Official Announcement--Tap Room Opening Delayed Until Next Summer

Official Announcement--Tap Room Opening Delayed Until Next Summer

Here’s the official announcement about our new Tap Room in Minocqua. We won’t be able to open this summer because Obnom (The Old Boy Network of Mincoqua) got the best of us in this last battle.

We didn’t want to make this sad announcement without adding a little joy to the story, so here’s a picture of the first phase of the Minocqua Brewing Company Tap Room—our new garage door art.

We hope it will give progressive Minocqua tourists who can’t get our beer at least a photo op saying “we were there.”

We also think this art will be a constant reminder to our neighbors across the street, the alt-right fish wrapper otherwise known as the Lakeland Times, who happen to be suing us for defamation (because that’s what immature, misogynistic, spoiled publishers apparently like to do to small businesses) a reminder that the arc of history always bends towards progress and has already bent way beyond their backwards world view.

If you haven’t kept up with the story of why our new Tap Room couldn’t open this summer, here’s a brief reprise.

--Hedging our bets that a Covid vaccine might not arrive before this summer, we sold our old building and decided to pivot our business to production brewing instead of running a brewpub.

--We used the profits from the sale to invest in contract brewing and self-distributing #progressivebeer around the state, and we bought a really cool old historic gas station in downtown Minocqua last March to turn into a new Tap Room for the summer season.

--After being assured that the vacant house on the property would be demolished within a week of buying this new gas station, so that we could close on the property and begin the construction necessary to open for the summer, we were told that Obnom acolyte Charles Miller, the guy supposed to do the demolition, refused to do the work because he didn’t like our owner.

--The guy who sold us the property, another Obnom acolyte named Bill Fricke, owner of the Boathouse restaurant down the street, slow-walked the demolition for two months, which made it impossible for us to finish construction before the summer season, and we lost all of the staff we had hired because we could no longer promise full summer employment.

--We tried to have a party on the grounds of our new building to help get people vaccinated in Minocqua, which was woefully lagging in vaccination rates because our neighbors are steadily fed a diet of Fox News and misinformation about vaccine safety. Instead of helping us get more people vaxxed, our town board forbade us to have this party on our own property, leading us to the conclusion that they would most likely slow-walk the permits needed to get our building up to code.

--We decided to take the rest of the year to get the proper permits and rehab the building and open up next summer, but we wanted to remind everyone visiting that although we couldn’t open, we’re not giving up, and will ultimately be back in Minocqua and will drag this town, kicking and screaming if we have to, into a more tolerant twenty-first century.

So there’s the story folks. If you visit Minocqua this summer, we’d advise not going to the Boathouse for dinner, not hiring Charlie Miller for your construction/demolition needs, but instead vacationing in Lac du Flambeau and buying #progressivebeer at our exclusive retailer in the area, the Lac du Flambeau Country Market.

While you’re driving to spend your money in Lac du Flambeau, we’d suggest taking a picture of yourselves in front of our new building and sending it to our town board chairman, Mark Hartzheim, to remind him of the tourism dollars lost to the area because of Obnom. His email is: chairman@townofminocqua.org

Back to blog