Robin Shepard
MobCraft Milwaukee is already pulling in fans.
MobCraft opened its new brewery and taproom in Milwaukee rather quietly over the Fourth of July weekend. The social-media-savvy brewery posted a few Instagrams of the pedicab that it was offering to bring Summerfest attendees to the new space at 505 S. Fifth St.
The industrial-looking space features the popular “garage door” windows that can be rolled up to create an instant patio feeling. A long bar is made from wood reclaimed after renovations at Milwaukee’s Turner Hall. Thirteen MobCraft beers are on tap, with a half-dozen guest taps. (No food is served, but the brewery is next door to the legendary Conejito’s Place, where the Mexican food is plentiful, cheap and comes on paper plates.) Opening weekend beers included Helles Ginger Bock, Rhubarb IPA, Mystique (a double IPA aged in bourbon barrels), Sour Support and Crimson Commander (an IIPA). MobCraft hopes to have its 30-barrel brew house up and making beer within the next week. There’s also a separate aging room for production of sour beers.
The taproom is open 3-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, noon-midnight Friday and Saturday and noon-10 p.m. Sunday. Brewery co-owner Henry Schwartz calls it a soft opening phase leading up to an official grand opening in August (a date that’s yet to be set). MobCraft announced a little more than a year ago it would be leaving Madison, where it launched in 2013, and building a new 14,000-square-foot brewery in the trendy Walker’s Point neighborhood.
MobCraft had been making its beers at House of Brews on Madison’s east side. While the base of its operation has now shifted, Schwartz says the move doesn’t mean his brewery will be forgetting Madison: “We’re bringing in a Madison sales representative to make sure we get even more beer on tap there.”
MobCraft will also continue to support the Forward Festival this summer and a fundraiser for the Madison Public Library in the fall.
The great outdoors
Two Madison-area brewpubs are heading outside. Next Door Brewing, 2439 Atwood Ave., recently installed a beer garden. Brewery owner Aric Dieter picked up a hammer, and brewmaster Bryan Kreiter drove the bobcat while constructing a cedar arbor that covers a seating area for about 15 patrons. “We get lots of calls asking if we have outdoor seating, so we’re confident it will be a big draw,” says Kreiter. Next Door also recently hired Bill Bugiyne as head chef and announced an expanded food menu that began this week.
There’s a patio in the works for Rockhound Brewery at the corner of Park and Drake Streets, too. Brewery owner Nate Warnke has applied for permits that will allow sidewalk seating along Drake Street for roughly a couple dozen patrons. Look for that to happen in August.
It takes several
Capital Brewery’s current brewmaster Ashley Kinart teamed up with former brewmaster Fred Scheer in May to make an imperial pilsner as part of the Middleton brewery’s 30th anniversary. It will be released in the brewery’s beer garden on July 14.
In another collaboration, the brewers from Wisconsin Brewing Company dropped by the Hop Haus in June to make a double IPA that’s expected to be served soon at both breweries and at the Hometown Brewdown Beer Festival in Verona July 16. It’s part of a fundraiser for the local ice rink. The beer is called Menace II Sobriety, and is a “SMaSH” (Single Malt and Single Hop) beer made with German pilsner malt and Mosaic hops. It comes in at an estimated 90 IBUs with a warm alcohol background at 8.8%.
And yet another joint venture involved Page Buchanan of House of Brews and Scott Manning of Vintage Brewing. The two made an IPL (India Pale Lager) called “My Own Private IPL.” It’s made with Idaho-grown malt and an experimental hop called Idaho 7. The beer is expected to be released on Aug. 12 at the “Mob the House” party at House of Brews. Supplies will be limited; however, it’s expected to appear around town on tap and in bomber bottles.
What’s with all the interest in collaboration brews? “Experimentation, new ideas, and we’re not just rehashing stuff we do every day,” says Manning.
Beers to watch for:
Octopi Brewing is releasing a version of its 3rd Sign Jungle IPA infused with grapefruit. After being available only in the brewery’s Waunakee taproom over the past several months, Grapefruit Jungle is now out in six-packs in local stores this week.
Lucette Brewing’s newest beer is an India Pale Ale called Harmonia, which started appearing in Madison stores this week.
House of Brews is set to bottle Citradel this week. It’s a new Double IPA made with a pound of citra hops in every barrel.
