More beer will flow through Milwaukee County parks this summer with the addition of a second Traveling Beer Garden Tour, which will feature beer, authentic German food and other menu items from Sprecher Brewing and Sprecher’s Restaurant and Pub.
The tour is slated to hit 15 parks over 16 weeks, stopping in two parks per week, according to an announcement made by Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele on Tuesday.
The new tour was largely inspired by the success of the Traveling Beer Garden concept introduced by Abele last year. That tour raised close to $250,000. Separate beer gardens held in Estabrook, Humboldt, and Hoyt Parks generated another $180,000 in 2014.
The county was pleasantly surprised by the success of the gardens, said county spokesperson Brendan Conway, who added that the county had originally hoped to hit the $100,000 mark with the inaugural Traveling Beer Garden Tour. The tour accomplished that mark by its third stop, he said.
Revenue collected by the beer gardens is pumped back into park improvement efforts countywide.
Those improvement efforts will be bolstered this year by a $32,000 donation made by Sprecher Brewing through the Park People of Milwaukee County.
“These beer gardens make our parks safer, more fun and bring in extra money to improve parks across the county,” Abele said in a statement. “As I’ve done since taking office, we’re making parks better and finding ways to do it sustainably.”
Similar to the first tour, the second tour will roll through parks in a renovated fire truck. Conway said the fire truck housing the new tour will be able to hold two to three times as much beer as the original tour’s fire truck and will better accommodate the demand of last year’s tour.
The 2014 traveling tour, which piqued the interest of other cities and counties across the country, sold more than 35,000 beers in addition to nearly 6,000 sodas and 2,300 root beer floats, according to the county.
The 2015 tour schedule features:
*Whitnall/Root River Area #1 Shelter and Dretzka Chalet – May 20-31
*Froemming Park and Gordon Park – June 3-14
*Grant Park and Doctors Park – June 16-28
*Juneau Park and Sheridan Park – July 1-12
*Greenfield Park and Mitchell Park Domes Plaza – July 15-26
*Holler Park and Brown Deer Boathouse – July 29-Aug. 9
*Falk Park and Red Arrow Park – Aug. 12-23
*Whitnall/Root River Area #1 Shelter and Greene Park – Aug. 26 – Sept. 7
