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Visit Milwaukee launches Brew City Trail
Visit Milwaukee officially launched the Brew City Trail, presented by Miller High Life, on Tuesday, Sept. 22. It is a new regional experience celebrating the people, places, and traditions behind Milwaukee’s legendary brewing culture.
MILWAUKEE - Visit Milwaukee has launched a new Brew City Trail experience to celebrate brewing culture in Wisconsin — from the beer itself, the people behind the brew, to the history and more.
What is the Brew City Trail?
The backstory:
The Brew City Trail was announced Tuesday by Visit Milwaukee, officially opening the regional trail experience. The trail is set to be a regional experience to celebrate brewing culture in the area and connect Milwaukee through its breweries, beer gardens, historic sites, as well as brewing-focused businesses.
This new trail is setting out to link the different aspects of brewing culture into one exciting experience for the first time. Milwaukee's identity is tied so closely to brewing and the trail is expected to help draw in and connect locals and tourists alike.
Photo provided by Visit Milwaukee (Visit Milwaukee)
The trail even has something to offer for those who don't like beer or don't drink. There are historic tours offered where you can learn the history of brewing in the Milwaukee area. The business of brewing, prohibition history, landmarks such as the Pabst Mansion, information on Milwaukee's beer barons, and more are all available to explore.
Other beverages, including different hard drinks and nonalcoholic offerings, are also available at the bars, beer gardens, and breweries along the trail.
The trail is presented by Miller High Life, and other sponsors of the new Brew City Trail include Central Standard Craft Distillery, Lakefront Brewery, and Ope! Brewing Company.
Where is the Brew City Trail?
Local perspective:
The Brew City Trail spans across seven counties in Wisconsin and features over 50 participating destinations. Those counties include: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha, and Walworth.
Stops along the trail will be identified with Brew City Trail signs, so participants can mark the stops they check off along the way and know that a destination is part of the official trail. The trail doesn't just include breweries either. There are public beer gardens, beer-related attractions, tour companies, historic sites, and loading establishments.
Milwaukee as Brew City
What they're saying:
Pabst, Schlitz, Miller and Blatz helped make Milwaukee the beer capital of the world in the 1800s. The Brew City Trail is giving people a unique way to celebrate this legacy in Wisconsin.
"Milwaukee has earned the Brew City name through generations of brewing history, innovation and the people who have kept that spirit alive," said Peggy Williams-Smith, president and CEO of Visit Milwaukee. "The Brew City Trail gives us a new way to celebrate that legacy while inviting visitors and residents alike to experience Milwaukee’s brewing culture as it exists today. We’re incredibly proud of the history that put us on the map, but what makes this trail so exciting is that Milwaukee’s brewing story is still being written."
Photo courtesy of Visit Milwaukee
"We wanted to create an experience that was similar to the Bourbon Trail for those who might be familiar with that. It's really bringing together the communities and bringing together all the breweries," said Joshua Albrecht, Visit Milwaukee's chief marketing officer.
Albrecht also explained Visit Milwaukee's vision for the trail.
"Our brewing culture isn't just about drinking beer, it's about coming together as family and friends. It's about those shareable moments," he said. "We really felt that this trail would give people another reason to go out and explore and see all the great history."
Before your Brew City Trail trip
What you can do:
Visit Milwaukee reminds everyone to drink responsibly. It's important to make sure that you plan for transportation arrangements if you plan to be drinking along the Brew City Trail.
Many of the stops along the Brew City Trail are walkable from one to the other. But for the ones that aren't, Milwaukee offers public transportation from the MCTS buses and the CONNECT Bus Rapid Transit Line, which runs throughout downtown Milwaukee and the rest of the county.
Milwaukee also has the Hop Streetcar that connects the city's most popular neighborhoods and attractions along a 2-mile route.
You can download the Umo mobile app to get information to plan your route in advance and get real-time public transit information. You can also pay for fares from the app, directly on your phone.
Other options for transportation include Milwaukee's taxi service, zTrip, which doesn't use surge pricing.
The Source: Information for this article comes from Visit Milwaukee's website on the Brew City Trail, a press release on the trail from Visit Milwaukee, as well as a Fox 6 interview with spokespeople from Visit Milwaukee. This story was written from Eden Prairie, Minnesota.