https://www.jsonline.com/story/ente...open-milwaukee-taproom-early-2019/1432006002/
Make room for more beer in Milwaukee: Dead Bird is planning a taproom in the Halyard Park area
A new brewery taproom is expected to open at W. Walnut and N. Fifth streets in early 2019.
You just have to get past the name: Dead Bird Brewing.
The moniker has a reasonable story, but the first thing to know is that the taproom will be new but the brewing company marks its third anniversary in November.
Nick Kocis and Jeremy Hach produced Dead Bird beers, such as Pamplemousse American Pale Ale, at Madison's House of Brews, where Kocis was a brewer. House of Brews went up for sale late last year, and Kocis went back to a day job in biochemistry. Dead Bird beers are currently produced at MobCraft Brewing, 505 S. 5th St., in Milwaukee.
The space in the Halyard Park neighborhood will be 3,600 square feet in total with taproom seating for 100. Kocis said Dead Bird will have an outdoor patio space on a wooden deck built out toward the parking lot that will have room for 40 to 50 people.
The plan calls for 16 tap lines that will rotate Dead Bird brews and a line dedicated to gluten-free beers. There also will be a line for house-made soda and maybe a tap line dedicated to cider.
The taproom will feature more than a dozen rotating stand-up arcade games, with competitions planned for the more popular titles, Kocis said.
"We were looking at everything and started hunting for commercial space," Kocis said. "We very quickly made the decision that Milwaukee was going to be a better option for us."
Many of the new places opening in Madison have some food component, but Kocis said they wanted the Dead Bird taproom to concentrate on beer and maybe some snacks. The Dead Bird founders looked east because they wanted to open a taproom that used local restaurants and food trucks for the food portion of the experience, and they wanted to concentrate on pouring beers.
And although he and Hach are from Madison, they were wooed to Milwaukee by economic grants and the "convivial feel" among Milwaukee brewers demonstrated by the Milwaukee Craft Brewers League.
The Halyard Park building was once part of a grocery and delivery company, Kocis said. The part they plan to use was built in 1906 and was the main storage facility. Other parts of the building date back to the late 1890s and were used for horse and wagon storage, as well as office space.
The name Dead Bird dates back to Kocis and Hach's college days in Platteville when they first became curious about brewing.
"The first thing you need (for brewing) is a pot, and that was when people were deep frying turkeys and burning down their garages. Jeremy's parents were into that, and we found a pot in the attic and there was a dead bird in it," Kocis said. They named their future brewery, and then cleaned the pot "within an inch of its life."
A dead bird symbol sits on the bottom of each Dead Bird logo glass.
Kocis said the plan calls for continuing to brew at MobCraft. Dead Bird won't have a brewing system in the beginning but likely would add a pilot system eventually.
In addition to Pamplemousse, Dead Bird also makes Order as Needed, an American pale ale; Wine Thief, a Belgian witbier style made with Sauvignon Blanc grape must; and The Unthinkable Muscleman, a double Imperial India Pale Ale.
Decent but not outstanding, hopefully with time they will improve or add some better beers.
