Vintage Beer, Bronze Fonz Add Nostalgia to Milwaukee Visit

            Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- the city once famous for its beer-- has come full circle. Not only is the original Schlitz now available but Pabst, too, will soon be back on tap here with its vintage  recipe.  Full bodied brews that put later production in the 70’s to shame, those weaker looking beers that led to sales slumps and years of  brewery closings, takeovers and mergers.

The decision to bring back the two beers here, at least in token amounts, to me is emblematic of what I found on my recent visit to the Wisconsin city where I lived and worked some 40 years before.  I was delighted at how Milwaukee has embraced its history and resources, transforming its downtown area into a vibrant commercial and recreational hub. 

Talk about nostalgia. The city built a nearly three-mile RiverWalk along the Milwaukee River complete with a “bronze Fonz,” the life-sized statue of the Milwaukee-based Happy Days character that was portrayed on television by Henry Winkler.

Back to the beers.  The Schlitz original brew is served, $2 a pint, all day every day, at the Brown Bottle, north of downtown in the former Schlitz brewery complex, now largely used for offices.  Only one major brewery, MillerCoors, itself a merger,  remains in the city.   But many of the old brands, including Schlitz and Pabst are now owned by Blue Ribbon Intermediate Holdings, headquartered in Los Angeles.  It contracted with Miller-Coors to brew the original Schlitz.

By summer 2016, Blue Ribbon plans itself to microbrew its original Pabst Blue Ribbon beer right in Milwaukee, at the site of its former brewery on the west side of downtown.  The company also plans a tasting room there.

The new Pabst facility will join numerous other microbreweries already in the Milwaukee area.  On my visit, I went to the Lakefront Brewery, www.lakefrontbrewery.com, just north of the downtown in what is called the Beerline neighborhood. It is named for the fact that breweries used to have their supplies shipped there along the Milwaukee River. The area is now a vibrant urban development of condos, apartments and businesses, flanked by the start of the RiverWalk.

 Lakefront, which dates to the 80s, helped lead the way to Milwaukee also becoming a microbrew beer town. Housed in a former power building for streetcars, it is known for its fun tour, where visitors for a small fee receive four tokens, for four samples. My favorite was the eastside dark. But then amber and pumpkin were also good.

New-old Milwaukee by this time had me captivated. I remember back in the 70s toasting in Christmas at one of the breweries in an old wood paneled room with longtime Mayor Henry Maier. Want more nostalgia from beer town?

Take in like I did one of the Milwaukee food and city tours, www.MilwaukeeFoodTours.com. I went on the Old World Third Street tour along the RiverWalk.  We enjoyed authentic German food tastings at places like Mader’s restaurant, try spaetzle and sauerbraten, as well as stopping at a saloon with the longest bar east of the Mississippi, cheese tastings and a late night visit to the Fonz. The gold tinted statue is short, five feet six inches, the same as Winkler. Even in darkness, its nose was shiny from all the good luck rubbings from visitors. Arthur “the Fonz” Fonzarelli from the sit-com based in the 50s era in Milwaukee. The show ran from 1974 to 1984. A public campaign raised the $85,000 to erect the statue which was dedicated with Winkler present in 2008.

  The RiverWalk is festooned in good weather with flowers and plantings in pots, lots of benches and tables and places to sit and enjoy the river scene. The walk goes all the way down into the former warehouse area, the Third Ward, now home to a public market, chic shops and high rise apartments.

            You want even more nostalgia. Try the Pabst mansion, farther to the west near Marquette University. www.pabstmansion.com.The Flemish renaissance revival mansion was one of several owned by prominent industrialists of the late 19^th century back in the so called Gilded Age when Wisconsin Avenue was known as Grand Avenue.  The stately home, built in 1892 for the Pabst family and decorated in historical furnishings, was subsequently owned from 1908 to 1975 by the Milwaukee archdiocese. It was set for the wrecking ball to make way for a parking lot until it was saved and taken over by the not-for-profit Wisconsin Heritages, Inc.

          

  The heavy drapes, rococo Victorian insides with a fireplace in every room despite central heating (to prove Pabst could afford luxury), take you back into the 19^th century. Family portraits throughout add a haunting feeling to the rooms.

            I rounded out my brief visit to the city with a performance of Dream Girls at the Milwaukee Repertory theatre, www.milwaukeerep.com.  The city also offers a full performing arts center and numerous other theater and museum venues. Old and new Milwaukee, all so centrally located and accessible, I will have to return if only to taste that original Pabst.

For more information, see www.visitmilwaukee.org