The beer – 20 taps worth – is flowing at The Explorium’s new Downtown brewpub (143 W. Saint Paul Ave.).
After a soft opening this week, owners Mike and Joan Doble cut the ribbon on their new location in the Historic Third Ward’s Pritzlaff Building at 3 p.m. Friday.
The 10-barrel brewhouse in the front corner of the spacious dining room has already kicked out 12 batches of beer under oversight by the new location’s head brewer, Ryan Burac, who has experience brewing in Arizona, North Carolina and more recently in Wisconsin at City Lights Brewing, Octopi Brewing and Molson Coors.
The brewpub makes use of several cool feature of the historic building a half-block from the Milwaukee River, including a tunnel used for offloading cargo from trains that now provides a semi-outdoor seating area that’s perfect for folks still wary of indoor dining and drinking. There’s also a standard patio in the interior courtyard of the sprawling former warehouse and industrial building.
The new Explorium’s general manager is Matt McCulloch, former owner of Bay View’s District 14 brewpub, which closed last fall. The head chef is Amanda LaLuzerne.
The Third Ward location supplements the Explorium’s original brewpub at Southridge Mall, opened in 2017.
