The last time Chalonda White visited Milwaukee for the sole purpose of drinking its beer, she could count the cityโs breweries on one hand.
It was 2012 and the Brew City was home to the legacy beer giant Miller Brewing Co. that helped give the city that nickname and the three dedicated area breweries that emerged during the rebirth of local brewing in the 1980s and 1990s: Lakefront Brewery, Sprecher Brewing Co. and Milwaukee Brewing Co.
Seven years later, on a Saturday in late May, White โ a Chicago-based beer enthusiast who blogs, as Afro Beer Chick, about her beer adventures and founded a Chicago chapter of a national organization for fellow female beer fans โ decided to return to Milwaukee to check out its now-robust craft beer scene.
The day before her trip, she put a call out on Twitter soliciting recommendations from locals, who were eager to help her navigate the cityโs landscape, now 40 breweries strong. Heeding their recommendations, Whiteโs daytrip included brunching at Comet Cafรฉ and sampling a limited-release Jam Sesh PB&J Ale at Eagle Park Brewing Co. on the East Side, picking up a six-pack of Upward Spiral from Third Space Brewing in the Menomonee Valley, relaxing at the Milwaukee Yacht Club on the lakefront, trying an assortment of IPAs and stouts at 1840 Brewing Co. in Bay View and taking in the woodsy aesthetic of Black Husky Brewingโs Riverwest taproom.
Her review?
โI had a freaking ball,โ White said. โIt really changed my view of Milwaukee, with how much itโs developed downtown, Riverwest, the lakefront. It gave me a higher respect for Milwaukee and a whole new set of eyes. This town is pretty dope.โ
Mapping Milwaukeeโs beer scene
For the city that was built in part by 19th century beer barons, beer today remains a driver of out-of-town traffic to Milwaukee.
While data isnโt available showing its direct economic impact on metro Milwaukee, travel and tourism research firm Longwoods International indicates beer tourism was responsible for 11% of total overnight trips in Milwaukee in 2018, compared to the national average of 5%. Breweries were among the top five reasons for visitors to spend an overnight in Milwaukee, according to the research.
In 2018, visitors to Milwaukee spent $483.2 million on food and beverages in Milwaukee County, an increase of 6% over the previous year, according to VISIT Milwaukee. It was the second-highest visitor spending category last year, behind local transportation.
VISIT Milwaukee has made a marketing push in recent years to leverage the cityโs historic beer roots, while promoting the wave of new microbreweries, in an effort to capture the growing โbrewcationโ market. In some ways, itโs a matter of leaning in to what has always been core to Milwaukeeโs identity.
โMilwaukee has always had a strong beer scene,โ said Megan Suardini, vice president of marketing and communications for VISIT Milwaukee. โAs far as beer tourism, we are very well known as โBrew Cityโ across the nation, which obviously goes back to the beer barons, Pabst, Schlitz and Blatz. There isnโt any confusion that Milwaukee is known as a hot beer scene.โ
When it comes to competition, the cities that have effectively positioned themselves as beer tourism destinations are largely outside of the Midwest, including Denver, San Diego, Portland and Asheville, North Carolina, Suardini said. Closer to home, Madison, Minneapolis, St. Paul and Grand Rapids, Michigan all have โstrong beer scenes,โ though Suardini wouldnโt call them competitors.
Milwaukee has a unique position in the market, however, she said.
โThey all have strong craft beer scenes, but we have a very strong craft beer scene along with the beer history and beer culture,โ she said.
In 2018, VISIT Milwaukee partnered with the Milwaukee Craft Brewery League, Lakefront Brewery, Pabst Brewery and malt company Malteurop Malting Co., which has a factory in Milwaukee, to release The Original Brew City Beer Map, a foldable guide of 62 beer-related destinations in the greater Milwaukee area, including the metro areaโs many beer gardens, historic beer sites and breweries.
โIt was a project a few years in the making,โ Suardini said. โWhat really makes it unique is itโs all inclusive; it doesnโt just represent breweries, but all beer-related attractions. Every other city that I can think of that has a beer map or beer trail, itโs very much focused on breweries exclusively. We worked hard to include a combination of breweries and all other beer-themed activities you can do.โ
VISIT Milwaukee printed a half-million copies to distribute both in-market โ at restaurants, hotels and breweries โ and out-of-market at rest stops and other high-traffic tourist areas. The organization is also in talks with its counterpart in Madison to explore collaborating on a piece that would draw the connections between the two strong beer cities.
Led by VISIT Milwaukee, a delegation of beer representatives brought the then freshly-released map with them in summer 2018 when they attended the Great American Beer Festival, a three-day annual event in Denver that draws more than 60,000 beer enthusiasts from around the world. Itโs a strategic place for Milwaukee representatives to be. Among GABF attendees โ more of half of whom come from outside of Colorado โ 84% reported being interested in traveling for beer-related reasons.
โItโs very much the market weโre trying to get to,โ Suardini said.
In a crowd of more than 2,220 breweries hailing from every state, the Milwaukee group had to set itself apart. From its station, Third Space distributed samples of its popular Happy Place pale ale. VISIT representatives distributed maps and encouraged attendees to sign up for a chance to win the โultimate brewcationโ experience in Milwaukee, which netted more than 400 responses. A costumed Jim Haertel, president of Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery, offered passersby a chance to take a photo with legendary beer icon King Gambrinus. The stunt helped boost Milwaukeeโs visibility.
โEveryone wanted a picture with the king,โ Haertel said. โI must have taken over 3,000 pictures over the three days.โ
Beer tours
With the gesticulations of someone trained in theater, Jason Nykiel slips in a few innuendos as he explains the beer brewing process to a group of about 25 people encircling him at Lakefront Brewery.
Using a tinge of edgy humor to liven up an otherwise informative beer history presentation has become a hallmark of Lakefront Brewery tours, which regularly rank among the most popular in the city. While Lakefront tour guides โ many of whom boast theater, improv and other public speaking backgrounds โ have the freedom to develop their own script and add their own flare to the tour, they are encouraged to keep hospitality top of mind.
โI tell them, โYou are ambassadors for the city,โโ said Russ Klisch, president and co-founder of Lakefront Brewery. โI say, โYou canโt say anything bad about anyone elseโs sports team. You want to make sure that person is feeling very comfortable in the city and happy to be here and wants to come back. You are going to be one of the few people that (visitors) actually interact with in the city. And the image you present to people is what theyโre going to be leaving with of Milwaukee.โโ
When the 32-year-old brewery first began offering tours in its early days, Klisch would deliver them โlike a science teacher.โ His brother, brewery co-founder Jim Klisch, meanwhile, won visitors over by handing out beer at the tourโs outset and weaving humor into his presentation.
โEverybody took his tour; no one wanted mine,โ Russ said. โWe found out early on that people come on tours for two reasons: they want to be entertained and they want to drink beer.โ
Lakefront has been sticking to that formula since. Over the past 20 years, the brewery has seen a โtenfoldโ increase in the number of people walking through its doors, and the reason behind touristsโ visits has also evolved over the years, Russ said.
โIt used to be that people would say โIโm coming for a wedding or for work,โโ Russ said.
โWe used to get that all the time. But now we see people actually coming to visit because they think itโs a destination.โ
By his estimate, about half of tour-goers are from out of the state and another 25 percent are from a Wisconsin city other than Milwaukee.
Russ said Lakefront offers a quintessential Milwaukee experience, with its cream city brick walls, industrial feel, proximity to the Milwaukee River, Friday night fish fries and, of course, beer.
It represents one prong of what he calls Milwaukeeโs โbrewery trifecta.โ
โWe have heritage breweries like Miller and the Pabst complex and Schlitz complex for beer history nerds to visit,โ he said. โWe have Sprecher, ourselves and Milwaukee Brewing Co. And then the new wave of craft breweries. Our city has all three. We have a lot of heritage and history and creativity that goes on with the breweries in town here. Itโs a great destination for people from out of town to come here to drink beer in Brew City again.โ
Among some of the cityโs biggest beer champions is a sense of optimism for the cityโs future.
โPeople from all over the country, when theyโve thought of Milwaukee, they think of the flyover city, the Rust Belt, the manufacturing; whatโs really there to see in Milwaukee?โ Haertel said. โBut a lot of people are learning that Milwaukee is not just another city. Weโve saved so much of our history and our architecture and so much of it is interwoven with beer here in Milwaukee.โ
Given Milwaukeeโs relatively late start to the renaissance of craft brewing, some argue the city has catching up to do.
โAs a whole, the growth that the craft beer scene in Milwaukee has seen over the past three years is definitely impressive. Yet when looking at similarly sized cities around the country, we are still far behind in a lot of ways,โ said Jake Schinker, owner and chief creative officer of Eagle Park Brewing. โThat being said, beer tourism to Milwaukee has seen major growth due to the larger variety of beer styles being offered and Milwaukee becoming a more popular travel destination as a whole due to things like our successful sports teams and growing culinary scene.โ
Beer history
The steady flow of tourists streaming through the former Pabst Brewing Co. headquarters in downtown Milwaukee suggests the cityโs historic beer roots also remain a draw.
The tour guides at Best Place at the Historic Pabst Brewery complex provide guests with beer and pretzels at its outset, before chronicling the history of Pabst, playing vintage beer commercials and walking visitors through the historic buildingโs Great Hall, Blue Ribbon Hall, Captain Pabstโs former office and the basementโs speakeasy. Haertel estimates about a third of visitors come from out of state, a third are local and a third come from elsewhere in Wisconsin.
In 2001, Haertel, a beer and history enthusiast, cashed in his 401(k) to purchase a trio of buildings in the historic brewery complex, which had then been shuttered for five years. He was compelled to preserve a major city landmark, not just for locals, but for visitors as well. One of the cityโs biggest assets, he argues, is the preservation of its architecture.
On a recent afternoon, Haertel stood in the Great Hall as a tour of 14 people, including the tourโs youngest-ever participant, a 10-day-old baby, walked through the hall. He paused to tell the brief version of how he acquired the place.
โI heard they were thinking about tearing this building down,โ he said. โWouldnโt that have been a shame? And I thought people like you would want to come see the place and drink some beer and have some pretzels.โ
On the southern edge of Waukesha County, Old World Wisconsin is looking to capture more beer history enthusiasts by building out its historic brewing demonstrations and adding a full-time operating brewery on its grounds.
Old World plans to build a complex at its entry that will include a reconstructed small brewery that will house the historic demonstrations, an early 20th century tavern and a permanent beer garden.
Dan Freas, director of Old World Wisconsin, sees the connection between the growing interest in craft brewing and its own historic brewing program. These days, people want to know what theyโre consuming and how itโs made. Meanwhile, brewing is a big part of the stateโs history that Old World hasnโt fully explored up until now.
โPeople are making travel plans around beer and visiting parts of the country and experiencing craft brews,โ Freas said. โThis is part of a strategy weโre using at Old World Wisconsin to diversify the experience and make sure weโre offering something for everyone โฆ And certainly beer and brewing has proven already, in the short time weโve been doing our program, to attract people who might not otherwise think about visiting us.โ
An authentic experience
While โbrewcationโ has entered the tourist industry lexicon with the micro-brewing surge in recent years, Schinker said out-of-towners donโt typically travel exclusively to imbibe in its brews. But it does serve a key purpose for many travelers.
โI donโt think that most people are traveling for the sole reason of going to breweries, but rather go to a new city and use breweries as an easy way to see parts of town that arenโt just your boilerplate tourist destinations,โ he said. โWhen people visit us from out of town we often get asked about other things to do around the city during their stay and are more than happy to give them the localโs guide to Milwaukee.โ
Since opening in 2015, Eagle Park Brewing has received visitors from across the world, Schinker said. One recent evening, he spoke with a man who was in town from Portland, Oregon, and later a couple from Japan.
The fact that brewery owners like Schinker can be seen walking around and talking with customers is part of Milwaukeeโs charm, Russ Klisch said.
โEspecially with the small breweries, itโs not uncommon for an owner to be walking around or giving a tour,โ Klisch said. โItโs not as polished. Itโs not a PR push or advertisement that you might get other places. Itโs more genuine.โ
Thatโs a message Milwaukee can leverage, Suardini said. Drinking isnโt put on for tourists; itโs the cityโs culture.
โOur whole city embraces it,โ she said. โA trend right now is when you travel someplace, you want to feel like a local. You want to know the secret places. You want to have the inside scoop on the best restaurants; you want to know where the best bars are. So our locals are experiencing the same thing our visitors want to experience.โ
When Milwaukee hosts the Democratic National Convention next summer, it will provide a unique opportunity for the city to show off its assets, among which many would count beer.
The convention is expected to spawn as many as 2,000 convention-related functions across the region. Lakefront is among the beer-centric venues preparing to host some of them.
โPeople coming for the DNC are going to be seeing a lot of the breweries here and it will be a great way to get the word out,โ Klisch said.
Meanwhile, others have questioned whether itโs instead high time for Milwaukee to shed itself of its longstanding association with beer, brats and cheese; โLaverne & Shirley;โ โHappy Daysโ and the Bronze Fonz.
VISIT Milwaukee wonโt be leading that charge.
โSome people will say, โWeโre more than beer and cheese,โ and what we like to say is โYes, we have amazing beer and we have amazing cheese. We have an amazing arts scene. Our festivals in the summertime are amazing. We have fresh water. We have a motorcycle scene. Our hotels are fun. We have a riverwalk. Itโs not just beer and cheese โฆ but, from a VISIT Milwaukee standpoint, beer and cheese are pretty awesome. We have a lot to get excited about.โ
Click here to view The Original Brew City Beer Map.