Hi friends,
I have to make this email brief because the tourism season is about to start and we're desperately trying to finish building a beer garden "Up North," but I did want to tell you a story that involves contractors to which I think most of you can relate.
I've been through about 6 contractors/tradesmen in the building of my taproom in Madison and the two beer gardens in Madison/Minocqua over the last 7 months, and both beer gardens aren't finished yet even though the weather has been beautiful for outdoor boozing.
Why 6?
Because after awhile, most of these guys left to work on other projects, putting my projects on hold because they were probably getting screamed at by their other clients whose projects they put on hold to do mine.
Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on who you ask), my brain doesn't accept defeat that easily. Instead of just fuming and waiting for them to come back, I contacted everyone I knew to find other tradesmen to lend a hand and keep my projects going.
One of these last encounters almost broke me, however.
I've been waiting for one guy to come build a fence around my Minocqua beer garden for over 3 weeks.
"Too busy." "Permits are late." "Its gonna rain tomorrow...." and finally last Thursday, "Kirk, I've decided I'm not going to do it...find someone else."
3 weeks, no fence, Memorial Day Weekend is a week away. I was finally beaten.
I tried one last guy who goes by Shrek (that's the truth). He's a mason who built my concrete stoop two summers ago. "Shrek, you're my last hope. I will pay you handsomely if you can get this fence in before Memorial Day Weekend."
"Kirk, I've got about 6 other projects going right now, but if it rains on Monday like it's supposed to, I can't work on any of them. So if the "Big Guy Up There" wants you to have your beer garden, he'll make it rain on Monday and I'll do it for you.
In an instant, Shrek's simple act of kindness revived my soul. I went from feeling completely broken and defeated to having a glimmer of hope that my business could finally reap the sales benefits of a long-awaited beer garden by the beginning of the summer tourism season.
With Shrek's help, and with the help of another retired contractor from Madison who has been with me from the start to fill in whenever the "professionals" ultimately left my projects incomplete, I've been reminded how important it is to be a man (person) of your word, especially in today's chaotic world.
A man (person) who stands by his word has the power to lift another man out of abject despair.
So thanks to my two friends and to everyone out there that has a relationship of trust and accountability with someone else. It really means everything!
And last but not least, if I'm ever in a position to direct public policy and/or higher education spending, I'm going to remember the shortage of people that Wisconsin currently has in the building trades that has lead to this complete breakdown of business ethics, and I'll do whatever it takes to build this industry back up to where it simply needs to be.
We've got the door installed and 8 yards of scrubbed rocks over the top of this layer of limestone gravel, and have staged all of the outdoor furniture/umbrellas. Praying it RAINS and the fence goes in tomorrow.
Now for our regularly scheduled Sunday essay.
If you just tuned in this week, then let me catch you up.
I've explained over the last few weeks how the Minocqua Brewing Company and our Super PAC have attempted to shed most of our current projects and lawsuits to focus solely on denying Trump a victory in Wisconsin next November.
That being said, we identified an opportunity to rally the troops in Milwaukee by putting up a bunch of billboards that showed our disgust for Trump and the fact that the Republican National Convention will be held in Milwaukee this July.
With your help, the "NOPE" billboard pictured at the top of this email will go up tomorrow on the north side of the Marquette Interchange, with very good visibility as you head out of downtown Milwaukee going north (the picture we posted is photoshopped because we couldn't place the billboard before this email was published).
Funny enough, our sign is basically located across the street from the huge Leinenkugel production facility sign! The irony of another (MUCH LARGER) Northern Wisconsin brewery's sign that stands for mass-produced corporate beer while ours stands for home-grown grass-roots "craft" Democracy is not lost on me.
As I said, each one of these billboards will cost approximately $10K to put up between now and the Republican Convention in July. If you want to see at least one more go up between now and then, please donate here. The large list of folks that read this email allow us to do pretty big things without a lot of expense for any one person.
After I posted last week that we were raising money to put these billboards up in Milwaukee, I received a LOT of emails asking for us to create yardsigns with the same art.
I asked my merchandising partner RAYGUN out of Des Moines, IA, if they could help organize this for us, and they bent over backwards to find a local union printer to print these up for a pretty affordable price in less than a week. Here's the link to buy your own "NOPE, NOT IN MILWAUKEE" yardsign.
And finally, we figured that since we were making these yard signs for Milwaukeans who didn't want Trump in their city, we might as well make them for all Wisconsinites. Here's a link to buy our brand new "NOPE, NOT IN WISCONSIN!" yard sign.
That's all I have for you today.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for caring about Wisconsin.
And thanks for sticking with the Minocqua Brewing Company.
November is a long ways away, but we simply have to keep fighting for our state and country, one beer at a time.
Kirk Bangstad
Owner, Minocqua Brewing Company
Founder, Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC