His brewery is in Chicago, his heart in Milwaukee
Hey, Chicago. Where’s our thankyou note?
Without Milwaukee, there would be no Mikerphone Brewing, a beacon of creativity in a suburban Chicago industrial park. The brewery pumps out beers with musical names like Smells Like Bean Spirit, a breakfast stout with maple syrup and coffee, and Tropical Hideaway, a tiki-inspired porter with toasted coconut and aged on rum barrel wood chips.
We’ll accept your gratitude in sixpacks and 750-milliliter bottles. Oh wait, they’re here.
Milwaukee-born, Mukwonagoraised Mike Pallen, who founded Mikerphone, is bringing more beer to his native state — accelerating his distribution plan in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Every day has been an adjustment,” Pallen said.
At first, Pallen thought he would keg all his beers and save them until the order lifted. Instead, he began canning everything.
Customers can order online, then pick up cans, crowlers and howlers (32-ounce growlers) without contact. Canning and the addition of two new tanks meant he could sell more at Milwaukee retail locations. Which also meant more time visiting the places he loved and scouting for another brewery location for down the road.
An education in brewing
Pallen graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in communications arts and advertising. Beer was always in his bloodline — and, occasionally, his car.
The son of a former Miller Brewing pipe-fitter sometimes filled his Dodge Neon with Miller Lite for trips back to Madison. It was his first experience with the power of providing beer for an audience.
“I sent him to Madison to learn how to make beer, I guess,” said Judy Capen, Pallen’s mother, a Mukwonago teacher.
She’s not worried, though. “Michael’s the kind of kid who was passionate about whatever he took on.”
Inspired by a class at UW, Pallen, 38, tried home brewing in college. After graduation, he took a job with the House of Blues in Chicago hoping it would be a steppingstone to a career with Capitol Records in Los Angeles. It wasn’t.
Brewing took its place. When Pallen had a chance to go to the January 2015 Packers-Cowboys playoff game, he declined the tickets and bought his first two seven-barrel tanks instead.
The Packers won. So did Pallen. In 2015, Mikerphone Brewing won the RateBeer Best Award for Best New Brewer in Illinois.
The Elk Grove Village taproom wasn’t even open yet.
Even in Chicago, a Wisconsin presence
Pallen worked for a few Chicago area breweries and 18th Street Brewery in Indiana before setting up Mikerphone, which celebrated its fifth anniversary on March 15.
At the breweries, he could test his brewing proficiency while learning on a professional scale. They were also where he learned by example that breweries share. Goose Island let him use equipment to determine an accurate ABV (alcohol by volume) for his beer. Dick Leinenkugel helped him get hops for an 18th Street brew at one point.
He settled into the best of both beer and music. Mikerphone, which he opened with his wife, Lisa, lets him showcase his music side. In addition to the vinyl that fills one wall, there are posters and guitars hanging in the taproom.
“My man cave moved out of the basement so the kids could have it,” Pallen said.
All along, Wisconsin has remained a constant for Pallen.
A trip across the border was the inspiration for Mikerphone’s When You Say Wisconsin, a kringle-inspired Berliner Weisse with cherries, cranberries, Bavarian cream and cheesecake flavoring.
Lots of beer collaborations
He also collaborates with breweries here.
A lot of breweries here.
“Mike kind of broke the mold when he started a brewery,” said Eagle Park co-founder Jake Schinker. “Just throw everything to the curb and go crazy.”
A Mikerphone/Eagle Park collaboration called the Raspberry Vanilla Cheesecake Incident is a Berlineweiss that uses raspberries, vanilla, graham cracker and cheesecake flavoring.
Mikerphone and 1840 Brewing came up with We Go Together Like … , a peanut butter and blackberry jelly sour ale.
The Explorium Brewpub in the Southridge Mall created Mallrats IPA with Pallen, bringing back memories for the Illinois transplant who claims Southridge Mall rat status as a teen.
Chicken, waffles and … ghost peppers?
At the center of Mikerphone’s success is the beer quality. Ask Dana Hansen of Milwaukee.
“I can really only speak for myself on this, but it is mostly that beer combos/ flavors they come up with and the way they execute them,” said Hansen, who works at Company Brewing.
“If they say they are releasing a beer called Vanillanoize, I KNOW it is going to be super vanilla, but also balanced and tasty,” she said.
Balance made Chicken-N-Waffles-NBeer, made with fried chicken, waffles, maple syrup and ghost peppers, palatable. Mikerphone brewed that with Hailstorm Brewing from Tinley Park, a couple years back.
You might not want to swig a pint thanks to the ghost peppers, but the beer remarkably tasted like chicken and waffles with a side of roasty stout.
“I think the creativity is always going to be there,” said Pallen, who can’t stop thinking of improbable combinations.
Consider the shampoo in the shower. He has. Why wouldn’t mint and lavender work in a brew?
His children, Lilliana Pearl, 7 and Miles Porter, 4, also inspire beer flavors like Snap, Crackle, Pop, a Rice Krispie beer, and Jolly Holiday, a dry-hopped IPA with Jolly Ranchers.
Pandemic fallout
The pandemic has come with some fallout for Mikerphone. Pallen had to lay off six full-time and four part-time employees. He’s making the beers his customers clamor for, which is a lot of India Pale Ales and beers with fruit.
He’s pulling together a plan that will allow for social distancing for when the quarantine is lifted. The long public tables that were once used by up to 10 people at a time are in the shop to be cut into separate seating for fewer people.
He’ll likely cut back the days the brewery is open from seven days a week to four or five to allow for more cleaning and planning.
“We’ve got to do it right and do it smart,” he said. “We want to see people, too.”
And he’ll keep looking for a home for his Wisconsin brewery — maybe on a lake somewhere. Ideally, as he told hopculture.com, a place where people call in their beer order then motor up to the dock where it’s delivered.
“My dream is to get a place in Wisconsin.”