Welcome to Food/Drink Week at Milwaukee Record, brought to you by Woodman’s Markets. From May 11 through May 18, belly up and enjoy adventurous, odd, and elaborate coverage of all things edible and drinkable in Milwaukee and beyond.
Milwaukee is blessed to have an endless number of bars, breweries, restaurants, beer gardens, and distilleries where folks are able to enjoy an adult beverage. However, despite that astounding abundance of such places, it’s possible you might occasionally tire of drinking at these traditional settings.
Well, the city is also home to a few…let’s say unconventional spots that defy expectations by serving beer, spirits, wine, and other alcoholic libations. Should you ever want to embark on something of an “Unconventional Bar Crawl” in Milwaukee, here are some places you can visit. And of course, please drink responsibly and don’t drink and drive.
Barber Shops
If one were planning an unconventional Milwaukee pub crawl, might we suggest starting with a straight razor shave at one of the city’s fine barber shops? Granted, you can’t just wander into a barber shop, slap a 20 on the counter, and order a beer like some sort of hairy boozehound. But a handful of local spots do offer a complimentary beer with a scheduled appointment, which means that, technically your pub crawl can begin with a hot towel and a neck shave. We recently enjoyed a crisp can of Pabst Blue Ribbon courtesy of Jordanne, my Blue Ribbon-worthy barber at Golden Hare Barbershop in Bay View. We left with a cleaner neckline, our classic “Rachel Maddow” haircut, and the smug confidence of someone who successfully turned personal grooming into day drinking.
Wheel & Sprocket Bay View
Next stop on our hypothetically unconventional pub crawl: Wheel & Sprocket Bay View, a full-service bike shop where you can enjoy locally made craft beer while your bike gets fixed, or while you shop for a new one and lie to yourself about how often you’ll ride it. Browse the beautiful bikes. Admire the accessories. Briefly imagine yourself as a serious road cyclist before remembering that, in full bike shorts and jersey mode, you might look less like Tour de France and more like a stuffed sausage during Tour de Franzia. Still, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon sipping a beer while professionals make your bike safer.
Lion’s Tooth
Just down the road from Wheel & Sprocket is another Bay View retailer you maybe didn’t realize was a liquor license holder. Yes, in addition to being one of the city’s best independent bookstores and an ardent supporter of area authors, Lion’s Tooth also has a small-but-solid selection of beer (mostly local and regional craft options), hard seltzer, hard kombucha, and even a few bottles of wine to sip on as your browse their shelves or attend one of their book clubs. How charmingly Milwaukee!
Speaking of both wine and book clubs, Lion’s Tooth partners with Milwaukee Wine Academy on a Wine Book Club that takes place at the store the fourth Thursday of each month. Being able to shop AND drink locally at the same time is just one more reason supporting your neighborhood bookstore will always be better than buying on Amazon.
Groppi’s Food Market
Why line the pockets of Jeff Bezos by making an unconventional stop at a Whole Foods in-store bar, which, yes, still exists, when you could instead crawl your way to Louie’s Coop, the humble little bar tucked inside Groppi’s Food Market, one of Milwaukee’s oldest grocery stores? Groppi’s has everything you want in bar atmosphere, providing the pleasure of drinking in a wine catacomb wedged between a jumbo shrimp counter and a Snapple cooler. Amazon can take their Whole Foods and shove it. We’ll take the grocery store where ordering a beer doesn’t somehow help launch a pop star into space.
Milwaukee Art Museum (or another museum)
We’re not sure how Milwaukee compares to other cities in this department, but we’re home to an impressive number of places where you can get some culture and catch a buzz simultaneously. Beyond Milwaukee Art Museum’s recurring MAM After Dark series and its annual Lakefront Festival Of Art event (both of which incorporate beer, wine, and spirits into the mix), the world class museum’s cafe also offers drink options in the form of beer and “seasonal cocktails” for those who wish to enjoy a refreshment before or after taking in MAM’s stunning and sprawling collection. And in addition to Milwaukee Art Museum, we know you can also procure drinks at Var Gallery and Hawthorn Contemporary, both located in Walker’s Point.
Mitchell Park Domes
Yep, if you’re 21 or older, you can totally buy a beer at the Domes. Not only that, you can crack open said beer in the Domes atrium and drink said beer while you wander the Domes proper looking at flowers, cacti, and those doves that live in the Desert Dome. The cooler is stocked with 16-ounce cans of Miller Lite, Modelo, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Lakefront Brewery brews, and more.
There’s also non-alcoholic refreshments like water, soda, Gatorade, and pouches of Capri-Sun (hell yeah), but the fact that you can buy a beer at the Domes—and the fact that you would want to buy a beer at the Domes—has always struck us as funny. And great. So what does it feel like to enjoy a cold one while frittering away an hour amongst thousands of trees, thousands of plants, and, depending on the time of year, a bunch of model trains? It feels kind of like THIS.
Milwaukee County Zoo
Last but certainly not least, we come to another iconic Milwaukee tourist attraction (and somewhat unexpected place to drink). Adding to its impressive menagerie of wildlife from all over the world, the Milwaukee County Zoo also has a respectable collection of beer and other alcohol-incorporating concessions. The Bear Garden stand isn’t just a clever animal pun, it’s a place where weary moms, frustrated dads, and other adult visitors can take the edge off with canned and draft selections from both local and macro breweries like Lakefront, Miller, Lion’s Tail, Milwaukee Brewing, Eagle Park, Vizzy hard seltzer, and Modelo.
Elsewhere on the grounds, you’ll encounter the occasional Leinie Lodge satellite container, which offer a variety of Leinenkugel’s options, as well as cans from many of the breweries mentioned above as well as Blue Moon, Coors, Terrapin, and more. If there’s another place in Milwaukee where you can enjoy some beers while also looking at some red pandas, we’re not aware of it.
