Robin Shepard
Nate Warnke at the taps.
Nate Warnke of Madison’s Rockhound Brewing Company announced this morning that he will be closing “his little dream.”
Warnke, a former business analyst, says in a composed but emotional Facebook message that if he were one of his own former clients, he would have to advise that it was time for this project to end. “I can see no logical path forward.”
Rockhound joins other Madison businesses that have decided it was impossible to continue in the face of COVID-19, among them The Tin Fox, Hungry Badger, Common Ground, Vientiane Palace, Captain Bill’s, Manna Cafe and Bakery, Doolittle’s Woodfire Grill, Graft, and the Good Food Low-Carb Cafe.
“[The] COVID downturn is the main reason. The numbers just don’t make sense and it would be too difficult to reconcile long-term,” says Warnke in an email to Isthmus.
Planning for Rockhound started in 2015 and the brewpub opened in spring 2016 at 444 S. Park St. The 4,000-square-foot brewpub has always offered a robust beer list, commonly serving a dozen or more housemade beers from its five-barrel brewing system, along with food ranging from the comfort of mac and cheese, pot pies to burgers and a Friday fish fry. Over the past seven months, in an attempt to cope with COVID, Rockhound offered contact-free takeout and patio seating.
Warnke thanks staff and patrons in his Facebook message and notes that the Rockhound kitchen will cease service Nov. 14; between now and then it will feature menu favorites. After that date, there will still be beer available for sale, to be picked up at Rockhound “for as long as we can or until the beer runs out,” says Warnke.
Warnke has himself brewed one last beer at Rockhound to be released today at 4 p.m. It’s a double IPA with a big, 9.4% ABV, made with six varieties of hops and aged on American oak.
It’s named, fittingly, “Last Call.”
