Lakefront Brewery pulls trigger on land purchase for second brewery

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photo submitted by Lakefront Brewery.

Lakefront Brewery Inc. has purchased 0.7 acres at 1890 N. Commerce St. to build a second brewing location.

Denise Lockwood

Reporter- Milwaukee Business Journal

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Lakefront Brewery Inc. paid about $1.2 million for a 0.7-acre parcel at 1890 N. Commerce St., adjacent to its current location, for an expansion that likely will happen over the next two to four years, said brewery owner Russ Klisch.

Lakefront makes craft beers and operates a fish fry and restaurant on North Commerce Street on the weekends at the Milwaukee facility.

"We have no current funding for the project," Klisch said. "We just have the stake in the ground. We still have to figure out how to earn the money first before we go out to build it."

Klisch plans to relocate Lakefront's packaging lines and fermentation tanks to the 20,000-23,000-square-foot building. He's keeping the brew house at 1872 N. Commerce St. along with the existing fermentation tanks, and then would use the free space for its barrel aging.

The second brewing facility would also mean hiring about 40 more people for full-time jobs over the next several years. Klisch is also expanding his cold storage/distribution warehouse at 218 E. Keefe Ave. in Milwaukee.

Lakefront had considered acquiring land along Canal Street in the Menomonee Valley for a new brewery, but dropped those plans after determining the economics didn't work out.

Reporter Denise Lockwood covers manufacturing for the Milwaukee Business Journal.