Brewers & Breweries

Right before I took off for Milwaukee I discovered that "Major League" was actually filmed in Milwaukee, not Cleveland. Alas, the stadium they filmed at no longer exists but Bob Uecker is still in the community and still announcing @ the new Brewers Stadium/Miller Park.

My friend and I ended up being the only 2 on a tour of the stadium. Our seasoned tourguide (she has given tours ever since the new stadium opened in 2001) had a tourguide-in-training following her - I really hope she gets to go around more than once because there's a lot to remember!

Here were some bits I managed to remember long enough to write down afterwards....

-There is 8 miles of tubing that carries the beer thru out the stadium.
-There is no "off season" for the stadium as many of the club houses are built to host meetings or special events. The Gehl Club House has lighting that can be customized to whatever color you want it to be. Although the prices for tickets to these areas seemed like a lot, they sounded fairly reasonable compared to the prices I heard @ Fenway. And Fenway didn't even have customized lighting! ;)
-It started to pour after our tour started and the tourguide commented that they must have closed the dome, not because she actually saw the dome closed, but because she noticed the change in lighting on the field.
-Photos of all the Major League Fields past and present are hung thruout the stadium. The older pics have color added only to the grass areas to highlight the fields.
-This logo is more than just a baseball glove - do you see the "m" and the "b"?
-I saw they had Sausage t-shirts and toys in the giftshop and had forgotten that THIS was the stadium that the sausage races occurred in. I asked about the incident that occurred a while back and was told the gal that was hit still has knee problems from her fall. The tourguide said that you never know who may be racing in the Sausages because sometimes the relief pitchers from the other team will ask to run or she said if the Sausages have nice legs it is probably the player's wives! She added that they try to always put a male in The Chorizo though because he is top heavy and hard to balance.
-We got to sit in Bob Uecker's chair (see pics referred to further down). He is 75 years old and has been w/ the Brewers for over 50 years. When they honored him for his time he said he hoped to be there for 50 more. He used to put a sign saying "Bob Uecker's Chair" on his chair but after several times of it getting stolen he stopped.
- Mr. 3000 was filmed @ the new stadium, however they used a different stadium for the background on the movie poster.
-Typically the tour included a view of the Visitor's Locker room but since it was a gameday our tourguide said we couldn't since players may be roaming there already. :(

***Pics 1-10 on this link will give you more info on the stadium in the captions.***

Once the tour was over there was no time for lingering in the main gift shop (which was kind of a bummer as they had a display of autographed baseballs in there called "Autograph Alley") we had to get to Miller Brewery for our next tour!

The Land of Miller is not that far away from the stadium so we made it there w/ time to pose w/ giant cardboard cutouts of Miller bottles (see pics 11 & 12 on this link and the other tour pics/captions thru 22.)

Thanks to a short film we watched at the beginning of the tour we now know that couches are made for Miller Time! Who knew?! ;)

Since we took our time enjoying our 3 free samples of beer and filling out some postcards, we lost out on our window for lunch. Oops. So, thankfully the waitress offered us an extra pack of pretzels (we were the last of our group left in the Miller Inn) and she also gave us a map to the next brewery we were going to! (She also mapped out a place to stop for lunch but once again, no time.) How nice is that?!

Our next brewery stop was Lakefront - more of a "mom & pop" brewery as the beer waste Miller produces in a day is equal to their standard beer production in a day. Unlike the Miller Tour this tour was not free, but you did get samples and a pint glass to take home afterwards and you got to take the samples along for the tour and fill up again halfway thru! So this tour was a lot more laid back and oddly full of innuendo - bung hole talk(dealing w/ how they fill their kegs), yeast sex and semi-drunk people laughing @ every bit of it. Note - my friend and I decided to buffer by having Lakefront's Rootbeer (made w/ Maple Syrup) as our first sample before diving in again! ;) Pics/captions for the tour can be seen here - 23-34.

Our next stop was somewhere to eat! The Rock Bottom Brewery & Restaurant worked well - we were starving! Got an appetizer (Titan Toothpicks) so we could nosh on something before our meals and then of course we couldn't finish our meals. ;)

Time kept ticking and my friend had to report to the theatre to prep for her show. I would be seeing her show tomorrow night as she got me a ticket to another show @ the theatre (Armadale - a show making it's premiere @ the theatre) that was having it's opening night w/ a gala of appetizers and drinks afterwards. Nice!

The show was fantastic! Very well acted (the actors had several characters to switch in and out of) and cleverly staged. I hope Milwaukee Rep doesn't have exclusive rights to the show as I think it would do well at other venues - yes, Omaha Playhouse I'm talking to you! :)