Pangaea Lilja’s Sasquatch Stout: brewed with real Sasquatch musk

January in Wisconsin is an exercise in fortitude. With wind chills lingering well below zero all day, rolling myself into a fleece cocoon and barricading the door would have been a reasonable choice. Instead, I donned a full suit of long underwear and managed a 2-hour urban trek around my fair city before losing feeling in my upper extremities and cursing my ancestors for their dubious immigration choices. This calls for a beer.

Today’s selection, Lilja’s Sasquatch Stout, comes from Pangaea Beer Company, a somewhat ambiguous entity that exists more in the conceptual than the concrete. Pangaea is technically located in Neshkoro, WI, but its beers are all contract-brewed by Sand Creek Brewery of Black River Falls, WI. Further details on Pangaea Beer Company are approximately as elusive as Sasquatch himself, so I’ll skip to the beer.

Since Sand Creek produces some mighty fine stouts of its own, I had high hopes for this one. Lilja’s Sasquatch, however, turned out to be fairly unremarkable. It certainly wasn’t bad, but I would only choose it again in the absence of any other reasonable options. A dry, intensely dark stout, Sasquatch had a peculiar aroma dominated by alcohol and something…else. Leather, maybe? Or bits of real Sasquatch? Not at all sweet, Sasquatch was bitter up front and left a not entirely pleasant sour aftertaste. To summarize:

Side Note: It’s Madison Restaurant Week – one of 2 weeks during the year that fancy-pants dining establishments (whose typical meals cost more than I make in a day) fling open their doors to the riff-raff by offering fixed price menus hovering around $30 for dinner or $15 for lunch. 

Lots of good eats to be had, if you don’t mind dining with the feeling that staff can’t wait to bust out the Lysol when you leave. Restaurant week runs Jan 20-25; check out the menus here: http://www.madisonmagazine.com/Madison-Magazine/Events/Restaurant-Week/Menus/ .