Bay View’s Component Brewing Company will hold its first two brewery tours, and they’ll feature American Sign Language interpreters.
On Oct. 14 and Nov. 11, co-owner Jonathan Kowalske will lead each tour along with students from the UW-Milwaukee School of Education’s American Sign Language/English Interpreting Program. “They seem very happy and excited to partner up,” Kowalske says.
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Each tour admits up to 20 people and comes with a glass souvenir. Visitors will hear a brief history of Component Brewing and how it makes its beer, taste a flight of beer with notes for each recipe and a Q&A, and then participate in a social hour – all with full ASL interpretation from the students.
“Although we are aiming to attract people from the deaf community who enjoy craft beer but do not usually attend brewery tours, these tours are open to anybody and everybody of legal drinking age who wants to attend,” said events coordinator Brad Vietrogoski in a press release.
Kowalske says he’s always wanted to give tours at Component Brewing, which opened in the Lincoln Warehouse in 2018. When an expanded taproom made tours possible, he decided to use the opportunity to open up the brewing experience to more people.
The idea for ASL interpretation was inspired by Company Brewing’s weekly Deaf Trivia. “The brewing world is very collaborative, and we like to share ideas,” he says. “This isn’t something we’re the first at doing. I’m just passionate about inclusion and hoping some people will enjoy it.”
To better understand how to organize the event, Kowalske reached out to a Chicago brewery that previously held ASL-guided tours and learned that several brewing terms didn’t have a direct ASL translation. Because of this, he and the student interpreters plan to meet before the first tour to figure out the best way to communicate each idea.
So far, only two tours are scheduled at Component. The brewery is open to holding monthly or quarterly ASL-guided tours depending on public interest and feedback. “It’s important to mention that I’m not deaf, so I can’t speak for that group,” Kowalske says. “So I don’t know if this is something that they would want, but I just wanted to be able to offer it. I’m trying to make our brewery more accessible in ways that I’m able to.”
Earlier this year, Component commissioned Braille menus from Able Milwaukee as part of the brewery’s Rare Disease Day Celebration, and it’s in the process of redesigning its print menus with dyslexia-friendly fonts. The building also has a wheelchair-accessible ramp in the front.
“We’re just using our platform and small little corner of the beer world to try to make a little change for good and, hopefully, help out and make a couple of people’s day better,” Kowalske says.
Tickets are $20 and available at Component Brewing Company.
