Many local breweries tell their own history during brewery tours, but it wasn’t until recently that Milwaukee’s entire brewing heritage was under one roof. On Oct. 4, the Milwaukee County Historical Society (MCHS), along with partners including Miller, Sprecher and Pabst, opened Brew City MKE (275 W. Wisconsin Ave.), an exhibit and beer bar located inside The Shops of Grand Avenue, in a space that formerly housed an Applebee’s restaurant.
Brew City MKE is a one-year pilot project and expansion of MCHS’s popular 2016 brewing history exhibit, “Brew City MKE: Craft, Culture and Community.” Quorum Architects, a firm specializing in renovations to existing built environments, provided architectural plans pro bono, said MCHS Executive Director Mame McCully. The Shops of Grand Avenue was also a major sponsor and supportive of the project.
“We are delighted to have Brew City MKE and know it will be a valued part of the redevelopment of Wisconsin Avenue and The Shops of Grand Avenue,” said Tony Janowiec, co-owner of The Shops of Grand Avenue, in a statement.
Visitors can get a historic look at the breweries that built Milwaukee, setting the context as to why Milwaukee is the Beer Capital. People not visiting the museum can still hang out at the bar. It’s exclusively Milwaukee, so forget about finding Wisconsin labels like New Glarus or Hinterland. “We don’t even have Coke. We’ve got Sprecher sodas and all Milwaukee beers,” said McCully.
MCHS’s Dana Hansen manages Milwaukee Beer Bar and compiled the beer list. A wall-sized blackboard menu features eight rotating beers on tap, and up to 20 bottled and canned beers. To add a local touch, the breweries are arranged on the board by neighborhoods. Miller High Life, Lakefront’s Riverwest Stein, Black Husky’s IPA and newer brewers such as 1840 Brewing Company were represented on opening day.
Each corner of the bar is dedicated to one of the “big four” Milwaukee beer barons—Miller, Pabst, Schlitz and Blatz—with beautiful installations made from beer bottles. Brewer events and tap takeover series are planned.
A mere $10 will get you into the museum. The fee includes a tap beer at the bar and admission to the Milwaukee County Historical Society for the same day. Ben Barbera, original curator of the 2016 exhibit, again worked his magic arranging 150 artifacts and 400 photos, incorporated into panels or displayed as stand-alone pictures, into the built-out space.
“We arranged the exhibit thematically, rather than doing a timeline or a specific path that visitors need to follow,” Barbera said. The Big Four breweries each have a section, and lesser-known yet significant brewers like Gettelman Brewery—of Milwaukee’s Best fame—are represented. A vast majority of artifacts are from MCHS’s collection, with some items borrowed from other sources. Miller pulled vintage machinery from their storage for the section dedicated to the process of brewing beer.
The exhibit will also add interactive features. People will be able to touch, see and smell beer ingredients such as barley malt and hop pellets. “It will be a chance for grown-us to play like they’re at a children’s museum,” Barbera said.
Unique items include a large ceremonial Schlitz key presented to Mayor Daniel Hoan in 1938. A striking Pabst display features horse medallions on faded blue ribbons; however, some may be surprised to learn that the only blue ribbons Pabst won was for their draft horses shown at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.
“The blue ribbons were actually a marketing scheme Pabst started in 1882,” Barbera said. “They started tying blue ribbons around the bottles of the beer to make people think it was special. Pabst may have won awards for their beer as early as 1876, but they never actually won blue ribbons other than these, for their horses.”
Those and other fascinating facts about Milwaukee’s brewing history are presented in displays devoted to advertising, bottling and transportation, beer baron families, labor, and beer gardens and taverns. The exhibit cuts off at the year 2016, Barbera said, thus leading visitors to the Milwaukee Beer Bar, where the present and future of brewing in Milwaukee can be appreciated and enjoyed.
For more information, visit mkebeer.weebly.com. For upcoming events at Brew City, visit brewcitymilwaukee.com/events.
