By OnMilwaukee Staff Writers   Published Feb 10, 2010 at 3:11 PM

"Bar Month" at OnMilwaukee.com is back for another round! The whole month of February, we're serving up intoxicatingly fun articles on bars and clubs -- including guides, the latest trends, rapid bar reviews and more. Grab a designated driver and dive in!

When it comes to Milwaukee's busiest bars, a leading candidate wouldn't really be an obvious choice.

With more than 1.5 million people attending more than 150 annual events, the Bradley Center does pretty big business when it comes to serving drinks.

On average, the Bradley Center's 23 concession stands go through roughly 12,000 to 13,000 bottles of beer and between 250,000 and 300,000 cups if draft beer each year. And that doesn't even begin to include the specialty cocktails and other drinks available in the arena's suites or high-end clubs.

To keep the building stocked, Bryson's crew is constantly working with distributors who make deliveries before every event.

The Bradley Center carries primarily Miller products, though a wide variety of options are available at certain stands on a space-available basis. Most of the standard concession stands offer Miller Lite and Genuine Draft on tap, while others feature Leinenkugel products.

Elsewhere in the building, customers can find expanded menus of bottled beer, spirits and even wine, depending on the location.

"There is a standard variety that we offer, depending on space," says Jennifer Bryson, director of food and beverage operations of Levy Restaurants, the Bradley Center's contracted operator. "We do have some areas that offer more brands than others."

Staffing the various stands, restaurants and individual vendor positions requires about 300 people. A big portion of that workforce is made up of volunteers from non-profits, who operate the stand and, in return, are eligible to earn between eight and 12 percent of the particular stands profits.

"The non-profit are a huge component of our staffing," says Bryson. "We utilize them as much as possible.

"It's a big building to fill and we'd never be able to do it without them."

These workers -- along with regular, paid staffers -- must undergo responsible service training, just as traditional bartenders would. Workers are taught to identify the difference between real and fake IDs as well as be able to look out for customers who may have been over-served.

Bryson says that finding such people out of a crowd of over 10,000 is significantly more difficult than doing so in a bar.

"In a bar, you typically see the same people all night," Bryson says. "Here, there are so many different places they could be and that makes it harder, for sure."

Pricing is always a concern for event patrons -- and often, a subject of complaint from many. But Bryson and her staff go to great lengths to make sure prices at the Bradley Center are comparable to those at other entertainment venues, like movie theatres, Miller Park and other arenas and stadiums in the area, region and nation.

"We spend a lot of time comparing ourselves to other venues and locations because we want our prices to be similar," Bryson says. "We are comfortable with our price points because of the work we do to make sure we're comparable."

Once the beer is sold and consumed, it stands to reason that there's a lot of leftover waste. The Bradley Center works hard at recycling those leftovers by recycling glass and plastic containers along with cardboard packaging.

"We work with Waste Management to recycle as much as possible," Bryson says.