By Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer Published Oct 10, 2019 at 9:55 AM

Yesterday, I once again sang the praises of my favorite tree nut: the sweet and nutritious hazelnut, which pairs so beautifully with chocolate, as these examples prove.

Coincidentally, there has been a bit of hazelnut beer news in Milwaukee this week, too.

A bunch of folks from Neenah's Lion's Tail Brewing Co. and West Milwaukee's Malteurop Malting Co. were at The Explorium Brewpub at Southridge Mall on Wednesday working with The Explorium team on brewing a collaboration beer.

Lion's Tail brewer Alex Wenzel and The Explorium's head brewer Kyle Ciske and his assistant brewer Adam Anders were cooking up 'Stache the Nuts II, a chocolate hazelnut porter.

"It will be released in the month of November and will benefit the Movember foundation," says Malteurop's Nicole Ciske, whose is married yo Kyle and whose brother Eric Henzel is the GM at Lion's Tail.

"Each brewery and select accounts in the area will serve the beer to raise money for the cause. The is a yearly collab between the two breweries and the first year Malteurop has joined in by donating the malt."

And then, from the lovely folks at Third Space Brewing, comes this...

In other collab news (sorry, no hazelnuts here), Riveredge Nature Center is working with Cedarburg's The Fermentorium on Watershed Moments, a golden ale that celebrates the Milwaukee River Watershed and that will benefit the center's environmental education and conservation work.

The beer will be launched at The Fermentorium on Friday, Nov. 8 between 4 and 10 p.m.

"A Golden Ale was selected because it struck us all as a great metaphorical beer for getting outside and enjoying a refreshing beer while paddling in a canoe or relaxing," says Riveredge's Ed Makowski. "That crisp, easy-drinking variety of beer really spoke to the past few decades of water improvement that have taken place in this area.

"Our entities have discussed collaborating in the past, one possibility was a maple porter or stout using maple syrup tapped at Riveredge, but that seemed like much too heavy of a brew to highlight the improving health of the watershed. As much as I love dark beer, too, we certainly hope nobody looks at our shared waterways and announces, 'Yep, definitely a porter flowing between those banks'."

Bobby Tanzilo Senior Editor/Writer

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.

He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.

With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.

He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.

In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.

He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.