While Littleport Brewing in downtown Racine closed its 214 Third St. location earlier this month, social media posts say it could reopen in a new spot later this year.
Chris and Mark Flynn opened Littleport in April 2021 after years of planning.
The Flynns also own the historic 1849 D.P. Wigley mill building across the street, at 234 Wisconsin Ave., where they sell plants, essential oils, bird seed and other products. That space also houses their home brewing supply store, Hop to It.
The Flynns bought both buildings in 1998.
A Jan. 8 social media post read, "We hope to come back in some form in six to 12 months in another location, but a couple of our original investors decided they wanted their investments back in their entirety, forcing us to put our building up for sale to resolve the matter.
"We felt we were constantly improving our client base, just not quick enough to satisfy these 'investors.' Littleport Brewing Company will survive and be reincarnated with a more focused effort at a new site. We haven't been sunk, we are just in dry dock."
Then, on Tuesday morning, another post appeared with further information.
After thanking customers for turning out for the brewery's last day, this one explained the closing further and suggested that Littleport might pop back up across the street in the Wigley building, where the post notes the Flynns had originally planned to locate it.
"The original Littleport business model was designed for a tasting room, with distribution to other area bars and restaurants providing the main source of income," they wrote. "Along with post COVID lifestyles changing the bar scene, a small bout with cancer and the rising costs of owning and managing two buildings, that model became unsustainable.
"Our initial dream was to have Littleport located in our main D.P. Wigley building. That was changed when our brewery designer recommended that we use the Third Street building, as it was a more accessible presence in the downtown scene. He also recommended that we move back to the river location once we were a bit more well known. That time is now.
"We are looking at the possibility of relocating to our main building with riverfront access and views with a customer model ignoring distribution. This will allow us to make slightly smaller batches of brew, but with a more varied beer menu. If we can obtain financing, we have high hopes we will be seeing you again soon!"
When I visited in 2021, the Flynns showed me around both buildings and the D.P. Wigley building is an incredibly evocative space – with original mill equipment, including a belt-driven grain elevator – and would be a great home for the brewery, though the Third Street site was also a nice old cream city brick stable building.
Here's hoping Littleport comes back. When it opened in 2021 it was just up the street from Racine Brewing Co. but that business announced its closing not long afterward.
Last summer, Mount Pleasant's 1 of Us Brewing, which also opened in 2021, closed.
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.
