Robin Shepard
Tanner Brethorst will be brewing his first batch of Capital's flagship amber as head brewmaster.
Capital Brewery in Middleton has a familiar face taking over its brewhouse. Tanner Brethorst, former owner of Port Huron Brewing Company in Wisconsin Dells, has been hired as brewmaster. He replaces Ashley Kinart-Short who left the Middleton brewery in March for a brewmaster position in Columbia, South Carolina. Kinart-Short had been with the brewery for eight years, six of those as brewmaster.
Brethorst is well known to local beer enthusiasts for his big smile and positive personality. This will be his second stint at Capital. Brethorst served as a staff brewer alongside then-brewmaster Kirby Nelson from 2008-2010, when he left to start Port Huron. He has also brewed for Tom Porter of Lake Louie Brewing in Arena and Rob Larson of Tyranena Brewing in Lake Mills.
Other Capital brewmasters have included Brian Destree and Fred Scheer. “Those are all pretty big boots to fill,” says Brethorst. “It’s still sinking in, when I think about the gravity of what’s in front of me with the history here.”
Brethorst founded Port Huron Brewing in 2011. For nearly 10 years he had created a solid following for his beers in the bars and restaurants of the Wisconsin Dells. He had also established a welcoming taproom and brewery with a beer garden for live music. However, costly equipment failures in late 2019, coupled with the downturn that came with COVID-19 restrictions for bars and restaurants, were too much to overcome and Port Huron closed in January 2021.
Brethorst, true to his positive outlook, says he took full advantage of his time away from brewing in 2020 and 2021 to be a stay-at-home dad to his two children, one in kindergarten and the other a toddler. “It was neat, a little ray of sunshine in all that gloom and doom,” he says. “I was lucky.”
At Capital, Brethorst will oversee the main 35-barrel brewing system while also getting to experiment with pilot batches using a smaller seven-barrel system that was installed in 2018. “This is pretty much everything that I was hoping I could do when I was running my own place, and never got to do it,” says Brethorst. “I’ve always wished I could be at a place where I could worry about the beer and there was somebody else to deal with the books, hiring and running the tasting room. So guess what? I got it.”
Since its founding in 1986, Capital has had a reputation for making lagers. Among its most popular brands are Wisconsin Amber and Supper Club, along with other such favorites as Special Pilsner, Oktoberfest and Blonde Doppelbock. Those staples are not expected to change.
In recent years Capital has tried meeting the interest in hop-focused and infused brews with limited releases made on its smaller seven-barrel system. Brewery general manager Kevin Bagstad says Brethorst will have the flexibility to be creative: “We are super excited. We’ll plan to give him some freedom to do new stuff.”
Brethorst just started this week so it’s a little early for him to be designing specialty brews. However, he says he is looking forward to sitting down with brewery staff and doing some blind taste-testing to help shape where the brewery heads next. In the meantime, today Brethorst brews his first batch of Wisconsin Amber as Capital’s brewmaster.
