The Coopers Tavern is located on the Capitol Square in downtown Madison. It was not there when I was in college, but if it was I definitely would have visited often.

 There were two items that drew me into trying Coopers. Both equally intriguing and given my love affair with pork, a must for me to try. The first is what is pictured at the beginning of this post. What is that you ask? Well, it is a Wisconsin version of Scotch Egg. A Scotch what? Yes, a scotch egg. It is a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage and deep fried.

The Coopers Tavern version replaces sausage with a brat patty! ( In case you do not know, Wisconsin is pretty big on bratwurst.) This is served with a mustard sauce and pickled vegetables. I do not really enjoy hard boiled eggs, so I was a little bit hesitant in trying this. I figured wrapping anything in a brat patty and deep frying has to improve the flavor, right? Well I was correct. I definitely enjoyed this version of a hard boiled egg. The fried brat casing was crispy and salty. A perfect compliment to the soft and mildly flavored hardboiled egg. I had never seen or heard of a scotch/sconnie egg, but It has intrigued me to what else I can wrap in a brat patty and fry.

So what do you wash a sconnie egg down with? Well The Coopers Tavern is a bar with a large selection of beer, so I think it is an easy call. But which beer do you choose?

Well a beer that tastes like Bacon!

No, there is not bacon used in the making of this beer (now the bacon old fashioned I had in Nashville, there is bacon used). This beer is a smoked beer. It is a Marzen and comes from Bamberg, Germany. If you are interested in learning more about the beers history here is a link to the breweries website.

I think you will have to try it to believe it, but when you open this beer you smell bacon! I could not believe it, so I sat there for a few minutes smelling my beer. Yes this did look really strange and I was asked,” Why are you smelling your beer?” I gave them a whiff and they responded, “wow that smells like bacon!”. When you taste the beer it is if you bottled a campfire with an after taste of bacon. Really the only way to understand this experience is to try this for yourself!

So if you are in Madison, stop in at Coopers and give the beer that smells like bacon and a Sconnie egg a try!