*This is the eighty-eighth post in an on-going chronicle dubbed the Great Wisconsin Brewery Tour. Follow the journey here.*
Like Mind Brewing
823 E Hamilton St
Milwaukee, WI, 53202
(414) 239-8587
Visit date: 01/06/17
Quick Hits:
1) How many different beers?
9 on tap, up to 11.
2) How long operational?
Around 3 years brewing, Milwaukee location opened October 2016.
3) Why? (here, this, etc)
Opportunity for the space downtown was hard to pass up. Chef and brewer wanted to collaborate.
4) Distribution?
Kegs in Milwaukee, bottles in Milwaukee and Chicago.
5) What sets you apart?
The house-cultivated Brettanomyces yeast.
6) How did you get your name?
The founders have different tastes and ideas but came together for a singular purpose.
Like Minds Brewing in Milwaukee. All photos by Joe Powell.
The Lower East Side of Milwaukee is a maze of 1-way and dead-end streets that take you up and down the lake bluffs on the east border and the river on the west border. Hiding down one of these sleepy byways is a new brewery and restaurant. They’ve only had their doors open three months, but they have years of history behind them.
Opened by a local entrepreneur and a James Beard Award-winning chef, Like Minds Brewing is a mix between new-age Americana restaurant and local Milwaukee watering hole.
But it almost never was: co-founder Justin Aprahamian also owns renowned local restaurant Sanford. Thanks to Wisconsin’s antiquated Tied House law, he was initially forbidden from opening a brewery. In fact, Like Minds’ tribulations were the inspiration behind our own article about this (slowly changing) law. Instead, Like Minds started up operation just over the Illinois border and waited.
Luckily, legal changes allowed Like Minds Brewing to set up shop in their hometown of Milwaukee, and the beer-fruits are ripening.
DK-67 APA
Very juicy, like biting into a slightly hoppy beer-fruit.
Exiled Saison
Fantastic; balanced malt-forward taste with bite.
Amarillo Brillo Sour
Starts grapefruit-tart, then eases a mild sour tinge in afterwards.
Archimedes IPA
A slight hop base but leaves you with sweet candy notes.
Brett IPA
Nosey but sweet. Smoother than expected.
Nighthawks Oatmeal Stout
Chocolate, coffee, caramel, vanilla, cream: this beer has got it all.
With a brewery co-founded by a chef, you had to have guessed they’d have some amazing food. The butterburger simply melted in my mouth, and their ketchup is made with spent brewing ingredients. The double chocolate chip cookie and ice cream was decadent and paired perfectly with our Nighthawks.
Crafting beers with a chef’s mentality allows Like Minds to “put a culinary spin on beer.” Unique tastes and ingredients combined in unexpected ways help define their thoughtful beers. Like Minds’ food and beer pair as well as, well, Milwaukee and beer.
