Milwaukee’s Brenner Brewing Closes

When Mike Brenner opened Brenner Brewing in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood back in 2014, craft beer was on a tear.

It was the first new production brewery to debut in Milwaukee in 17 years and people were understandably excited.

When Mike Brenner started his brewery he was a craft beer pioneer in downtown Milwaukee and now there are reportedly “20 breweries and brewpubs in the city.”

When Brenner first opened his brewery, he was armed with an MBA…and brewing skills honed at the Siebel Institute in Chicago as well as in Germany.

He came to the biz prepared and still Brenner Brewing has closed its doors…

And although his brand is still in demand in different parts of Wisconsin, beer sales at his downtown taproom (which fronts his production brewery and an additional arts space he sponsored) waned over the past three years, and the costs of keeping things together, more difficult…

So Mike Brenner announced his brewery’s pending closing on the company’s Facebook page…

“While I will still be brewing Brenner Beer (as a gypsy brewer at other people’s breweries) and selling it all over Wisconsin, I am being forced to close the physical brewery and tasting room after this Weekend. Come down and celebrate me not ever having to scrub puke out of subway tile again (professionally at least), and try out some of the incredible sour beers we’ve bottled the past few weeks.”

And yes, although Mike Brenner is closing the doors on one part of his dream, he’ll continue to contract brew his brand at other local breweries…

So it’s not like Brenner Brewing doesn’t have a future…

It’s just not the future that Mike had planned on.