Copper State of the Brewery Address: 2024

And in the seventh year, they rested from their labors. Ahh…time to sit back and…oh, that doesn’t refer to us? We can’t rest just yet? I guess that even after seven years, it turns out that the brewery doesn’t run itself. It’s still kind of a kid who is just learning to do fractions and only recently cast off the training wheels on the Schwinn and still believes his teacher lives at the school...but who does read at an 8th grade level. Seven! The number of completion. The number of perfection. Lucky number seven. Aren’t we supposed to have all debts forgiven in the 7th year? Was that only a thing in Biblical times? That’s too bad. I guess we’ll keep making beer. I do know that seven is officially the “copper anniversary.” I don’t know who made that up, but it seems apropos. So we should celebrate. With beer. And words. Because Jon makes the beer, and I make the words, and both are needed for this business to succeed. Well, maybe the words aren’t needed quite as much…but they make things more fun. I like to think that aside from making good beer and good words, we also make a good team.

Every year we like to pause and remember the previous year’s accomplishments, and then make some goals and promises for the upcoming year. Some are crazy and outlandish, and some are real things we’d like to see happen. Because as it turns out, this whole business has been crazy and outlandish, and yet somehow it has been also very real. Very very real. And it is good to revisit some highlights and to dream about the future. So without further poetic waxing (I could poetically wax all day, you know, without ever waning even), here goes.

Here are some of the past year’s accomplishments:

·       Hired a great new brewer named Brett who brings some excellent experience with him, and we made sure he had good hair so that we still have the brewmasters with the finest hair of all the brewmasters in the land.

·       Added more live music events to support live local music—every Monday night we have rotating bands (as in, the bands change, they don’t spin around or anything, just to clear up any confusion about what kind of stage we have), and every Tuesday night we still have excellent jazz in the lounge or biergarten, bringing some much-needed culture to Green Bay (not that we aren’t super cultured…but you gotta admit we could use a bit more, seeing as how I just typed the word "gotta").

·       Released the best sour beer ever, and revamped the can and the name—the beer you knew and loved as the "Beermosa" was named too ubiquitously. I blame myself, but we just didn’t know how good it would be and how many people would want to drink it, so we have rebranded it so it could be un-ubiquitous—it is now “We Drink at Dawn!” and you will want to drink it every dawn.

·       Won the Hop Passport March Brewsanity contest for the state of Wisconsin! We were close to winning the region (and soon, the world) but, you know…voter fatigue. And I’m pretty sure Michigan got some dead people to vote for them.

·       Won the 1st ever Old Fashioned cocktail competition at the Resch Center, beating out 16 other bars/breweries, proving that we do, indeed, have the best Old Fashioneds in the land (and proving that we just try to do everything well, because bad things are bad).

·       Won the hiring contest by hiring all the homeschooled friends of my homeschooled children…mwahahaha. Okay, there was no official contest for that one, but having a good staff is worth its weight in old fashioneds. In general, we try hard to hire people who aren’t jerkfaces, as we love to have the best staff in all the land (because, you know, bad things are bad).

·       Released several great new beers, including the Hollow Cane Vienna Lager, St Brigid’s Irish Stout, and the Bougie Blue Sour. Our Ales Agent, Tom, works his tail off to get all these yummy beers into the hands of the worthy beer drinkers of Wisconsin, and he's looking into westward expansion.

Here are some hopes and dreams for the future of the brewery:

·       Win a GABF or CBC award for one or seven of our beers. We know we are winners in your eyes, but you’ve never given us a medal, and we kind of got used to winning things this last year, so let’s keep it going, shall we?

·       Explore expansion ideas—look into a second taproom location perhaps, and subsequently win the highly sought after “Gluttons for Punishment” award.

·       Welcome our new brewer’s twins into the world and start training them up in the ways of the brewmaster (as long as they have good hair, of course).

·       Survive the NFL draft in April and somehow feed and get beers into the hands of 850,000 of our new friends. We might have to hire all of you to do dishes that week. Also, maybe we’ll rent out our house and sleep in the brewery; that could be fun and lucrative.

·       Package more of our sour beers for those of you who like to explore the wild side of yeast.

·       Expand into the world of canning some nitro cold brew, and maybe kombucha (anyone have a fermentation-tank-sized SCOBY?)

·       Biergarten upgrades—we are exploring landscaping options, beer trailer options, firepit options, and someday I’ll get the backing for that food slide I want to install to go from the upstairs kitchen straight to your table…fast.

·       Expand our distribution footprint—we’ll finally got a coveted spot at the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison this August, so I can only assume that we shall, from there, try to take over the world, with beer as our sidekick.

·       Clothe the city of Green Bay with seven years of lost and found items (seems like half of Green Bay might be missing their eyeglasses—if you’re missing yours, they’re probably here).

·       Keep living our mission statement:

Connecting people. Creating experiences. Crafting great beer.

These seven years have flown by, and we’d like to thank you guys for all the support you’ve given us as we’ve progressed from mewling infant to tantrum-throwing toddler and into the young kid stage of life. As we look back, it has always been about the people. The beer is important, which is why we make good beer, but it’s who is gathered around drinking the beer that really makes this business what it is. We love serving you, and we love being the place that you come to gather around good food and drink. Thanks for the love, Green Bay.