The news that Milwaukee-based
Good City Brewing sold its operations to
The Explorium Brewpub came as a surprise to many local beer-lovers who have been keeping track of the countless changes happening within the region’s craft beer industry.
Following the acquisition, Explorium, which has locations in Southridge Mall in Greendale and near downtown Milwaukee, along with its four new locations (acquired from Good City), will become a new entity:
The Explorium Hospitality Group.
“We’re going to continue operating the four locations as Good City Brewing for a little bit while we reimagine some of the spaces and maybe rebrand,” said
Mike Doble, owner of The Explorium Brewpub, in a social media announcement. “You’ll definitely see some changes.”
Explorium has already taken over operations of Good City Brewing’s four locations. Those taprooms are located on Milwaukee’s East Side, in the downtown Deer District surrounding Fiserv Forum, Wauwatosa and Mequon. All Good City employees are now a part of The Explorium Hospitality Group.
BizTimes Milwaukee reporter
Ashley Smart recently spoke with
Dan Katt, co-founder of Good City Brewing, to learn how he decided it was the right time to sell the business and what the future might hold for the Good City brand. Below are portions of the conversation.
Is Explorium buying Good City’s IP, or just the physical assets?
Katt: "They're buying nearly all of our assets and assuming the operations. At this point, they are not buying the brand or the IP, but they have a period of time where they are essentially licensing that from us. It will be their call in the future if they want to continue with the Good City name or if they want to convert everything over to Explorium -- or if they want to convert it to something else completely. If the license period ends, and they cease using all that stuff, we still own it. Whether we want to bring it back at some point or somebody else wants to, you know, that's certainly not off the table.”
What are the biggest challenges Good City has navigated in recent years?
Katt: “As we came out of COVID, we really felt like things were going to continue on a trajectory like they were in 2018, 2019 early and 2020. I think we really started to see a change in people's habits. That's why we made a big pivot to the taprooms and added two more suburban locations. That was very deliberate for us, because the office market cratered. We felt like we had to have a suburban footprint.
We needed to right-size our footprint in the Deer District and on the East Side and move towards a more sustainable model, because it wasn't 2019 anymore. In 2019, we had these two really big locations in (Milwaukee), and we would pack them to the brim. That's just not the world anymore. Adjusting our footprint took a long time. This year, we felt like from our footprint, our overhead and our business (and with
David Dupee and I stepping back) we were really in a position where we could either reinvest now and work towards what the Good City brand of the future would be.”
What makes Explorium the right operator to take over your spaces?
Katt: "There are a lot of things that happened in wholesale, in craft beer, and we pivoted more towards retail as a response to what was happening. We said, okay, now that 80% or 90% of our time and our revenue is focused on the taproom/brewpub concept, are we the best restaurant operators to move this forward, or would we benefit from bringing in an operating partner, or selling the whole thing to someone who is fully entrenched as a restaurant and brewpub operator? Brewery owners really think about production and volume. They think about selling to bars and restaurants and liquor stores and grocery stores and brewpub owners think more like restaurant owners and operators, which is a special breed.”
How are new beverage options like RTD cocktails affecting the craft beer industry?
Katt: “Yeah, there’s more choices than ever. I think craft beer didn't do itself any favors, in the sense that craft breweries started getting really crazy with what they were making... like wild fruited beers or lactose beers. The consumer just kept saying, 'I'm trying something new.' I think when you constantly give people something new, although maybe not really on the brewpub side, because I think that gets people in the door, but as a brewery, they kind of get to a point where they've tried everything. Once you've given them everything and they've tried everything, then the consumer says, 'Well, what have I tried?'"
Has Milwaukee’s craft beer bubble finally burst?
Katt: "Not necessarily. I think it really depends on the capitalization or financial position of each entity. I think it depends on your business model. We have taverns in Milwaukee that have been open for 50 years. If you're a brewery or a tavern, and you're producing tiny amounts of beer that's a different model than if you're investing millions in equipment and doing a wholesale business and hiring a lot of staff and managers. I think it really just depends on how you put together your business.
I think there are other factors in people's personal lives, like, what do you want to do with your life? Do you want to be standing on the brew deck for the rest of your life making beer? I think some people decide that's not what they want to do anymore, and that's okay, too. Some people say, yes, I want to get into this. I think I can do it differently. I can do it better. I can come with new ideas that people haven't come up with yet."
