Riverwest’s Gathering Place Brewing Company celebrates its fourth birthday with a block party outside its Vienna Avenue brewery and taproom on Saturday, Aug. 21.
The street will be closed at 811 E. Vienna Ave. from 2 to 9 p.m. as the brewery launches a series of special brews and offers from from Riley’s Good Dogs from 4 until 8 p.m.
“The support we’ve received from the community in the past four years has been incredible,” said Joe Yeado, Gathering Place’s founder/owner. “Our team is looking forward to hosting a fun day of special beer offerings and an amazing food vendor to celebrate with our community.”
Two anniversary brews – a Belgian-style quad (ABV: 10.3% IBU: 35) and a uad with grape must (ABV: 10.7% IBU: 28) – be only be available on draught at the brewery and in a mere 100 bottles of each.
Pre-sale for the bottles begins Wednesday, Aug. 18 at GatheringPlaceBrewing.com.
“Belgian-style beers tend to have flavors driven by yeast rather than by malt or hops,” says Yeado. “They can be challenging beers to make well, though we have a lot of experience working with these yeast strains. The result is the Anniversary Quad, a strong dark ale with flavors of stone fruits and fruited bread. At 10.3%, it is big and boozy and perfect to share with others.
“We're also excited to release a companion beer, the Anniversary Quad with Grape Must.”
Yeado says it’s a beer he and brewer Corey Blodgett have long wanted to make.
“The anniversary seemed like the perfect opportunity to play with this ingredient,” he says. “Must is fresh pressed grape juice that includes the skins, which provide complexity to the finished beer.
“We used Pinot Noir must from California, which was added when the beer was nearly complete and then gave the Belgian yeast plenty of time to ferment the new sugars from the grapes. The result is a marriage of beer and wine: it has deep complexity with strong fruit notes balanced by the malt backbone of the beer.”
Gathering Place will also launch a quartet of special cellared and experimental brews, including:
- 2020 The Limb Shaker - Belgian Tripel with Door County cherries
- 2019 Barrel Aged Wonderworker - Biere de Garde
- Special small batch Weizenbock
- 2020 Barrel Aged Wordsmith - Wheat Wine Ale
For more about Gathering Place Brewing, go to GatheringPlaceBrewing.com.
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.
