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Craft breweries preserve Milwaukee's beer heritage
Pabst beer wagons and horse teams lined up to carry one day's delivery of beer for MKE establishments in the 1900s.
Local craft brewers are carrying Milwaukee’s “Brew City” legacy into the 21st century, helping the long-time brewing giant, Miller Brewing Company, redefine what it means to be the Beer Capital of the World.
“It’s really important to have a strong brewing community when your local baseball team is called the Brewers,” says Russ Klisch, president of Lakefront Brewery, Inc., which produced just under 47,000 barrels of beer last year. “You have to keep the tradition and live up to the name.”
Opened 1855, then Miller Brewery created its millionth barrel of beer in 1949. As of 2017, it produces up to 10 million barrels of beer a year.
For much of the 20th century, breweries were among the region’s largest employers thanks to Miller, Pabst, Schlitz and Blatz. Miller (now MillerCoors) is the only large brewer remaining (Pabst returned to the city last year as a small brewery) and the brewing industry employs less than 1 percent of the workforce. But brewing continues to have an oversized impact on the region’s culture and its increasing attraction to Millennials.
The growth in local craft breweries has been impressive. Currently, there are more than 160 craft brewers in Wisconsin, more than double the number in 2011. Three of the state’s largest craft breweries – Lakefront Brewery, Sprecher Brewing and Milwaukee Brewing Company – are based in southeast Wisconsin, which (thanks mostly to MillerCoors) produce 90 percent of the state’s favorite malt beverage.
Sprecher Brewing Company launched the current craft brewery craze. Its founder, Randy Sprecher, worked by night as a supervisor of brewing operations at Pabst and spent the rest of his waking hours perfecting beer recipes to pursue his dream of establishing Milwaukee’s first craft brewery since Prohibition. Sprecher Brewing opened in 1985 and has since expanded several times. It’s not only famous for its adult beverages, but also for its nationally acclaimed root beer.
Lakefront Brewery followed Sprecher’s lead, opening in 1987. Like Sprecher, it also had roots in Milwaukee’s beer heritage. Klisch’s grandfather worked for Schlitz as a delivery truck driver and as a chauffeur for the Uihlein family, which owned the brewery.
MillerCoors remains a brewing giant with its flagship beers – Miller Highlife, Miller Lite, Coors and Coors Light – and a growing stable of craft beers, including Blue Moon and Leinenkugel’s. It’s also a global leader in sustainability, working with Milwaukee’s Global Water Center to achieve the AWS Standard from the Alliance for Water Stewardship, which recognizes responsible water stewardship.
Randy Sprecher Founder of Sprecher Brewing
Milwaukee was on the ground floor of the craft beer explosion of the mid 1980s with one of the original founders of the movement Sprecher Brewing CEO Randy Sprecher (above). Milwaukee Brewing Company founderJim McCabe was one of the first ale brewers to appear inMilwaukee.
