Photo: MobCraft - mobcraftbeer.com
MobCraft Team
The MobCraft Team
In 2012 two enthusiastic homebrewers, Henry Schwartz and Andrew Gierczak, established a brewery based on a crowdsourced model. Realizing there were other proud homebrewers that would like to see their favorite recipes reach a wider audience, they used the power of the internet to let the people determine the next brew.
Henry married his entrepreneurial skills with Andrew’s microbiology talents to found the world’s first crowdsourced brewery in Madison.
Recipes would be submitted in periodic contests. Interested parties would vote by placing preorders for the recipe they liked the best. The one with the most votes would then be brewed, professional labels designed and packaged in 4-packs or 6-packs of 12 oz. cans at competitive prices.
Moving to Milwaukee
They quickly grew out of their Madison space and moved to Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point in 2016. They’re still at 505 S. Fifth Street.
Their flagship beers, including Batshit Crazy Coffee Brown Ale, Low pHunk Sour Ale, MobCraft IPA, MobCraft Amber, Oddball Kolsch-Style Ale, are brewed and available all year.
The Crowdsourced competition is themed, e.g., fruit flavored beer, and is run several times a year (five are planned for 2022) as well as several in support of local, non-profit organization. Submitted ideas for their competitions have included beers using garlic, chilies, chocolate cakes etc. It definitely makes things interesting. The crowdsourced beers are typically brewed on a 60-barrel scale. Barrel aged beers at 30 barrels. If you’re thirsty, a barrel is 31 gallons! Occasionally popular crowdsourced winners are brought back as a seasonal beer.
Seasonal Offerings
Seasonal beers can be found on their MobCraft Calendar and include their October Mobtoberfest beer. Heavier stouts, such as their barrel-aged Padishah Imperial Stout, are usually introduced for late fall and winter.
Higher ABV IPAs are still popular but there seems to also be a trend to more session-type beers too. And in the winter stouts are always popular as it’s one way to fight the Wisconsin cold.
There is an event calendar online and the Red Cross has a monthly blood drive in their taproom.
The majority of their food is made in-house mostly from scratch sourcing local fresh ingredients when possible and in season. They now have a vegetarian pizza with options for vegan and gluten free.
They’ve been busy expanding with other equity/crowd-funded projects. The first was in the Denver neighborhood of Curtis Park. The project is a joint venue of MobCraft Beer and Pueblo, Colorado-based Dee Tacko with an opening later this summer.
Currently MobCraft Beer and the Village of Waterford are developing the old Waterford fire station off on Main Street along the Fox River. The next expansion will be in Woodstock, Illinois and is scheduled for 2023.
For further information, hours, tours, and directions please visit their website: www.mobcraftbeer.com.
