GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – A new book is documenting the history of beer and breweries in the Green Bay area.
“When people think of Wisconsin, sterotypically, what do you say? Beer, brats, and cheese,” said author Cameron Teske.
If you’re from Wisconsin, you’ve been born with an inherent connection to beer. But why? Beer has been a staple in the Wisconsin culture since Germans first began settling the area well over a century ago. A new book is diving into how and why that relationship has become so closely intertwined.
“They brought their craft from their homeland to Wisconsin, and a lot of the Germans really popularized that brewing in Wisconsin and Green Bay, and that’s really how beer came to Wisconsin,” Teske said. “The Reinheitsgebot is the traditional German law for pure brewing with basic ingredients of beer. That’s what it was historically. Now the current brewers are really trying to be creative in trying to make a name for themselves in terms of a unique beer…The creativity, I think, is a little bit deeper now than it was 200 years ago.”
Teske was approached by editors from the History Press and Arcadia Publishing to put the book together. The companies are working on a history of beer series in communities across the country, with publications already made about beers in Detroit and South Carolina.
“I had written an article on the current breweries of Green Bay giving people a little bit of a virtual tour and and talking about how great the local craft beer scene is,” Teske told the WTAQ Morning News with Matt and Earl. “They were looking for entering the Wisconsin market, and Green Bay has a really great beer history story. So through luck of the draw, they came across what I had previously written and I had a passion for beer, so here we are.”
Like many Wisconsinites, Teske could recall his first beer.
“It would have been in college, and we drank a lot of Coors Light playing beer pong,” he said.
But unlike many others, he can also name and share all of the details about Green Bay’s first breweries.
“The very first brewery was with Blesch Brewery. That opened in 1851. He was definitely the first. Rahr Brewery is probably the most well known and was around the longest. They were around for over 100 years,” Teske said. “They probably have the biggest presence in the Green Bay beer history. They probably have some of the most unique stories.”
Even when Wisconsinites think of major breweries, the mind immediately goes to a larger and more recognizable lakefront town. Milwaukee is home to the big names like Miller and Pabst. But Teske says Green Bay has a huge local following, serving as underdogs without the size or national notoriety of Milwaukee.
Another piece of the hop-filled puzzle is home brewing.
“Home brewing is really a proud hobby. There are some great home brewers in the Green Bay area. The Green Bay Rackers is the name of their home brewing club…They have a competition they like to showcase all the creative things that they’re putting into their beers,” Teske said. “The whole thing with beer is camaraderie. Whether you’re out drinking with your buddies or you want to brew your own beer and and show to family or friends or whatever, that’s really where the home growing is a very prominent part of the culture.”
And that camaraderie spills over into the business side of things as well, especially on the local level. After all, many craft breweries are simply an expansion of successful home-brewers.
“Badger State, Copper State, Stillmank – they’re in competition with one another, obviously they’re trying to sell their beer. But they’re on the same team. They want to make Green Bay a craft beer market and they want to draw people there,” Teske said. “If they run into something that they’re not quite sure about or they run out of product, they’re very eager to call each other up and ask for help or ask for advice or just build each other up. And they’re very eager to then reciprocate that help. So it’s a great community that we have here in the Green Bay area.”
For anyone trying to make the rounds, Teske argues that it’s ‘definitely doable’ to get out and see all of Green Bay’s breweries in a day and sample some of their beers in the spaces they’ve developed. For those looking to avoid spending time in gathering spaces amid the pandemic, all of them offer carryout options – whether it’s in bottles, cans, or growlers.
‘Green Bay Beer: A History of the Craft’ is set to be released on Monday, October 19th. It’s available for online pre-order now. It will be available on the shelves at local bookstores and Barnes & Noble in the coming weeks.
Comments