My neighbor is a craft-beer enthusiast who likes to take drives to brewpubs and microbreweries around the Midwest. He's turned me on to a number of brewpubs over the past few years. He likes to go to Milwaukee as he's a big Brewers fan and I was telling him that I was going to the city to call on a couple three accounts last fall. My neighbor told me of a place that I really needed to check out called Eagle Park Brewing Company. After meeting with an account in the afternoon, I sought out Eagle Park Brewing Co. for an early dinner and a few beers.
Jackson "Jack" Borgardt and his older brother, Max, were musicians living in their parents home in the Milwaukee area. Once Jack reached legal drinking age (which, in Wisconsin, could be 16 in most families, but 21 legally), Max and he started to brew their own beers in the family garage. Their parents were supportive of their budding musical career - the brothers formed a band by the name of Eagle Trace along with their younger brother, Cass - and they were equally supportive of the home brewing hobby the brothers developed.
The first beer the brothers brewed was an India Brown Ale that they liked immensely. After the success of their first small-batch brew, the brothers were as hooked on brewing their own beer as they were with their music.
Like most home brewers who are proud of their beers, the Borgardt brothers had a number of their friends try their unique brews. One friend, Jake Schinker convinced the brothers to do their own micro-brewery and the brothers made him partner in the venture. Starting the brewery out of their parents garage in 2015, the trio named their new nanobrewery Eagle Park Brewing Co.
The trio needed to get out of their parents garage to expand their brewery and they found a spot on the second floor in the Lincoln Warehouse, a former warehouse built in 1928 that was refurbished to house businesses as diverse as recording studios, hair salons, a distillery, and boutique shops. The Borgardt brothers and Stinker started out with a single brewing vessel and a small tap room. They brewed 10 different styles of craft brews and almost immediately they realized they were outgrowing their space in the old warehouse.
Like Minds Brewery opened a restaurant/tap room/seven-barrel brewing operation in 2016. After a partner left in 2017, the operation just became a craft brewery/tap room. It was in late 2017 when the owner of Like Minds decided that he needed to find another spot for his operation and was looking at relocating to his hometown of Chicago. Like Minds closed in December of 2017 and put the building up for sale.
The Borgardt brothers and Schinker immediately jumped on the property in early 2018. It gave them a larger space to brew more beers and room for a canning facility. The kitchen was intact (Schinker joked that the only thing they had to buy was a can opener) and the group hired Nathan Heck to run their kitchen. And true to the brothers musical roots, they added a small live performance area in the space. Eagle Park Brewing Company relocated to their new location in April of last year.
That new location is at the corner of E. Hamilton and N. Marshall just north of downtown Milwaukee. (see map) There's a parking lot on the north side of the building, but there is also parking along Marshall if needed.
Inside the small brewery was an open taproom with a skylight that allowed natural light to filter in during the day. A number of tables were placed in the middle of the room with a small conversation area in the corner that could be taken out when live music was played. Dark gray walls featured a flat screen television surrounded with a number of music posters. The original floor still had oil stains from back when it was a garage for the owners of the tannery that originally occupied the space years ago. Exposed duct work and brick walls gave the space a sort of industrial vibe.
The brewing area was in the back of the building down a long hallway. It was tough to see how big the brewery was, but the smell of hops and grains were prevalent in the air. A small window underneath a sign that said, "Order Here" was the portal into the brewery. Cans of Eagle Park beers were in coolers near the window.
I ended up sitting at the bar in the corner of the taproom. A door to the outdoors beer patio was off to the side. One of the bartenders, Sarah, came up to great me. The beer menu was on a flat screen television mounted to the wall behind the bar. The selections rotated two or three times on the screen with the beers they were serving that day.
Kind of a hip urban millennial kind of place, Eagle Park falls in line with their owners - who are musicians - by playing vinyl albums on their sound system behind the bar. They played the first side of Abraxas by Santana, but when someone put on Make It Big by Wham!, the selection was roundly booed down by the crowd that was in there. That record was quickly taken off the turntable and replaced by Tattoo You by the Rolling Stones. It was a much better choice in my opinion.
Eagle Park has a number of seasonal brews and at this time they had over a dozen beers available on tap. You can get full pints for generally $7.00, half-pints for $4.00, or you can get a trio of half-pints for $10.00. That's what I ended up doing and I went with the Goon Juice New England IPA, the Loop Station Golden Ale, and the Demon Haze New England IPA that didn't have as much alcohol content as the Goon Juice. Out of the three I liked the Goon Juice the best - I wasn't too enamored with the Loop Station Golden Ale.
They do have a limited food menu at Eagle Park with appetizers, burgers and a handful of sandwiches. The burgers consist of a combination of ground chuck and short rib beef, smashed during the cooking process. They also had a smoked brisket sandwich, a smoked pulled pork sandwich, a fried chicken breast with a buffalo curry sauce, and a grilled cheese sandwich made with Hook's Cheese Company's five-year old cheddar.
I ended up going with the Smashburger - a 1/3 pound patty topped with in-house cured bacon, Hook’s aged American cheese, mixed pickles, pickled mustard seeds, lettuce, tomato, caramelized onions, and finished with a garlic mayo. Eagle Park's karate chopped fries - basically hand-cut fries mixed with a Cotija cheese, pickled mustard seed and herbs - came on the side, but I asked Sarah if I could get a side salad instead.
The burger was served along side the salad in a wax paper lined oblong tray. The fringes of the burger had that signature flat-grilled crust and it came on a toasted bun. The burger, itself, was very good - a good burger for a good burger city like Milwaukee. It was juicy and very messy - it was at least a four napkin burger - with all the toppings on it. But the toppings didn't mask the overall taste of the ground chuck/short rib beef patty. It was a surprisingly outstanding burger.
Eagle Park Brewing Company was a good place to visit. Beer is really the focus at Eagle Park, but food is also available in terms of burgers, sandwiches and appetizers. A couple of the beers I had were good, the burger was even better, and I really liked the urban industrial atmosphere of the place along with the selection of 70's and 80's vinyl music they were playing on the stereo system. With a number of choices of small craft breweries in Milwaukee, Eagle Park may not be the biggest or the most popular, but it's definitely worthy of a visit.
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