Brewer passes on paycheck, not on beer
Glass makes end-runs around licensing laws
EAU CLAIRE - Will Glass must really want you to have a beer.
Glass is in the middle of renovations on a second version of The Brewing Projekt in Eau Claire — a three-story version of the original with a bigger brewhouse, more expansive taproom with patios and bars on two levels.
Even if it’s successful, and it looks like it will be, he won’t make a salary.
The Brewing Projekt recently opened at 1807 N. Oxford Ave., just down the street from the original Brewing Projekt (now closed). The current taproom is temporary; the permanent one is expected to be ready by Christmas, Glass said.
To think he nearly divorced his wife so he could open the original in 2015.
At one point, it seemed to be the only answer. The Wisconsin Department of Revenue wouldn’t allow Glass to open the brewery because his wife, Rebecca, already held a Class B license for The Fire House bar.
To solve the issue, Glass turned the brewery over to his father, lock, stock
and oak barrels (wild fermentation beers are coming).
“It’s so convoluted,” Glass said about the law. The brewery works under a management agreement secured with the Department of Revenue. Glass holds the title of president but can’t make money working there and hasn’t been paid a salary in four years.
“We hit capacity six months after we opened,” Glass said, so the new brewery was a necessity. But it also didn’t come without a battle.
Glass wanted to stay nearby even though his nearest neighbor was a methadone clinic. He lit on an empty complex of buildings — a former furniture store/ meat canning plant on the other side of the street and overlooking the Chippewa River.
“I wanted it because of the river view, the bike path, the trees. People around here are always saying they want riverfront seating,” Glass said. “We could make it work right away.”
The owner told him it wasn’t for sale. Then it was. The City Redevelopment Authority bought it. News reports tell of a conflict in which the city asked for assurances from Glass, and the brewer criticized the city for changing the terms of the agreement.
Glass took his quest public; it didn’t hurt to have novelist Nickolas Butler and Brewing Projekt loyalists on his side. He ended up paying $250,000 for the 50,000-square-foot building and adjacent property. The terms of the contract call for Glass to add at least $3 million in new value to the site, according to news reports.
“All of that arguing and we’re on track to blow that number out of the water,” he said.
Divorce as business solution?
For all the drama in his professional life, Glass, 33, is a pretty straightforward, working-class guy. The former Marine plays Kubb, a lawn game with a cult-like following in Eau Claire.
He and his wife, Rebecca, bought the Fire House bar in downtown Eau Claire in 2010 with plans to turn it into a nanobrewery. Instead, it became a beer bar with 38 beers on tap, mostly craft brews.
The Department of Revenue said Glass couldn’t open a brewery because The Fire House held a Class B liquor license and there was concern that the bar would steer customers to Brewing Projekt beers, so he transferred interest in the profitable tavern to his wife. When that wasn’t enough, the couple considered a divorce to divide the assets. The state said that wouldn’t work either. The children would be considered a fiduciary interest between the couple and a reason The Fire House might favor Glass’ products.
The couple have four children — a 7year-old girl and three sons ranging in age from 5 to 2. Two of the kids were born after the original brewery opened.
The guy who doesn’t actually own his own brewery is also the president of the Wisconsin Brewers Guild.
“He’s got a really unique story,” said Mark Garthwaite, executive director of the Wisconsin Brewers Guild. “The guy can’t legally own his own brewery, so that turns a lot of heads. He crystallizes the issues that cause a lot of problems.”
Not that he wants to be the face of state regulations that often seem impenetrable. “Part of it is that Will is a pretty humble guy,” Garthwaite said.
“He’s my president for the guild, and for me to have any chance of being effective you have to have a president you can work with,” Garthwaite said. “He’s a good, honest, hard-working guy. He has faith that people will come around and do the right thing.”
Hyper-local but growing
Glass talks as he walks through the brewhouse, which is on a 20-barrel system, the same as the old brewery. It’s shiny but not new.
“I bought this from a brewery essentially going under in Louisiana,” he said.
Eau Claire’s hyper-local vibe has been good to the Brewing Projekt, regularly filling the tiny taproom and picnic tables outside the original brewery. In May, Food and Wine magazine included The Brewing Projekt on a list of “19 craft breweries worth going out of your way for.” There it was alongside beer-geek favorites Russian River Brewing in California, Dogfish Head in Delaware, 3 Floyds in Indiana and Scratch Brewing in Illinois.
“Our thing is really just hitting Wisconsin, but the Twin Cities are so close to us. That’s our home market,” said Glass. The brewery distributes its beer on its own and began to sell in Milwaukee during the summer.
Part of the allure is that Brewing Projekt makes “super aromatic” India pale ales, Glass said. He’s less worried about some things that other breweries concentrate on, and says Brewing Projekt was built “in the image that styles be damned, tradition be damned.”
Consider Pineapple Mango IPA, described as “a goofy IPA brewed with a boatload of hops, pineapple juice, mango puree, hibiscus, lemon zest, orange zest and lemongrass.”
“It’s fun to be self-deprecating in this,” Glass said.
Getting political
Glass leads a visitor to the brewery offices in back, protected by a gentle and galumphing at-least-part Leonberger dog that Glass found on the road and that was adopted by the brewery’s operations manager, Jess Meyers. Glass passes his dad working in the hallway. Bill Glass, 70, is a retired Chippewa County sheriff’s deputy/investigator who didn’t drink beer when he became the brewery’s owner. He does now.
They are close, as their relationship suggests. But follow one or the other on social media and you’ll find that, politically, father and son couldn’t be more different. The elder Glass holds more conservative views than his tie-dye wearing son.
Will Glass has always been a political animal, certainly about beer-related issues. In 2011, when new legislation threatened to make it harder for small breweries to distribute, Glass held a Dump the Independents event in which patrons who ordered a pint of anything MillerCoors could pour it out and have it replaced with a craft beer.
Glass has found other ways to challenge legislation. He’s also the president of the Wisconsin Craft Beverage Coalition, whose members include the Wisconsin Brewers Guild, the Wisconsin Winery Association and the Wisconsin Distillers Guild. The coalition formed last year to counter a proposal that would create an alcohol czar position to toughen enforcement of state liquor laws.
His impact will be felt throughout the state, where beer is a growing industry. A 2017 study, commissioned by the National Beer Wholesalers Association and the Beer Institute, showed that the 69,163 jobs related to the state’s beer industry accounted for more than $2.7 billion in wages and benefits in 2016. Dozens of new breweries have opened since then.