This weekend brings about the 4th annual Milwaukee Coffee Festival. Sanctioned festivals aside, there’s reason to celebrate local coffee all year round, and things only seems to be getting better. Local roasters like Anodyne, Colectivo, Hawthorne, Kickapoo, and Stone Creek are pulling off great things, expanding rapidly, and have collectively helped elevate Milwaukee to a true-blue coffee town standing.
To help discuss the evolution of Milwaukee coffee that’s helping to redefine what “Brew City” means (sorry!), host Tyler Maas went to Anodyne’s Walker’s Point Roastery to meet with the business’ operations manager, Steve Kessler. They were joined by Hawthorne Coffee Roasters owner, roaster, and namesake Steve Hawthorne. Together, they talked all things coffee: how Milwaukee roasters have grown and improved, the upcoming coffee festival, whether the city is reaching a point of overcaffientation (commercially speaking), and the coffee shop on Friends for some reason.
This episode is brought to you by our friends at Vander Mill, a Michigan-based cider company that recently hit Wisconsin soil. It’s also sponsored by Tommy, a “bluegrass opry” that’s coming to Marcus Center’s Wilson Theater at Vogel Hall on Wednesday, November 9. Music in this episode comes courtesy of Piles (“Blue Glue”) and Vincent VanGREAT (“To The Stars”). Subscribe to On The Record via iTunes or Stitcher (for free!).