Amherst, Wisconsin-based Central Waters Brewing announced on Twitter Sunday that it will be taking over the closed Pabst pilot facility in downtown Milwaukee, converting the space into its own pilot brewery and taproom.
Pabst shut down the Captain Pabst Pilot House in December 2020 after three years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Of all the places that we’ve looked at over the years, this is by far the one that spoke to us most,” Anello Mollica, Central Waters’ co-owner, told Brewbound. “It’s a beautiful historic building built in 1872; a former church turned into a restaurant turned into a brewery over centuries.
“And here it is on the original Pabst brewing grounds and original taps facility, and arguably one of the most famous brewing cities in the world,” he continued. “It’s just an opportunity we could not pass up.”
Pabst originally converted the Methodist church into a brewery and restaurant around 1900 and used the space for employee training, brewery tours, and live music events until it shut down in 1996. The company re-opened the space in spring 2017.
“It’s a sad day for me, my team and Pabst lovers here in Milwaukee,” Adam Powers, the then-general manager of the location, told OnMilwaukee when announcing the pilot house’s closing. “But it’s my sincere hope that once we move beyond the pandemic, that someone with a love of Milwaukee brewing history will work to make this facility a thriving, viable business moving forward.”
Mollica said he and his team at Central Waters are those individuals.
“Milwaukee’s my personal hometown. So it’s such an honor to be able to come back to the town that I was born and raised in, in a facility that was the beer that my dad drank,” he said. “I think [Pabst knows] that not only do we have a good chance of being successful there, but that we’re going to treat the place with the integrity that it deserves.”
Central Waters was founded in Junction City in 1998 by Mike McElwain and Jerome Ebel. Mollica and his longtime friend Paul Graham worked together at the brewery, before becoming co-owners in the early 2000s.
“We’re kind of grandpas of the industry these days,” Mollica joked. “We’ve got a very good and loyal following of beer drinkers here.”
Mollica said he and Graham have been looking for a secondary location for about two years, but weren’t in a rush, citing Wisconsin’s limitation on how many breweries companies are allowed to have in the state.
“Because we can only have one more, we’ve been pretty selective about the locations that we’ve looked at,” Mollica said.
When Pabst reached out early this year asking if Central Waters would like to look at the historic space in one of the brewery’s No. 1 markets, Mollica and Graham couldn’t resist.
When Pabst vacated the space, it left the majority of their equipment, including the set up of a 10-barrel brewhouse on the first floor with the capacity to brew 4,000 to 5,000 barrels a year, according to Mollica. Central Waters will use the space to make exclusive Milwaukee-only beers, and will not produce any of their flagships.
“It creates another playground for our entire staff to make styles that we’re not making in Amherst,” Mollica said. “On top of that, part of the draw to a place like this is the ability to produce something that is only available here, so you have to come here to get it.
“One of the things that Central Waters is known for is our ability to be innovative,” he added. “We started barrel-aging beer back in 2001. And we’ve grown to be one of the leaders in that category. And we’ve continued to do that: continuing to do new styles and creating things on our own.”
Mollica believes the new space will allow Central Waters to continue pushing the boundaries of new products.
The location, which also features an indoor and outdoor taproom and a full kitchen, will serve Central Waters’ current line-up of beers, which will be produced at its original Amherst location.
Mollica is cautiously aiming to open the new taproom by late summer or early fall of this year, but he knows the process will be slow. The location is a registered historical building on the city, state and federal level, so any changes must be approved by the National Park Service. Mollica said the owner of the building — Blue Ribbon Management — told him to budget 60 days to get approval for any changes submitted.
Once the location finally opens, Mollica projects about 1,500 barrels of production, while brewing at least once a week. Last year, Central Waters produced around 14,000 barrels at its Amherst location, Mollica said. For 2021, he’s projecting a return to its pre-pandemic levels of 15,000 barrels.