After months of hard work renovating the space and installing a new patio, New Barons Brewing Cooperative has opened its taproom and brewery in the Lincoln Warehouse in Bay View.
New Barons shares the brewing system with its upstairs neighbors, Component Brewing, 2018 S. 1st St.
The taproom had a soft opening this week but is now officially open to the public and is showing the Bucks game on Friday night. On Saturday, from 4 until 8 p.m. Pina Mexican Eats food truck will be on-site.
Social distancing and masks are required.
The taproom, which has a garage door that opens onto 1st Street occupies the lower portion of the bi-level space. The brewery is in back, up a short staircase.
The space was previously occupied by Enlightened Brewing, which moved to another space in Bay View.
"We started out brewing here," CEO John Degroote told me when I visited back in May to check progress, noting that New Barons has long brewed on this site. "We've been here all along, just not in a consumer-facing capacity."
Degroote and Heidi Dalibor (pictured below) – who were the driving forces behind the four Beer Drive-Thru events that took place between late March and mid-May – will run the new facility, with Degroote serving as head brewer and Dalibor, who is board president, managing the 1,700-square-foot taproom.
There are eight taps of beer and kombucha from Brew City Kombucha, which is also located in the Lincoln Warehouse. New Barons is also selling four-packs of cans to go.
For its first few weeks, New Barons will be selling timed taproom reservation tickets for $5 and include a beer.
As noted on the New Barons Facebook page, "You don't have to purchase a ticket to visit the taproom, but that will ensure you a seat. If we are at capacity, you will be asked to wait until a table is made available."
Details and reservations are here.
New Barons Brewing Cooperative has about 260 member brewers.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
