The city of Wausau is becoming a regional brewing center thanks to a big expansion by a local brew pub onto an old brownfield site.
A German brass band and 300 people were at the dedication of the new Bull Falls Brewery, and co-owner Don Zamzow led the crowd in a Bavarian toast. For Zamzow, it's been an unlikely journey. “Seven years ago, I didn't even think we'd be having a brewery at all,” says Zamzow.
Back then, the brownfield property was littered with dozens of gas and oil storage tanks which had leached into the ground. After pressure from the neighborhood, the city of Wausau worked with the Department of Natural Resources to clean up the site, and then provided a loan and infrastructure work for the small pub.
Don Zamzow's brother Mike was a basement hobby brewer at the time; with the $2.5 million 8,000-square-foot addition, his beer will now be canned and sold all across north central Wisconsin. “One day’s brew would be almost 825 cases,” says Zamzow. “So we're going to be able to put out a lot of cases of beer.”
Mike Zamzow says craft breweries are succeeding because they offer something that the big breweries can't. “Those products are just pumped out and they're pasteurized so they can sit around in the warm and survive,” says Zamzow. “Our beers are not pasteurized, and that's a good thing. Our beers need to be kept cold because they are like food.”
Craft breweries like Bull Falls have been expanding nationally at a rate of more than 10 percent each year.
