E-Malt.com News article: USA, WI: The Mosinee Brewing Co. to open its doors in mid-November

There's soon going to be a new spot to head for a beer in central Wisconsin, the Wausau Daily Herald reported on October 31.

The Mosinee Brewing Co. will open its doors in mid-November, after years of planning and construction, plus a few setbacks.

The brewery will be housed in a building that's over 100 years old at 401 Fourth St., Mosinee, said owner Jacquelyn Forbes Kearns, right in the middle of downtown Mosinee. Originally, the brewery was supposed to open in 2014 as North Abbey Brewing, but there was a fallout with the previous owner, Chad Hoffer. Hoffer left the partnership with the name of the brewery, but Forbes Kearns was left with the building at the end of 2015.

Since then, she and her partner Greg Sperry have been working to make the dream of a brewery a reality, and a catalyst for change in the small city. Forbes Kearns said that she's the investor who helped to finance the brewery and Sperry is going to be the head brewer. Forbes Kearns recently retired from her job as a nurse practitioner at Marshfield Clinic, but has been investing in property and stocks for years, and Sperry has been brewing for years.

The Wausau Region Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting at the business on Oct. 26, even though the brewery is still largely under construction, to drum up excitement and chatter in the community. About 30 people attended the event, milling from room to room as construction workers painted.

Forbes Kearns told attendees that the brewery will tentatively open in mid-November, once construction is complete. At first, the brewery will only be able to serve brews not made in house, until their federal brewing license is approved. There's no word on when that will happen, Forbes Kearns said, but once it does, Sperry will be brewing a large range of styles of beer, and keeping a rotation of about 16 on tap. In the meantime, though, there will be 10 taps of Wisconsin-made beer.

For those who can't or prefer not to drink beer, the brewery also will offer freshly made kombucha, which is a type of fermented tea, as well as espresso drinks.

One of the most important parts of putting the brewery together for Forbes Kearns has been ensuring support for other local businesses. She's worked with local artisans to decorate the taproom and party room, with local metal companies to create some of the parts for the brewing tanks and with Wausau Tile to make the unique countertops, which were created using Wisconsin River rocks.

"It's very important to me to use regional people to really stimulate the economic growth of the area," she said. "I mean, we really feel that we are a catalyst in helping to develop this area and make it a really fun place."

Most of the wood that will be used for decoration in the taproom is also locally sourced, coming from the building itself, which was once a Discount Liquidators.

"We actually harvested every stick of wood out of this building, out of the floor, out of the ceiling," Forbes Kearns said. "Then we wire brushed it, scrubbed it down, refinished it and put back up all this wood."

In addition to the brewing area and the taproom, the brewery also has a party room, which can hold over 100 people for weddings, receptions and birthdays, among other events, Forbes Kearns said. Next spring or summer, there's also a plan to add an outdoor patio behind the building, and maybe even an event tent to hold more people.

Forbes Kearns said that the road to getting the brewery to where it is now hasn't been easy, but she's thankful to have help along the way. In addition to her own investment, the brewery has been promised an economic development grant from the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. for around $250,000.

She's hoping that those investments in the business — and the city — will make Mosinee more of a destination for people in the central Wisconsin region.

"We've been getting calls from all over, from Chicago, Minneapolis and even Texas the other day," Forbes Kearns said. "We did a population study and we see us as a regional destination."

Scott Walker also stopped by the brewery on Oct. 28, as part of his pre-election tour that has him stopping in the Wausau area several times over the coming week.



01 November, 2018