Days of the Beer, October 8

The beer for today is Capital Brewery Autumnal Fire.

On October 8, 1871, fires broke out all around Lake Michigan. The most famous fire was the Great Chicago Fire. Additionally, Holland and Manistee Michigan burned. The fire that caused the greatest damage was in Peshtigo, Wisconsin.

Peshtigo was a lumber industry town. Around 1871, people were flocking to the town to work in the woods. On October 8, a fire broke out, no one knows for sure exactly how the fire started. It was a dry year, and most trees had shed their leaves, additionally, the pine trees had dropped their needles due to the dryness.

It was very dry. During the summer, there were several smaller fires (smokey the bear wasn't around yet) that had caused the area to have a lot of smoke. Traveling preachers went around preaching the end of the world was at hand; promising fire and brimstone.

On October 8, a front moved into the area and brought some high winds, this probably fanned the flames of the smaller fires and turned it into an inferno. By the time the fire was over, it had burned 1,875 square miles. It had destroyed 12 towns. No one is sure how many people died because people were burned beyond recognition, and there was normally no one alive who could identify the bodies. The estimated death toll was between 1,200 and 2,500 people.

The fire was very intense, estimated at more than 2,000 degrees F. It was a wall of flame, more than a mile high, five miles wide and travelled about 100 miles an hour. The fire jumped over Green Bay (the bay, not the city) and burned parts of Door Peninsula. The fire burned on both sides of the Peshtigo River. It created a fire tornado, the threw rail cars and houses into the air.

The people who survived the fire, did so by going into the Peshtigo River, wells or other bodies of water. Some people escaped the fire, only to drown.

As to the beer:

Captial Brewery is located in Middleton, Wisconsin. It was founded in 1984, and moved to it's current location in 1986. Capital Brewery was named the #1 Brewery in America at the 1998 Beverage Testing Institue's World Beer Championship. The beer won Gold at the 2004 and 2006 Great American Beer Festivals.

A blazing rich beer, this is a doppelbock based on an Octoberfest personality. Warm and intriguing, the perfect "Brandy Snifter" beer. ABV 7.26%

I had this beer September 11, at the Blind Pig, at a meet and greet with the Capital Brewmaster, Kirby Nelson.

So, for the biggest Autumnal Fire in Wisconsin; have one of Wisconsin's best Autumnal Fire's.