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A Shot and a Beer

Good fresh beer is unquestionably beneficial.

—Milwaukee Sentinel, July 29, 1879

What goes around comes around. Especially when it pertains to Milwaukee’s brewing scene. In the early 1800s, numerous taverns and restaurants produced their own froth, often in the basement cellar to be hauled upstairs to slake the thirst of discerning patrons. As these entrepreneurs expanded operations, they built larger facilities, hired more workers and developed marketing programs, and ein prosit!, Miller, Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, Gettelman and other brands were everywhere drinkers gathered.

It’s no different today, and small breweries and brewpubs proliferate as drinkers hone their tastes and seek something above and beyond the commercial beers.

SPRECHER BREWING COMPANY

When Randy Sprecher launched his brewery in 1985, few drinkers around Milwaukee really knew much about microbrews. Sprecher was the first to start up such a small brewery after Prohibition punched out the lights on Milwaukee’s beer and spirits industry. It’s a different world now, particularly when Sprecher’s operation continues to pull in awards, including eight top medals at the 2010 Los Angeles International Beer Competition.

Sprecher also won two gold, five silver and one bronze medal at the 2010 United States Open Beer Championships, making it the second-highest-placing brewer in a competition of twenty international breweries and award-winning home-brewers. The awards list continues: in 2004, the firm was named the Great American Beer Festival’s Small Brewing Company and Small Brewing Company Brewmaster of the Year, the same year that Milwaukee’s own Miller Brewing Company was named top-ranked Large Brewing Company.

The firm presents one of the heftiest lineups of beers in the region, ranging from Russian Imperial Stout to an India Pale Ale once favored by British troops on the subcontinent. It also produces enough seasonals to overflow a beer wagon.

Sprecher was a home-brewer since 1971, starting while in physical oceanography school at what is now called California State University at Humboldt. He had first discovered how good beers could taste while serving with the army in Germany. In 1980, after taking fermentation science at the University of California–Davis, Sprecher moved to Milwaukee after being recruited by Pabst Brewing Company as a supervisor. Sprecher’s job at Pabst came after an interview while attending university; this, combined with his age, family and military experience, seemed to be important to the brewery management at the time.

He was hired by the late Karl Strauss, longtime vice-president of production. Sprecher’s knowledge of home-brewing did not seem to be a factor in landing his job, but at least his basic background in knowing the brewing process was a help. Sprecher was sent directly to the brew house, spending four years there and then in other parts of the plant, receiving on-the-job training from the malt house to packaging. Sprecher learned the most in the yeast room, since culture collection and control are paramount to any brewing operation. He credited Pabst’s corporate guy in control of all cultures, John Brazin, for sharing his extensive knowledge of the brewmaking process.

While at Pabst, Sprecher still found time and interest in brewing new recipes at home. The workers started calling him “California Dreamer” because he was telling them that some day he was going to build his own brewery. When Sprecher was laid off from Pabst, he pursued his dream of having his own facility.

Finding an existing site was a challenge, so Sprecher designed and built his first place with $40,000 cash at the former Pfister & Vogel tannery complex south of downtown Milwaukee, at 710 West Oregon Street. The original space was about 5,000 square feet, with another 5,000 available in the basement. The office areas covered about 400 square feet per floor for a total of about 11,200 for the building. In 1995, Sprecher Brewing moved to 701 West Glendale Avenue, to a space that was about three times the size of the brewery’s first location.¹

Randy Sprecher, of the award-winning Sprecher Brewery, hoists one of his brews. When he launched his operation in 1985, Sprecher was the first entrepreneur to start up a small brewery in Milwaukee since Prohibition. Photo courtesy of Sprecher Brewery.

Sprecher selected his first commercial brews based on his personal homebrewing list. Black Bavarian was the initial beverage, followed by Special Amber. For Sprecher, a good beer is one with drinkability, with Milwaukee beer so special because of the quality of Lake Michigan water, along with his beverages’ balance, drinkability and extensive diversity in the product line. Sprecher now produces fifteen thousand barrels of beer a year, with the most popular being the long-running Special Amber and Black Bavarian, followed by Oktoberfest and Mai Bock, with Abbey Triple gaining quickly.

As with any manufacturer, Sprecher keeps inventing new brews to keep up with the always-expanding market, as well as incrementally changing some brands for continued improvement. Since 1979, the firm has been active in the Master Brewers Association of the Americas. In 2010–11, Sprecher’s president, Jeff Hamilton, was also president of the Wisconsin Brewers Guild. Hamilton, who had been vice-president and general manager since 2005, became Sprecher president in February 2010. Sprecher himself retained the title of chief executive officer, with his wife, Anne, as manager of communications and marketing.

Black Bavarian, Dunkel Weizen and Winter Brew were among Sprecher Brewery’s first offerings. Photos courtesy of Sprecher Brewery.

Chameleon Brewing Company, a Sprecher offshoot, brews several craft beers, including an American pale ale called Hop on Hop, along with Fire Light, Wiffy and an India Pale Ale/rye hybrid. Its first bottles came out in January 2010, with the company name representing the changing age in brewing.²

As with most brewers, Sprecher likes his beer, favoring his Black Bavarian year round and others based on weather and mood. His new fun is developing the newer markets that find Sprecher beer to their liking, particularly on the West Coast, where the brewer now lives part of the year. In 2010, the firm celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary with an on-site release of Sprecher’s limited edition Kriek (cherry) Lambic, made with Wisconsin organic malt and Door County cherry juice. Festivities included an open house, tours, ping-pong, root beer float drinking and brat eating contests, a deejay, dachshund races and a competition for the Most Authentic German Costume and one for a Randy Sprecher look-alike. Music was by the Rabid Aardvarks, a local band noted for its contemporary pop, rock and modern country sounds.

The company remains one of the most promotions-minded breweries in the area. It regularly hosts appearances by personalities such as 2010 Mid-American Stock Car Series Champion Lyle Nowak signing autographs and swapping stories about life in the fast lane. It also works with the Wisconsin Beef Council on the Grilling with Beer competition at the Wisconsin State Fair. By 2011, the firm had created Sprecher Beer Flavored Kettle Chips, out just in time for the Green Bay Packers to win the Super Bowl.³

Ever alert to trends, noting that many outside events were cutting back on use of glass bottles, Sprecher began selling its popular Special Amber brand in cans in the spring of 2011. The firm thus joined a growing list of other Wisconsin craft breweries also seeking to slash packaging and delivery costs by using the aluminum cans.⁴

LAKEFRONT BREWING COMPANY

Launched in 1987 by brothers Jim and Russ Klisch, Lakefront Brewing Company produces a great range of beers from its home in the former Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company power plant. The sprawling brick facility at 1872 North Commerce Street is on the west bank of the Milwaukee River, just north of downtown Milwaukee. Along with its signature Riverwest Stein that makes up some 25 percent of production, the brewery makes numerous award-winning beverages, including Wheat Monkey, Cream City Pale Ale, Fuel Café Coffee Stout and an India Pale Ale. Its lagers include East Side Dark and Klisch Pilsner, as well as a wide variety of seasonals. Among the latter is a Pumpkin Lager, which is also made into pumpkin vodka in conjunction with Great Lakes Distillery, as well as the “Pure Milwaukee Genius Series,” with a special reserve and American Red Ale, among others.

In 1981, Jim Klisch expressed interest in beer making, so his brother, Russ, humored him by giving him a book on the subject for his August 22 birthday that year. Jim subsequently read the book and brewed his first beer. Taking up a sibling challenge, Russ also began brewing. They both began entering home-brewing competitions and won several awards. With this success, their family and friends encouraged them to turn their hobby into a business.

Jim and Russ Klisch founded Lakefront Brewery in 1987. Their beers have won numerous awards, and the brewery is the first in the state and the first business in the city of Milwaukee to receive the Travel Green Wisconsin certification. Photo by Darlene Carlson.

It helped that there were family roots in the beer industry. The Klisches’ grandfather, George Solberg, worked for Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co., driving a delivery truck. Solberg brought home short fills for their dad, Joe, who had earlier owned the fabled Nightingale Bar. Several other family members were also in the tavern business. In rustic Thorp, Wisconsin, Jim Klische’s godfather owned a tavern called Leon & Lils’, doing a rip-roaring business for fifty years. A great-aunt also owned a tavern.

With that family history and their common interest in beer making, the brothers launched their operations, wisely starting small. From home, they could walk to their first brewery, a sixty- by sixty-foot space in a refurbished bakery building at 818 East Chambers Street. Starting inexpensively, the brothers’ initial equipment consisted of several stainless steel fifty-five-gallon drums and used dairy equipment. They cobbled together bits and pieces of equipment, causing Russ to call it the “Frankenstein brewery.” Finally, on December 2, 1987, they sold their first barrel of beer at the funky, kickback Gordon Park Pub. Now called Nessun Dorma, the upscale watering hole still sells Lakefront’s beer.⁵

As Lakefront Brewery’s popularity exploded, so did production. By 1988, sales jumped to seventy-two barrels; by 1989, it totaled 125 barrels, with sales beginning to double after that. By 1998, the production reached almost three thousand barrels, so Lakefront began scouring Milwaukee for expanded space.

The search led them to their current building, a classic Cream City brick building dating from 1908. As part of its past life, the building was sold to the City of Milwaukee for its Forestry Department. In 1999, Milwaukee restaurateur Russ Davis, who was interested in opening an eatery in the brewery’s large hall, approached the brothers. Subsequently, the team launched the Lakefront Brewery Palm Garden, which is noted for its boisterous Friday fish fry year round, attracting hundreds of diners who are seated together at large tables. Reservations are accepted for groups of eight or more before 5:30 p.m. for people seeking a traditional Milwaukee fish fry with a selection of the brewery’s fine beers on draft. The Brewhaus Polka Kings add an extra Germanic touch to the evenings festivities. The vast party space is also regularly used for private events ranging from political rallies to weddings.

The lights in the Palm Garden were originally designed in 1916 and hung in the Plankinton House Hotel, a massive sandstone palace in downtown Milwaukee built by meatpacker John Plankinton. The hotel never used the room for its originally intended purpose as a beer hall because Prohibition laws were passed. So the space became a restaurant, with the lights hanging there until 1982, when the building was demolished. The City of Milwaukee stored the chandeliers in a warehouse until the Klisch brothers placed a winning bid on them at an auction. It was an expensive undertaking to restore the lights to their original condition.

The brothers added an original German-made copper brew house to their riverfront complex in 2000, helping boost production to 6,292 barrels brewed in 2005 and up to 8,863 barrels in 2006. By 2008, production hit 11,000 barrels.

Lakefront Brewery has several firsts to its credit. It was the first Milwaukee beer company to bottle fruit beer since Prohibition, starting in 1992 with a seasonal Lakefront Cherry Beer. The beer was created with an old home-brewing recipe and the Klisches’ penchant for Door County cherries. The brewery was the first certified organic brewery to produce organic beer under its own label in the United States, beginning in 1996 with its Lakefront Organic ESB (extra special bitter), which uses Wisconsin-grown organic malt and ORGANIC hops shipped in from New Zealand. The brewery also produces an award-winning gluten-free beer called New Grist, brewed from sorghum, hops, water, rice and gluten-free yeast grown on molasses.⁶

In May 2007, the Wisconsin Department of Tourism named Lakefront Brewery the first brewery in the state and the first business in the city of Milwaukee to receive the Travel Green Wisconsin certification. The award recognizes tourism-related businesses working to reduce their environmental impact. Lakefront donates approximately fifteen thousand pounds of spent grain each week to Growing Power, a nonprofit organization based in Milwaukee that provides healthy, nutrient-rich produce to inner-city markets and to restaurants throughout the Midwest.⁷ For an additional business coup, the brewery is Milwaukee’s first microbrewery to achieve Regional Craft Brewery status.⁸

Klisches’ philosophy is that visitors go on brewery tours for three main reasons: “to drink beer, be entertained and see the place.” Capitalizing on these factors, the company offers beer at the start of the tour, then shares jokes along the way and still manages to explain the brewing process and Lakefront’s history.

Lakefront also owns Bernie Brewer’s Chalet, once part of the old Milwaukee County Stadium, home of the Milwaukee Brewers. In 1973, Bernie began celebrating home runs by stepping out of his chalet and sliding into a frothy beer mug, then releasing balloons. When the team rebuilt its stadium in 2001, the newly named Miller Park needed another “house” for its mascot, so the Klisches bought the original one for $18,000 and shows it off during his brewery tours.⁹

For the Klisches, in the last twenty to thirty years, the customer has become better educated about the different craft beer styles. The desire of Americans in general to want more taste, flavor and variety in all their foods, including beer, and the amount of different ingredients that are available to craft brewers to create innovative, tasty styles of beer have caused the craft beer market to grow in double digits.¹⁰ The brewery employs twenty full-time and twenty part-time staff, distributing to thirty-five states. From a meager production from the fifty-five-gallon drums that started in 1987, Lakefront brewed 17,641 barrels in 2010.¹¹

BREW HOUSE PUBS

Hard on the heels of the micro and craft brewers have been the brew house pubs in Milwaukee, again following the grand tradition of saloonkeepers often making their own beers.

Since 1987 Water Street Brewery, has been a fixture on Milwaukee’s trendy lower East Side bar ’hood, then opening in Delafield in 1999 and in Grafton along the I-43 corridor in 2010. Water Street Brewery, located at 1101 North Water Street, offers a honey lager, Bavarian and raspberry weiss, pale ale and the always-fabulous Water Street Amber for a nod to its original site. The Water Street locale is packed with a wide range of brewery memorabilia, from beer trays to tappers.¹²

Taking over the century-old Saddlery Building in the Third Ward in 1997, the Milwaukee Ale House at 233 North Water Street is one of the granddaddies of the city’s microbrewing scene. Owner Jim McCabe’s fresh beers capitalize on Milwaukee’s heritage, with the Solomon Juneau Extra Pale Ale (EPA), Louie’s Demise Amber, Pull Chain Pail Ale, the robust Sheepshead Irish-style Stout and Ulao, a straw-colored Belgian punched up with hints of ginger, orange peel and cracked coriander. It also serves several seasonals. In addition to its beer selection, the Ale House is noted for its music scene and restaurant, with views overlooking the Milwaukee River. Its parent firm, the Milwaukee Brewing Company, provides beer products to the Milwaukee County Department of Parks, Recreation and Culture. As part of a “green exchange,” the brewery takes the county’s vegetable oil and uses it in its biodiesel generator. Subsequently, the oil from the parks’ fish fries goes to power the equipment in the brewery to make the beer the county sells.¹³

The Horny Goat Hideaway/Brewing Company has one of the largest outdoor patios in the Milwaukee area, perfect for views of the Kinnickinnic River. Opened in 2009 by Jim Sorenson, the brewpub offered several popular labels made under contract with the Stevens Point Brewery. The selections included Exposed, a light-colored, farmhouse-style ale brewed with wheat, oats and malted barley, and Hopped Up ’n’ Horny, an American pale ale with a great malt bite. The Goat also produced a Belgian witbier, accented by orange peel. The Horny Blonde was a light-bodied lager, while the Horny Goat Red Vixen presented a reddish-amber hue and a foamy head. Its Stacked Milk Stout was made as a traditional English stout that was creamier than an Irish stout. Among the brewery’s seasonal presentations was a Munich-style Octoberfest amber and the Nutcracker, similar to a Bavarian wheat bock.¹⁴

After launching its first brews in November 2010, Jeff Garwood’s Big Bay Brewing opened its tasting room at 4517 North Oakland Avenue in Shorewood, a North Shore–Milwaukee suburb. The brewery held a grand opening on March 20, 2011, to coincide with the spring equinox. Fans of the brewery’s Boatilla Amber Ale and Wavehopper could then purchase the beer at the critically reviewed North Star Bistro across Oakland and at many Sendik’s grocery store outlets, as well as at area liquor stores such as Otto’s Wine & Spirits. In February 2011, the Three Lions British pub opened in the building just south of Big Bay’s facilities and continues to serve the brewery’s beers. Big Bay is brewed under license with the Milwaukee Brewing Company.¹⁵

The Milwaukee Ale House in Milwaukee’s trendy Old Third Ward district opened in 1997 as one of the city’s first brew house pubs. Photo by Darlene Carlson.

Jim McCabe of the Milwaukee Ale House. Photo by Darlene Carlson.

The Milwaukee Ale House is located in Milwaukee’s historic Saddlery Building at 233 North Water Street in the Third Ward. Photo by Darlene Carlson.

Jim Sorenson, owner, Horny Goat Hideaway/Brewing Company Photo by Darlene Carlson.

St. Francis Brewery and Restaurant at 3825 South Kinnickinnic Avenue in St Francis has a mellow golden ale with a smooth crisp taste; a Bohemian-style pilsner; a filtered amber ale dazzled with four different styles of hops; and an English-inspired, medium-bodied nut brown ale. Hearty drinkers love the brewmaster Scott Hettig’s oatmeal stout, which is still surprisingly light despite its chocolately flavor, while his weissbeir is made in the traditional Bavarian mode, with banana and clove flavors for that special punch.¹⁶

One can hardly get any more local than Stonefly Brewing Company, located at 735 West Center Street in Milwaukee’s cozy Riverwest neighborhood. The labels alone are worth a try: Mustache Ride Pale Ale, Six-Finger IAP, Four Wolves English Ale, Brass Knuckle Blonde, Brewtown Brown, Pierce Street Port, an oatmeal stout and Simon Bagley Stout. “Make beer, not war,” is the company’s common sense suggestion. The firm, originally Paul Onopa’s Onopa Brewery, was purchased by Julia LaLoggia and Rose Billingsley in 2004, when Onopa retired.¹⁷