Submitted photo
A lab mix-type dog on a couch with a tennis ball looking very comfortable.
Co-owner John Onopa’s dog Brewski is a regular.
A number of Milwaukee’s craft breweries have increased their presence in Madison recently, including Component Brewing, The Rookery Brewery and Broken Bat Brewing. The latest to send beer our way is Ope! Brewing Co. of West Allis.
“Madison is a good craft beer town, the beer scene is strong,” says co-owner John Onopa. Ope! brought several beers to January’s Beer and Cheese Festival at the Alliant Energy Center. The brewery’s cherry brandy barrel-aged Belgian called Oh My Quad! attracted a lot of attention there.
Ope! is not completely new to Madison. Last fall it collaborated with Young Blood Beer Company on a sour IPA. However, its own cans started appearing on Madison liquor store shelves only about a month ago. Onopa has been trying to introduce Ope! strategically: “We are taking our time to learn where the best craft beer establishments are for our beers.”
Robin Shepard
Ope! cans and a glass of beer on the Ope! bar.
It’s always good to ask first: Can I Pet Your Dog? is an amber lager.
Ope! Brewing Co. opened in May 2022 in a 13,000-square-foot former manufacturing building at 6751 W. National Ave., south of State Fair Park near the West Allis Farmers Market. Its focus is on being a neighborhood-oriented brewery. So far Ope! has been self-distributing to Madison and the brewery’s packaged beers have been limited, even to stores in Milwaukee. That makes seeing it on Madison shelves a treat.
The taproom can hold around 300 people; there’s also a 7,000-square-foot patio with sand volleyball courts. There are plans to expand the outside bar by summer and increase the number of taps. Currently, the brewery serves up to 16 beers, along with a line of flavored hard seltzers called Ope!H2O.
The amber lager “Can I Pet Your Dog?” references the brewery’s pet-friendly taproom. (On a recent Saturday visit there seemed to be one dog for every two drinkers in the packed room.) That amber is very easy drinking, crisp and slightly malt forward. It ranks as one of the brewery’s best sellers and is a solid introduction to the brewery. The beer is made with a touch of malted rye that leaves hints of spicy breadiness in the finish. It is balanced and quite quaffable at 5.2% ABV.
The brewery has a bit of fun with its name, Ope!, an expression used by Midwesterners as an apologetic whoops or excuse me. Other beer names draw on Midwesty lingo, like the hazy IPA called Buckle Up, Dude, the American IPA Fer Sure, and the hazy IPA Didn’t See Ya There. An American pale ale, ’Scuse Me, is among the first four-packs to be available in Madison.
There’s also a wide line of merch featuring the Ope! logo, including a hoodie advertising the brewery’s own “Opetoberfest.”
It’s back!: Of all the March beers, the one I’m most excited about is the return of Ale Asylum’s Tripel Nova, not seen since Ale Asylum shut down in 2022. Karben4 picked up the Ale Asylum brands in March 2023 but there wasn’t room for this one on the brew schedule until now. This full-bodied Belgian tripel has lots of sweet floral yeastiness accented by subtle dry spicy hoppiness and warmth from its 9% ABV. This beer goes way back in Madison craft brewing: former Ale Asylum brewmaster Dean Coffey first made it for Madison drinkers in the 1990s when he was brewing at the now defunct Angelic Brewing, where it was known as Trident Tripel.
