Brocach Irish Pub, Milwaukee

Brocach Irish Pub, Milwaukee



Ba ghnáth mé ag siúl le ciumhais na h-abhann,
Ar bháinseach úr ‘san drúcht go trom,
In aice na gcoillte i gcoim an tsléibhe,
Gan mhairg, gan mhoill le soilse an lae.*


The Brocach has been around just a few years, I believe, and it has a sibling in Madison, mentioned in passing once on this site here. It’s located on the East Side of Milwaukee by the river on Water Street, a few blocks north of Brady Street, and so on the edge of the Brady Street neighbourhood, which was formerly so strongly associated with Milwaukee’s Italian population. It’s easy to get to – e.g., take the North Ave. exit of I43, head a short ways east and then south – and it will be even easier to get to when the work on the N. Humboldt Street bridge is completed; for now, if you’re coming east on North Avenue, take Holton St. southward and on across the river down to Brady.
Faux Irish bars abound these days, with some far better in approximating some manner of Old World Vorlage. In my estimation, the Brocach does a good job in this regard, with an interior design very strongly reminiscent of some of the famous old pubs of central Dublin.
For someone who knows Irish -- and I do, though it has gotten a bit rusty over the past few years -- the name of this pub is mildly amusing. There are two words ‘brocach’, one a noun, the other an adjective, and it is surely the noun that the owners of the pub wish to invoke: a ‘brocach’ is a badger’s burrow, and for a bar in Wisconsin, especially one with a branch in Madison, the motivation for the name is clear enough. Nonetheless, I had to laugh when I saw the bar’s façade, for as an adjective ‘brocach’ means, among other things, ‘grimy’ or ‘dirty faced’ and with regard to speech, ‘dirty’ or ‘smutty’. Perhaps speech in this pub tends to be smutty at times but the staff and clientele doesn’t seem likely to be habitually grimy or dirty faced and the pub itself was spotless.
We, that is, Amata, Lucantonius and the writer, visited the Brocach a few weeks back, on a Friday which witnessed the gradual end of a rather intense two day storm featuring raw temperatures, great winds and rains oscillating between light and near-torrential – appropriate Irish pub weather. As we were on our way to a destination further off, the visit to Milwaukee was at lunchtime and focussed on the Brocach and Brady Street. So, lunch it was and here is a link to the menu with which we were confronted: lunch menu
In addition to the well pulled Guinness seen above, I started out with a cup of potato and leek soup which was quite delicious and a good way to help warm the old bones up.

Lucantonius ordered a Brocach burger, medium, with bacon, and it was a very nice burger, indeed:

Amata and I opted for items off the Irish section of the menu. Her choice was the platter of bangers and mash, which the menu describes as “homemade Irish sausages served with colcannon mashed potatoes, a roasted apple shallot sauce and topped with fried leeks”:

To me was graciously offered by Amata a sample from this platter and all elements of the dish were really very good and the flavours all worked together well. My one qualified quibble would be that the sausage seemed a wee bit dry and in retrospect, I’m not sure whether that might have been a function of how they were originally made or whether this was a one-time minor failing in preparation, that is, that they were slightly dried out in the final cooking process. They were nonetheless very nicely flavoured sausages and I would gladly order this dish on a future visit.
As pub grub goes, whatever interesting offerings and house specialties a kitchen may offer, I am always tempted to order fish and chips. And at the Brocach, I happily gave in to my deep affection for this dish:

The fish used here is haddock, one of the traditional choices and a favourite of mine, and the portion – two good-sized pieces – was ample. The batter used includes Harp Lager and was spot on. Accompanying the fish were very good chips, some “curry slaw”, lemon wedges and tartar sauce. Another view, fish exposed (with additional roughage salvaged from my son’s burger):

All in all, this was a very nice plate of fish and chips and, though I rather missed the mushy peas that accompany the dish in the pubs I frequent in England, I was quite happy with my meal.
Service was very friendly and, though a little slow when we first arrived due to a large lunch crowd, all proceeded smoothly enough, once we got our menus. Prices seemed reasonable enough (see menu) and given the quality of the food, the atmosphere of the place, the friendly service, we shall definitely make a point of visiting the Brocach again.

Additional pictures:

The exterior is very handsome:

Nice big Guinness sign too:

As mentioned above, the Brocach is on the north edge of the Brady Street neighbourhood, which is a fine place to take a stroll. One can stop in at Glorioso’s, which is a very nice Italian specialty shop on Brady Street itself, which has been mentioned elsewhere on LTH:

What finer thing to do after a substantial lunch than visit a food shop?

One realises just how different the laws of another state can be when one is faced with a road sign such as this:


Slán,
Antaine Ó Gallchobhair

Brocach Irish Pub
1850 N Water St
Milwaukee, WI 53202
414.431.9009
http://www.brocach.com
Open Weekdays 11am-2am; Sat. 10am-2am; Sun. 9am-2am

* Opening lines of the famous Cúirt an Mheán-Oíche, “The Midnight Court” by Brian Merriman, ca. 1780 (my translation):
I once was wont to rove by the river’s edge,
the fresh green grass bedecked with heavy dew,
Beside the woods that stand amidst the hills,
Without gloom or delay, by the light of day...

A new Antonius post?!

I'm still rubbing my eyes in disbelief!

Wonderful seeing a new post by you, Antonius. The pub looks great.

Bridgestone wrote:A new Antonius post?!

I'm still rubbing my eyes in disbelief!

Me too!

Wonderful seeing a new post by you, Antonius. The pub looks great.

Many thanks, Bridgestone... Yes, it looks to me to be a very nice place. I wouldn't mind spending an afternoon there with a book and a few pints but given where it is and where I live, it will likely be only for a meal or short pitstop I'll get there.

A

And a fine welcome back to you Antonius!

The pub looks—as you note—much more correctly conceived and executed than most other latter-day examples of the genre.

Bangers are my favorite sausage on this earth...when they're right! Even tho' dry, were they correct in skin and flavor Antonius? It's so hard to get an out-of-country banger skin right.

Geo

Geo wrote:And a fine welcome back to you Antonius!

Geo! Merci bien, mon vieux! Ça va à Montréal?

The pub looks—as you note—much more correctly conceived and executed than most other latter-day examples of the genre.
Bangers are my favorite sausage on this earth...when they're right! Even tho' dry, were they correct in skin and flavor Antonius? It's so hard to get an out-of-country banger skin right.

Without doubt, proper English/Hiberno-British sausages of any of the traditional varieties are outstanding and stand among the great glories of Western civilisation -- when they're right! About these particular ones, I do believe there was a natural casing (hence the cutless or bayonet that they brought out with the platter) though I won't swear to it. As I said, I was just sampling Amata's dish and didn't have my attention focussed on them as much as I really should have for a review. Flavour-wise it seemed to me to be a nice balance of the traditional spices and herbs, though light on the pepper, me thinks.

For bangers and mash, real Cumberlands are my favourites, hands down, and I definitely prefer the plate to be liberally doused in onion gravy. The Brocach's presentation à l'irlandaise moderne was nice but for an old fart such as me, the sort of a presentation pictured below is what really gets the juices flowing!:

Zome zyder goes well wid dat too...

Speaking of sausages to be envied by all civilised peoples, here is the finest breakfast banger (light on the spices, heavy on the sage, none of the vomitous sweeteners that so thrill the benighted colonials over here) I may ever have had; 't was last year in the west of England. Lo! The Beast of Bath!:

These chunky chaps were so good I had to have one every day I was at this particular B&B, which got them made fresh by a local butcher shop...


Oh, to live on Sausage Mountain,
With the bangers and the mash-filled spoons,
You can't be skinny on Sausage Mountain,
Though your Doctor says
you're dying real soon...

A

I have sent a link for this post to my son, currently a student in Milwaukee (Wauwatosa to be technical), and a big guiness fan from a trip to Ireland a few years ago.

Thanks,
Jonah

Jonah wrote:I have sent a link for this post to my son, currently a student in Milwaukee (Wauwatosa to be technical), and a big guiness fan from a trip to Ireland a few years ago.

Thanks,
Jonah

Jonah -- Greetings... I hope he gets a chance to try it and likes it...

A

Dear Antonius--

I'm off for Montréal for Thanksgiving week, and—as you might imagine!—really looking forward to it. But finding a turkey at prices below that of steak is turning out to be a problem for The Other Dr. Gale. But we hope to surmount all difficulties; after all, Marché Jean-Talon is but minutes away.

Your pictures brought tears to my eyes Antonius, especially the last, revealing, as it so acutely does, A Proper British Breakfast, dry cold toast and all. Nice big fat banger, yessss. I spent some (wonderful) time at Oxford, and the sight of fine bit of streaky back bacon right alongside my banger will never leave my imagination. Thanks for the memories!

Geo