The Estabrook Beer Garden, 4600 Estabrook Pkwy., will host a 105th birthday celebration for the park on Wednesday, July 21.
A 6 p.m. ceremony will include members of the County Parks Committee, Representatives of the Friends of Estabrook Park and then there will be a traditional tapping of the keg at 6:30.
A donation of $5 or more gets you free beer for the next hour.
You can also get that free beer if you buy one of 600 commemorative coins that have been stamped for the occasion.
Coins will be sold in advance online for $15 at estabrookbeergarden.com. All of the proceeds from the sale of the coins benefits Friends of Estabrook Park. Any unsold coins will be sold onsite at the event. The coins are also valid for $1 off beer for the rest of the 2021 beer garden season.
“It’s been far too long since we had a proper celebration in Estabrook Park,” said Hans Weissgerber III, who operates Estabrook Beer Garden.
While the Estabrook Beer Garden season traditionally starts with a keg tapping and free beer event like this one, that hasn’t happened in 2020 or ‘21 due to Covid-19, said Weissgerber ...
“The last time we tapped a keg and had free beer here was our 2019 Maifest. It’s really exciting to celebrate our community and the history of this great park in 2021.”
Estabrook Park was established in 1916 on land that had, from 1875 until 1911, been the site of Milwaukee Cement Company. The 83-acre park was named in honor of politician and lawyer Charles E. Estabrook.
Now the park sprawls across 125 acres and includes the beer garden, a dog park, disc golf, soccer fields, the Benjamin Church House, wooded trails and more.
There's a good history of the park here.
A fifth of the gross revenue from the beer garden goes to Milwaukee County, and Weissgerber also has partnered with the Friends of Estabrook Park to ensure that money generated by the beer garden continues to help fund trail and amenities restoration, tree and flower planting and the rebuilding of stairs.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
