E-Malt.com News article: USA, WI: Leatherhead Brewing to open in Green Bay by mid-September

Green Bay’s fifth craft brewery will open next month in the former Marty’s Boston Crab building, 875 Lombardi Ave., Green Bay Press Gazette reported on August 25.

Leatherhead Brewing Co. founders Amanda and Chad Sharon and Sheila and Ian Perks will make their brewing operation the center of everything by putting it in the middle of the dining room.

“People will be able to sit here and drink the beer while they’re watching it being made,” Chad Sharon said. “We want it to be part of the whole experience.”

Leatherhead Brewing will start off small with a production capacity of seven barrels, but the Sharons said increasing capacity will happen once everyone settles into the new operation after their targeted mid-September opening.

The Sharons, both of whom have ties to the Green Bay area, said they’ve been talking about the idea of opening a brewery with the Perks for three years. The idea started to become a reality when the Sharons tasted a homebrewed stout Chad’s cousin Jacob Sutrick made in Milwaukee.

“I was a light beer drinker, and his stout changed me,” Chad Sharon said. “It was all over but the crying.”

Sutrick plans to brew five or six staple beers and introduce seasonal and one-off specialty beers as the business makes it through the early stages.

“We want to focus on developing the brew pub atmosphere first, and then look at increasing our production and distribution,” Chad Sharon said.

Leatherhead Brewing also will give patrons a different way to sample their beers. They’re installing a “beer wall” where people can use a scan card to buy and pour themselves beers by the ounce.

Customers will buy a scan card from the bartender good for up to 32 ounces of beer. The patron then goes over to the six taps on the beer wall, scans the card and pours themselves as much or as little of their chosen beer.

“You can pour your own beer and pour as much or as little as you want,” Amanda Sharon said. “You can try as many beers as you want.”

The brewery will be Green Bay’s fifth craft beer operation, but the Sharons said they feel there’s plenty of room in the area for more craft brewers.

“Cities that have a lot of craft breweries often take a ‘more the merrier’ approach,” Amanda Sharon said. “We hope that’s the response we get here as well.”

“We talked with some of the other brewers in town,” Chad Sharon added. “None of them have been concerned. They’ve welcomed us with open arms and helped us through the process.”


26 August, 2015