Cheers to 4 breweries, and their anniversaries
Parties will include special releases
Cheers to your anniversary. And yours. Also yours. And, of course, yours.
Four breweries invite the public to help them party like it’s 2016, 2015 and 1997.
Third Space Brewing, 1505 W. St. Paul Ave.
Almost one year to the day that he moved back to Wisconsin, Kevin Wright brewed his first beer at Third Space. Fast-forward 365 days, and Wright has a specialty beer alongside his flagships to help celebrate the occasion.
Wright describes the new brew, “You’ve Said It All,” as a Wisconsin IPA. Not too hoppy. Not hazy.
You’ve Said It All is released at noon on Sept. 16. Two bands are set to play — Life in a Tree and Category X — starting at 2:30 p.m. Lumpia City and Taqueria la Guacamaya and a possible third truck. The brewery will donate a portion of the profits to the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.
Wright and co-founder Andy Gehl say the year has surprised them, from being able to sell Third Space beers at Miller Park, where they’re among the best sellers, to being named best new brewer in Wisconsin for 2016 by RateBeer.com. The brewery added a canning line and two fermentation tanks. And it hosted the first Wisconsin IPA contest, drawing more than 800 IPA lovers to the brewery, where they voted on a favorite.
Next up: Sending beer off to be judged at the Great American Beer Festival and heading west for hop selection.
Raised Grain Brewing, 2244 W. Blue Mound Road, Waukesha
Raised Grain opened in 2015 with four partners: Nick Reistad, Kevin Brandenburg and head brewers Scott Kelley, a physician specializing in dermatopathology, and James Gosset, a vascular surgeon.
Two years requires two parties. The brewery will host a pre-party from 3 p.m. to midnight Sept. 22 and include the release of Double Dry Hop Naked Threesome IPA.
For the actual anniversary party, the brewery is taking it outside. Events begin at noon and run until midnight on Sept. 23. All four principals in the brewery will be on hand looking for feedback and suggestions for new beers to make, Reistad said.
Special releases begin at noon with a bourbon barrel-aged Black Walnut Stout. At 3 p.m. the brewery will tap a keg of Les Trois Docteurs Belgian Quad and a keg of No. 100 Stout at 6 p.m.
Live music begins at 12:30. Three bands are scheduled through 7:30 p.m. Matty’s Catering will provide food for sale.
This year, the brewery was one of the local brews available at Miller Park and began offering pop-up beer gardens in Waukesha parks, a program that is likely to continue, Reistad said. The brewery also reached capacity on what it could make.
If the first year lesson was learning the beer industry — and it was — then the past year has been about “how far you can stretch your equipment and jump to the next step,” Reistad said.
Next up: Raised Grain is on track to open a production brewery in early 2018 at at 1725 Dolphin Drive in Waukesha. MobCraft Brewing, 505 S. 5th St. MobCraft, the crowd-sourced brewery, celebrates its first anniversary in Milwaukee with two days of party favors. Sept. 29 includes a cellar bottle release, and on Sept. 30 the brewery hosts Iron Gate BBQ and brings out its first anniversary release, a triple barrel-aged Imperial Stout — Rye barrel aged stout blended with bourbon barrel-aged stout. One version is aged in a Great Lakes whiskey barrel and the other was aged in a Twisted Path rum barrel. See the event page on Facebook. Events begin at noon.
“Over the past year, it’s been amazing to get so many visitors from our city, state and the region,” said Henry Schwartz, MobCraft’s chief executive officer. “I love having a solid sour and wild (beer) program with lots of really fun beer. And most importantly, the way we make beer, specifically processes and quality control measures that have been improved so much over just a year ago.”
Next up: “Expanding the e-commerce side of the business so we can get more beer to those from afar,” Schwartz said. “We’ve got one really fun collaboration project lined up for next summer too that should be pretty epic.”
Milwaukee Brewing Co., 613 S. 2nd St. (Milwaukee Ale House, 233 N. Water St.; new facility, 1131 N. 8th St.)
When you’re celebrating two decades of beer, you need more than a day or two to fit it all in. Milwaukee Brewing, which began at the Milwaukee Ale House, starts the party on Sept. 24 by pouring original recipe brews Downtown Lites Honey Ale, Flaming Damsel Lager, Solomon Juneau Golden Ale along with
Louie’s Demise Amber, Pull Chain Pale Ale and Sheepshead Oatmeal Stout.
Events, with the exception of a bus tour, will be held at the Milwaukee Ale House.
The birthday bash begins Oct. 11 and 12 with a happy hour featuring the brews from 1997. A Milwaukee Brewing bus tour of all three of the Milwaukee Ale House, the 2nd St. brewery and the new facility at The Brewery on the Pabst campus on 8th St., is already sold out.
Events on Oct. 13 continue the happy hour and include Jimmy Cha Cha Live Painting from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Ale House and Cousin Ed live from 7 to 9 p.m.
On Oct. 14, look for beer yoga class at 9 a.m. followed by brunch, beermosas and Bloody Marys from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. From noon until 4 p.m. MKE Home will print limited-release T-shirts, and there will be virtual reality tours of the new production brewery.
Oct. 15, the plan is to drain the kegs starting at 4 p.m. The Packers will be on the big screen at the same time. See details at mkebrewing.com/20.
Next up: Milwaukee Brewing continues efforts on a destination brewery at the Pabst site with a tasting room, brewery tours and a rooftop bar that takes advantage of its location on a hill overlooking downtown.