Lakefront Brewery’s gift shop sells Wisconsin
Unexpected chicken hats, beer salsa jewelry on tap
The chicken hats are the stars of the Lakefront Brewery gift shop — a pointy yellow helmet with pieces of felt loosely sewn together and a wisp of feathers on top.
Steve Brunton, who plays with the polka band at the brewery, is in charge of gluing on the googly eyes. His mother makes the hats.
The $14 headgear is meant to be worn when the “Chicken Dance” is played or when the mood strikes.
Chicken hats are an unexpected souvenir option for a brewery. They’re not the only one at the gift shop at Lakefront, 1872 N. Commerce St.
Inventory at the Lakefront gift shop skims the surface of traditional. There are, of course, brewery Tshirts on display and pint glasses for sale. It is a brewery.
But scan the small room to find unexpected items with a brewery theme such as jewelry, beer-label greeting cards and caramels in case beer makes one hungry.
That’s the way it should be for smart breweries, said Scott Schmidt, who founded Delafield-based
promotethebrew.com with his brother Steve. Promote The Brew offers design and promotional resources to breweries around the country.
Chris Ranson is Lakefront’s tour and environmental programmer, but she’s also in charge of the gift shop where most of the items — from organic sugar scrub made in Door County to beer salsa made in New Berlin — scream “Wisconsin.”
As many as 150,000 people come through the brewery each year. Ranson is ready for them to take a piece of Lakefront’s home state with them.
“Seeing that the bathrooms are at the end of the tour, just about all of those people go through the gift shop. I would say that at least 100,000 actually stop and look at things,” she said.
Ranson takes advantage of that to stock a variety of inventory made in state, like hops that become art.
Inspired by the 10-by-16-foot wall of hops in her backyard, Terry Regano, owner of Regano’s Roman Coin, crafts ceramic bowls and plates from them.
“They’re beautiful leaves,” Regano said. It started when Regano made a plate for Lakefront president Russ Klisch’s birthday. Ranson saw the plate and asked for more. The plates sell for $20.
Elvira Hernadez makes earrings from smashed Lakefront bottle caps ($8) in Milwaukee. Ranson sends brewery labels to Cari Raynae in Eau Claire, where Raynae turns them into greeting cards sold for $6.
The list goes on. Canvas wall art made in Waunakee ($30). Cranberry Lip Lube ($2.50) made in Eau Claire. Soaps from Oak Creek. Roasted Barley snack food from Hartford.
Hand salts are made in Sturgeon Bay, soap comes from Oak Creek, the Bung Box ($7) and Bung Queen magnets ($5) are made in Waukesha. If you’ve taken the tour, you know that the Bung, a stopper that was used in kegs, is an essential and memorable element.
Representing Milwaukee and Wisconsin is kind of a theme for the brewery, which is housed in a former Electric Railway and Light Company coal-fired power plant. Even the T-shirts, the staple of many brewery gift shops, are from the Milwaukee area: City Screen Print and Brew City Brands.
Lakefront is an example of how breweries can do more to promote a brand, according to the Schmidts.
Promote the Brew developed a podcast and an online class to help breweries “reduce inventory and increase profit.” The one-hour-a-week class includes setting up a spread sheet with a product plan adjusted to the seasons.
“Breweries have merchandise, but few know what they’re doing,” Scott Schmidt said. “We try to uncover the stories behind the marketing items.”
Steve Schmidt, who lives in Florida, also has a podcast called Market The Brew. He wanted to share interesting things that breweries are doing to make their brands stand out.
Promote the Brew has also worked with The Explorium Brewpub, The Fermentorium, Third Space, East Troy Brewery, Eagle Park and MobCraft.
MobCraft Beer participated in one of the Promote the Brew classes then kept track of the brewery’s demographics and seasonal needs. T-shirts, which were once folded and stacked, now hang up in a corner. There are styles suited to men and to women.
Ranson took an online class from Promote the Brew, but her personality drives a lot of what the Lakefront gift shop offers. She can tell you what each maker does or used to do. The Beer Salsa is created by Mark Meddaugh, a retired schoolteacher who uses Riverwest Stein in the recipe. The roasted barley snack treats are a cooperative product: She gives Ray Stelzer of Hartford a bag of Munich barley, which is roasted, sweetened and bagged. She adds a Lakefront label.