Minocqua Brewing Company

No Longer In Business

Randomly drove by so I stopped in. Big place, and only the downstairs portion was open. It was fairly crowded. Bartender was friendly, but, the other servers seemed pretty inept and so the bartender ended up being massively overworked. And someone who looked like a manager only appeared for a few seconds. Bad staffing and training it looks like. 8 beers on tap. I tried 7 due to the odd flight choices (7 or 8). I was gonna save a couple bucks by asking for a taste of the 8th beer and then the bartender got slammed. Beer quality was good across the board. Nothing very exciting, but good execution and no flaws. Beer and food a little pricy. Cheese curds were excellent. Overall nice stop but it's a long way from everywhere.

The ambiance is nice and service is good. The food is very good and the beer is decent.

I showed up not expecting much and came away impressed. If you have decided to try this place or avoid it, I don’t think this review will change your mind either way. Their red ale as well as the vanilla porter were drinkable and the food good. So that leaves the wait staff, our server was ok, but lacked knowledge of the beer they were serving and I really don’t like it when the server sticks their arm in front of my face while I am eating. Is it too much to ask that the serve the person next to me behind my back?

Visited MBC on a buddy’s wedding weekend in Minocqua. I was pretty excited to try the only brewpub in town. Showed up at 5:15 to peek in and check the place out and there were maybe a total of 8 guests between the upstairs bar/lounge and downstairs restaurant/bar. Came back 2 hours later for dinner and beers and the place was jammed. While waiting for our table we went to the upstairs bar to get some beers. They had 7 beers listed- 6 year-rounders and a Brewmaster’s Special- and only 4 were currently available: the Wild Bill Wild Rice Lager, Red Ale, Whitey’s Wheat, and Brown Ale. My buddy tried to order the Porter, MPA, and Brewmaster’s Special in order before the guy finally told him everything else is available. Explanation: "Busiest time of year". Our (unsaid) response: be prepared, and don’t brew the same amount you do in January. Anyway, once we got seated in the beer garden the setting is very nice and so was the waitress. The food was pretty good and the 6 of us were happy all around with our choices. The atmosphere overall is nice- wood paneled, homey, back windows overlooking lake and we had the best table in the beer garden (i.e. fenced-in patio). Lots of families here. I really would have liked to try the other 3 beers- they could have at the very least put out a sign or erased them from the chalkboard.

a couple tables full of kids took away from the ambiance a bit. And the inside of the building is nothing special. The food was pretty decent. a bit pricey for what you’re getting. worth stopping by if in minocqua. the brewmasters special beers seem to be pretty solid.

the pale ale is some of the best you can get. Great group of owners - great group of beers. JOIN THE MUG CLUB

Service & the fire killed this place before and service will kill it again. Had a very poor experience (July 2007). Hostess was rude and unapologetic for forgetting to seat my family in the dining area. After being seated, no waitstaff came to take our order after 10 minutes sitting...two service failures in a row, so we left. The brewpub was not busy by any means. During our hour wait, my crew had a chance to sample some of their brews. Clean bar, but nothing special. Had some appetizers that were satisfactory. This place should go out of business, unless it can get its act in order to properly serve customers with respect, responsiveness, reliability, assurance, and deliver a quality brew product. I had high hopes with this place under new management, but will not go in for another 6 months or so to see if my words of wisdom set in with the brewmaster when I left...You make a good brew, but if you do not have a decent service along with this you won’t last long.

Re-rate: The beer is much better than I remember in the past and the food is very good if not exceptional. I ate (and drank) here 3 times during my recent vacation and sampled all the beers. They even had Rogue as the guest beer. Service still seems to be an issue here, 2 out of the 3 times we visited it was fine. The other was terrible and began with the host not giving us a high chair for our child and then arguing with me that I asked him in the first place. Needless to say, I have mixed emotions. This business could do very well here.

Catching fire was the best thing that ever happened to this place. Crummy beer and astonishingly rude service are typically not part of a successful hospitality business model. Plentiful customer turnover from tourism was all that kept this place afloat. I hear they’re trying to re-open but if they don’t good riddance.

EDIT: Re-opened under new ownership and management. Under those circumstances, I’m willing to give them another try if I’m nearby.