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More than six years after opening the Brass Tap franchise at 7808 W. Layton Ave., in Greenfield, owners Nick and April Marking sold the business to Andy Grossman and Kat Thiede in December and now the transfer of power has taken place.
In a long Facebook post Wednesday, the Markings noted their departure, saying, “We took a chance opening in a strip mall and boy did we hear about it lol. We barely survived the first year, but soon started to figure it out.”
Though they weren’t clear on what’s next, they did say that they will run “a couple independent beer gardens” this year in Wauwatosa and Whitefish Bay.
Last year, the Brass Tap ran a beer garden at the nearby 84South shopping center.
“Thank you for sticking by us through the thick and thin, from the unfortunate Brew Crew issues, to visiting us at the beer garden etc.,” they wrote.
“We can’t thank you enough! You kept us afloat during our darkest time of closing for Covid almost one year ago today, which we started our new short term delivery business, fish fry drive through ... wow what Covid brought!! Ugh We will never forget the support.”
Their post is so heartwarming that I’m just going to share it here in its entirety, but we all owe the Markings a big thanks for their contribution to supporting the local craft brewing community and we wish them the best of luck.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
