Stevens Point Brewing Company taproom. MWC photo by Mike Leischner
STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — The Stevens Point Brewery unveiled its new taproom and gift shop on Wednesday.
The $1.1 million project adds seating for up to 99 people in two bar areas and up to 36 tap lines for beer, cider, and soda. Taproom Manager Melissa Wysocki says it also fills one of the brewery’s biggest tourist requests. “I can’t tell you how many times I had customers walk in looking for a bar or a taproom,” said Wysocki. “We’d tell them ‘Well we have an outdoor beer garden during the summer if the weather [cooperates]. But if it wasn’t, a lot of the time they wouldn’t want to stay. They’d check it out a little bit, but it wasn’t like there was a seating area for them to come and enjoy our product.”
She says having a sample or a full pint to offer tourists could mean an immediate takeaway sale to take home and some good word-of-mouth publicity for both the brewery and the city. Something that wasn’t lost on those who worked on the project over the last eight months including Matt Paulus with The Boldt Company, who served as the main contractors for the project. “This project was super-rewarding for us because it provides so much in terms of expansion into the community [for the brewery]. This allows a place for people that are local and visitors to be a part of [the community.]”
Paulus adds that the job brought the usual contractor challenges including supply-chain issues and post-pandemic costs, but the biggest one was preserving the historic nature of the building. “We took those historical contents and found what was important to the Brewery, then put a spin on it, refreshed it, brought new light to it.”
Leaders of the Brewery noted that the project went over budget, but they didn’t mind because most of the changes came from ideas that sprouted during the remodel. One of those projects involved taking old wooden beams from the building and refinishing them as a centerpiece of the taproom ceiling.
The taproom and gift shop will both be open seven days a week. Wysocki says it will be difficult to project the financial impact of the space until they have a consistent data set.
“We’re just really excited to have a space where we can tell customers to come in and enjoy the bar. I’m also excited for the community because we’ve been built on [local support] so much. We’ve connected with local businesses, they’re our neighbors- [we’ve] grown up with them, and they share and support our vision,” said Wysocki.
Comments