Josh Barto, our ginger-bearded wisecracking tour guide, doesn't hold back in making fun of us or himself while giving a tour of Milwaukee's Lakefront Brewery. "Why have a six-pack when you can have the whole keg?" he says, holding his belly, raising his glass and encouraging everyone to take another swig of our beer.
Amid lessons on brewing beer, a walk through the brewery and nonstop one-liners, Barto has everyone loosened up enough to join in on the tour finale: a singalong to "Making Our Dreams Come True," the theme song from the 1976-83 sitcom "Laverne & Shirley."
Everyone launches into "Schlemiel, Schlimazel, Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!" while remembering two of the city's most beloved fictional characters. The 2018 death of Penny Marshall, who played Laverne, makes it all the more poignant to raise a foamy glass to the comedy queen, as well as real-life brewery workers.
Milwaukee, the Brew City, has always been tied to its German heritage and beer. While the pre-Prohibition glory days are long gone, fresh chapters in the city's legacy are being written with at least a dozen craft breweries. Miller, the last remaining big brewer, also has tours of its high-speed production. There's even a hotel, the Brewhouse Inn, built around behemoth copper fermenting vats that were left in place at the historic Pabst Brewery campus.
The city boasts many must-do leisure activities — seeing the evolution of American motorcycles at the Harley-Davidson Museum, learning about Les Paul's invention of the electric guitar at Discovery World, and marveling at Milwaukee Art Museum's architecturally magnificent wings — but on this trip, I targeted one place devoted to hard work.
The Grohmann Museum on the campus of the Milwaukee School of Engineering focuses on its "Man at Work" collection: 1,400 paintings and sculptures portraying the people who did the farming, brewing, shipping, quarrying and factory work as science, technology and economies evolved from the 1500s through the 2000s.
A lobby mosaic with a wool spinner and a fieldworker, and rooftop statues of a railroad builder and glassblower, hint at what's spread throughout three floors. Dr. Eckhart Grohmann, who owned a foundry, spent 40 years collecting art in the rough categories of "iron and steel," "agriculture and construction" and "craftsmen and intellectual trades." It's now considered one of the top art collections dedicated to industry.
"Did you see the one with the mining accident?" a friend whispered. In an emotion-tugging painting, a dog in mourning watches grave diggers at work. Other pieces have a softer touch. A gently lit librarian looks through antique books. Women with baskets collect seaweed on a moody beach. Workers pour molten metal at a gritty factory, and a 1600s physician checks a patient's pulse.
