FULL MILE
Bill Morgan is taking over brewing duties at Full Mile.
To borrow a baseball analogy, Full Mile Beer Co. and Kitchen just landed a major league player to run its brewhouse. Veteran brewmaster Bill Morgan, who put the Blind Pig Brewery on the map in Champaign, Illinois, is taking over the brewhouse at the Sun Prairie brewpub.
Morgan has been making beer since the early 1990s as he helped usher in the craft beer movement to the Midwest. He’s been a regular fixture of the Great Taste of the Midwest since 1992, and many may recall his pre-Great Taste tap takeovers with his Pig brews at the Mason Lounge over the last decade.
“I’ve always enjoyed coming to the Great Taste. I’ve admired Madison and the area, its landscape and outdoorsy opportunities,” says Morgan. For him, Madison’s commitment to bike trails is part of its attraction. The rails to trails movement has been a passion of Morgan’s for more than 30 years, and he says that Madison’s forward thinking on the issue was an important consideration when he contemplated relocating here. “I just love that you can ride to Milwaukee, or connect to paths that go to New Glarus and beyond,” he says. Morgan’s wife, Kathleen, graduated from UW-Madison with a degree in English, another family tie to the area.
Morgan, 54, takes over at Full Mile this month after former brewer Skyler Kottwitz left for a position at Waunakee’s Octopi Brewing.
Morgan got his start in 1990 working for Joe’s Brewery in Champaign-Urbana while he was pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biology at the University of Illinois. In 1994 he attended the well-known Siebel Institute of Technology in Chicago. That led him to Diamondback Brewing in Cleveland (which closed in 2000) and following that, a five-year run overseeing four Ginga Kogen breweries in Japan. Missing the Midwest, he returned to the University of Illinois for a master’s degree in engineering.
In 2009, Blind Pig owner Chris Knight recruited him to help start the brewery, which expanded in 2016 to become a 10-barrel production facility.
Morgan was one of the region’s earliest sour beer makers. While working in Cleveland he became interested in the wild fermentation of Belgian beers like lambics. He was able to obtain used wine barrels from a local winery and his fascination with sours blossomed. In 1997 his un-fruited lambic won gold at the Great American Beer Festival, the first sour recognized by the long-running event. In 1998, he took silver for a raspberry version of the same beer. But Morgan is clearly multi-talented in the brewhouse; that year his imperial stout was also recognized with a gold medal.
He brewed his first batch of Full Mile beer on April 7, the brewery’s popular Cromulent! cream ale. “We’ve been without a full-time brewer for a few weeks so it’s a bit of a scramble just to keep regular offerings on tap,” says Morgan. “Right now I’m taking some time to learn what the clientele is interested in.”
Once caught up with demand for the brewpub’s core beers, Morgan looks forward to putting more of his signature on the taps. Among the brews to watch for in late April and early May will be a traditional Bavarian hefeweizen made with a yeast strain tied to the Faust brewery based in Miltenberg, Germany. Morgan is also planning a hazy IPA. Fans are looking forward to his sours.
“I respect tradition, admire old-school ideas and enjoy practicing the brewers’ art,” says Morgan.
