By Molly Snyder Senior Writer Published Oct 31, 2017 at 11:04 AM

Season's eatings! The weather may be getting colder, but Dining Month on OnMilwaukee is just cooking up, dishing out your winning picks in this year's Best of Dining poll. Dining Month is brought to you by Fein Brothers, your premier food service equipment and supply dealer in Wisconsin since 1929. Congratulations to all of the winners, and happy eating for all those who voted! See all the winners for the month so far here.

’Tis the season to raid the kids’ trick-or-treat candy while they’re asleep or at school, so without a single gossamer string of guilt, I go for the Twix bars and York peppermint patties first and then succumb to the Sour Patch Kids and the Snickers bars later.

With teenaged sons, I’ve had many seasons to loot the littles’ candy bags – and have sampled them with various libations. I’ve always been a fan of wine with chocolate, duh, but have become fond of bourbon and chocolate, as well. And whiskey and Good & Plenty and … you get the point. Booze + candy = delicious.

For anyone without easy access to Halloween booty, the Brass Tap, 7808 W. Layton Ave., will host an evening of beer-and-candy pairing from 4 p.m. to close on Tuesday, Oct. 31. For $12, customers receive a flight of four 5-ounce glasses of beer paired with four different popular Halloween candies. Costumes are encouraged.

The cerveza-and-sweets special includes Samuel Adams Lager with candy corn; Mudpuppy Porter with Snickers; Goose Island Sofie with Sour Patch Kids and Founders Breakfast Stout with Reece’s peanut butter cups.

Brass Tap owner Nick Marking explained the rationale behind the pairings.

"The Sam Adams lager has caramel notes that are brought out by the candy corn," he says. "The Mudpuppy Porter has chocolate notes that match the Snickers. The Goose Island Sophie is aged in a wine barrel and has a tartness that goes well with the Sour Patch Kids and the Reece’s peanut butter cups complement the Founders Breakfast Stout’s coffee notes."

The Brass Tap, which opened almost three years ago in Greenfield, has more than 80 brass taps, all lined up in a row behind the bar and ready to dispense craft beers – stouts to lagers to IPAs. There are also 120-some bottles of beer available, as well as a large selection of ciders, wine and craft cocktails.

The bar and restaurant has themed candy pairings a few times a year and also combines Girl Scout Cookies with beer and paczki with brews on Fat Tuesday.

"We have a lot of fun with it," says Marking.


Molly Snyder started writing and publishing her work at the age 10, when her community newspaper printed her poem, "The Unicorn.” Since then, she's expanded beyond the subject of mythical creatures and written in many different mediums but, nearest and dearest to her heart, thousands of articles for OnMilwaukee.

Molly is a regular contributor to FOX6 News and numerous radio stations as well as the co-host of "Dandelions: A Podcast For Women.” She's received five Milwaukee Press Club Awards, served as the Pfister Narrator and is the Wisconsin State Fair’s Celebrity Cream Puff Eating Champion of 2019.