variety was huge but I certainly didn’t like all of them even as I appreciated them all.

Black Earth Porter – This is just a fantastic porter, very drinkable. It’s one I could do all day long on a cold day.

I-5 IPA – I’d hoped for better from this one but it didn’t quite come through for me. It was good, but it struck me as more of what the pale ale should have been rather than an IPA.

Black Watch Scotch Ale – The two Scotch Ales were so, so different. I almost really liked the first; this one, not so much. I can’t even put my finger on why at this point.

Bourbon Cherry Ale – Even this was only 6.5%, the alcohol was very, very obvious. That may have been because of the bourbon barrel aging, though … but I’d really hoped there would be more of the cherry flavor than the bourbon. Oh well!

O’Juniors Irish Ale – I partly picked this one for the name and I wasn’t disappointed. It was a good Irish ale, even if it wasn’t in my top eight beers for this visit.

Mango Haze IPA – And now we’re talking – this was the NEIPA I’ve been missing! The mango was just perfectly balanced against everything else without being overpowering, and the beer was extremely pleasant to drink. If I’d had room, this would have been on the short list for a final pint. As it was, I decided to be done after the twelve sample sizes.

I debated between the Reuben and the Turkey Club and decided on the latter. All the ingredients were good, but the toasted oat bread was dry and there wasn’t enough dressing on the sandwich to offset that. I ended up leaving a lot of the bread behind. The fries, on the other hand, were very good by themselves – I didn’t even use ketchup.

I loved the building as much as the beers and am definitely happy I decided on this spot to visit today!