Tailgating:
$4 beer, music, big screen TVs offered
Milwaukee Brewers fans have a new tailgate option that includes big screen TVs, music, comfortable chairs and $4 beers. It’s called the Brew City Bar and will be in the Yount Lot east of Miller Park.
Milwaukee Brewers fans have a new tailgate option this season, one that includes big screen TVs, music, comfortable chairs and $4 beers.
The club partnered with a Dallas start-up, Block Party Suites, to create the Brew City Bar on the east side of the Miller Park parking lots. The free-admission bar will be open for about 40 games this season, starting with opening day Monday afternoon.
“This is a tailgate world that we live in,” Brewers chief operating officer Rick Schlesinger said at the bar Friday. “I expect this will be very popular.”
Block Party Suites was created by Steve Gilman and partner Adam Ward and is funded with venture capital money, Gilman said in an interview.
The Dallas-based business is built around the creative use of repurposed shipping containers, Gilman said. When not in use, the bar, patio furniture, tailgate games and other equipment are loaded into the containers and secured. The containers will remain at Miller Park all season.
The company owns a dozen such shipping containers and has used them at college football games and at outdoor venues operated by concert promoter Live Nation. Eight containers create a large party club for Southern Methodist University football fans in Dallas, Gilman said.
The Miller Park bar is his company’s first partnership with a Major League Baseball team, Gilman said.
Gilman is a graduate of Yale University, where he played baseball, and was drafted by the Detroit Tigers. He pitched briefly in the Tigers’ minor league system before going to graduate school at Columbia University in New York.
Gilman had a sharp answer when asked what he knew about tailgating in Wisconsin. “It’s a God-given right,” he said.
The Brew City Bar is located in the Yount Lot on the east side of Miller Park, near the Klement’s Sausage House, a permanent pavilion available for pre-game parties.
It’s open before games with DJs and live music. Beers are $4 or $5, and cocktails are $8.
The bar also will be available for private events through the Brewers group sales office.
The beverage offerings will be supplied by Brewers’ concession partner Delaware North, and the proceeds split between the club, concession company and Block Party Suites.
“We’re doing this as a joint venture,” Schlesinger said.
The Brew City Bar also includes outdoor heaters, which will be attractive on a day like Monday, when temperatures are expected to be in the 40s with a 40% chance of rain.
“Our job, as the custodians of this ballpark, is that we attract every fan,” Schlesinger said.