Barely a week after Ope! Brewing opened in West Allis, bringing that city's craft brewery count up to three, nearby Perspective Brewing also swung open its doors at 7508 W. Greenfield Ave., making it four!
We caught up with one of the four owners – Dan Naus, who is director of brewery operations – to ask about the folks behind Perspective, the brewery and taproom and, of course, the beer.
OnMilwaukee: Who are the owners of Perspective and what are their backgrounds?
Dan Naus: Owners are (me) and wife Taryn Naus, along with Ben and his wife Ashley. I am a soon-to-be-former high school science teacher who attended Regis University (in Denver) for their craft brewing certification program and completed an immersion course at Colorado Boy Brewery in Ridgeway, Colorado. I am in charge of front of house tasks as the director of brewery operations.
Taryn is a craft beer lover, registered nurse and professional photographer who will be handling our social media and marketing. Ben is also a soon-to-be-former high school science teacher who is an award winning homebrewer of 10 years and also completed the immersion course with Dan at Colorado Boy. He will be our head brewer.
Ashley, is also a beer loving nurse, who has been learning alongside Ben for many years of home brewing and will be assisting and doing some brewing of her own in the brewhouse. We’ve already hired our younger brother, Steve, and his fiance, Laurel, to help us as our lead bartenders.
When did you officially open?
We officially opened our doors to the public Saturday June 4th, after a couple private events with close family and friends the weekend before.
Tell us about the brewhouse.
We have a 7-barrel system that includes a split 3.5-barrel brewhouse from Psycho Brew in Michigan, five 7-barrel fermenters from ProBrew in Waukesha, and three 1-barrels fermenters from Spike Brewing in Milwaukee.
How many beers do you have on tap at the moment, will there be more?
This past weekend we had six beers on tap and one non-alcoholic hop tea option. Our goal is to hit 12 taps of beer and hard seltzers, and at least two non-alcoholic options on tap by the end of summer.
Which styles of beer do you brew?
We plan to offer a diverse tap menu that offers something for everyone. We are going to offer everything from sours to stouts and lagers to IPAs. We’ll definitely develop some staples, but you can expect to see a wide variety of rotating taps as well.
Will there be food in the taproom?
Beginning sometime in July, we plan on serving small pizzas and packaged snacks in the brewery, and our five-year plan includes a permanent food truck in our future back patio.
Although we will be serving pizzas, we welcome people to bring in their own food as well, especially from all of the great local options in the area around us!
How has the response been so far from the community?
The response from the community has been overwhelming! We knew we already had amazing support from family and friends, but the amount of love that was shown by the people of West Allis and surrounding community has been truly humbling.
We’ve only been open two days, but already have had several repeat customers. It was all of our first times working in the service industry, so we were all a bit nervous for opening to the public, but everyone we met was so encouraging and supportive, it left no doubt in our minds that we picked the right home for our family business.
Brewing in West Allis is having quite a moment, do you feel a part of that? Have the other breweries and area beer lovers been welcoming?
We are so fired up to be a part of the craft beer boom in West Allis! In a matter of a week, West Allis doubled its number of breweries. Westallion paved the way years ago, and Layman opened up after them, and then Ope! had their grand opening a week before ours.
Each of them stopped by to have a celebratory beer with us this past weekend! One of the things we were so very much looking forward to as brewery owners was joining this tight knit community. We love how each brewery wants the other to succeed. Beyond the breweries, we’ve also had support and been able to build relationships with many other local businesses, as well.
Why did you choose the name? Does it have a special meaning?
The name, Perspective Brewing Company stemmed from a brainstorming session we had trying to come up with a word that had meaning for all four of us. We threw out tons of ideas until we landed on perspective.
The word “perspective” is defined as a particular attitude toward, or way, of regarding something; a point of view. It was the one word that connected with all of us.
The reason we decided to chase this dream is our collective perspective that life is too short to not do what makes us happy – and what could be better than owning a craft brewery that combines our love for beer, meeting new people, and building our own business.
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.
