Not long after Lion’s Tail Brewing opened in Neenah, owner and brewer Alex Wenzel brought an idea from his homebrewing days to the new taproom.

The interactive Custom Pale Ale experience – in which customers are served a neutral base pale ale and their choice of whole cone hops which they steep in the beer in a French press – quickly became popular.

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But, it was a limited thing, says Liz Welch, the Marketing & Business Operations Manager for Lion’s Tail which now also has a popular location at 8520 W. North Ave. in Wauwatosa.

“I was hired on shortly after we stopped doing it,” Welch recalls, “and people would try to explain what this was and the bartenders just looked at them and were like, ‘what are you talking about?’”

Now, the experience has returned, by popular demand, and while it may again be limited, Lion’s Tail has invested in French press pots and the whole cone hops – which Welch and her mother portion out and vacuum seal into 1-ounce packages – and so it’s likely to stay around a while or at least come back again in the future if it does go away for a while.

“It's a fun way to let our customers become the brewer and experiment with different hops without having to brew any beer themselves,” Welch says. “Hopefully it inspires them to want to learn more about the beer they enjoy and maybe even start homebrewing,”

How does it work?

The experience starts with a menu of available whole cone hops, including Moteuka, Centennial, Citra, El Dorado and Mosaic. For now, customers can only choose one hop variety, but Welch thinks the idea of pre-packaging a few different blends could also get a test run.

Then, the bartender fills the French press with the base pale ale, which is very light in color and very, very lightly hopped. It tastes, as Welch says accurately, “like ‘beer’.” That is to say, it’s pretty basic.

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Then, the bag of hops is opened, the whole cone hops are added to the beer and the French press lid is affixed and a timer is set to 15 minutes.

While customers wait for their beer to finish, they get a free 10-ounce pour of another beer off the tap list. It is included in the $19 cost of the experience, which, of course, also includes the beer in the French press.

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When the timer dings, the press is pushed down, the beer poured and voila! That base beer has a much richer color and, unsurprisingly, a hoppier profile, thanks to the dry hopping carried out by the customer.

It’s a fun experience and it does help to show in real terms just what hops bring to beer. And if you try it with the different varieties, you get a real, ahem, flavor for each hop’s characteristics.

I used Motueka hops and the variety’s herbal notes really shined through.

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The only custom pale ale experience

“I know it’s not always easy to find information online, but as far as we're aware, we're the only brewery in the country offering our customers an experience like this,” says Wenzel. “As a team, we often talk about how to come up with original ideas in a centuries-old industry where it seems like they've become few and far between."

Dogfish Head invented its own multi-chambered version of the French press for beer in 2002 called The Randall, which has been used and adapted by others to tinker with beer flavors, but it's unclear if any other breweries have brewed a base beer specifically for enhancement, as Lion's Tail is doing. 

“Our hope with bringing the custom pale ale back is that it will help drive people's interest in the actual craft part of craft beer, while getting them excited to come out to the taproom and see what we have to offer,” Wenzel says.

Would it work for hop water, too?

Because I arrived with a non-drinker, we decided to try a little experiment, too, while we were there.

Instead of base beer, Welch filled a French press with lemon LaCroix sparkling water and my companion selected El Dorado hops.

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In the end, the hops didn’t depart any color, and only a hint of flavor, but we suspected that it was due to the overpowering lemon flavor of the water.

We think the experience could create a satisfying hop water, too, but by using unflavored sparkling water instead.

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Welch says that Lion’s Tail brought back the custom pale ale experience in April and there is currently no timeline to halt it.

“It’s probably limited,” she says, “but also I think we're going to be more likely to bring it back periodically, now that we actually have the materials for it and we kind of know what we're doing better.”

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A Lion's Tail Tosa brewhouse update

While I was at Lion’s Tail, I had to ask about the status of the on-site brewhouse.

A brew system was planned – and a space reserved for it – at the Tosa location, which opened in autumn 2022, but the installation was deferred to a later date for a variety of reasons.

Welch says the goal is to have some production up and running by the end of the year in Wauwatosa. 

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"To my knowledge we are the only Wisconsin brewery that has expanded production every year for nine straight years," says Wenzel.

"We're very lucky to be in the position to be possibly needing more capacity by year's end."

Stay tuned, because that sign on the wall in the taproom that directs you to the brewhouse soon may actually lead to one!

Read more about the history of the Lion’s Tail taproom building in Wauwatosa here.