The Fermentorium Barrel House, 6933 W. North Ave., in East Tosa, is currently building a kitchen so that it can add food to the brewery taproom.
The outpost of the Cedarburg brewery opened in May 2019.
In addition to serving as a taproom, the Wauwatosa location also houses barrels in which some beers are aged.
The brewery opened in 2016 at 7481 Hwy. 60 in Cedarburg, where that taproom has a kitchen that serves pizza, a variety of hot dogs and a range of appetizers, including wings, pretzels, mac ‘n’ cheese bites, tots, totchos (baked tater tot “nachos”) and Mexican corn bites.
The Barrel House has been hosting food trucks next to its parklet.
According to The Fermentorium’s Director of Sales and Marketing Maggie Skinner, the Tosa kitchen is expected to be up and running soon after Labor Day.
“Our goal at first is to have a similar menu to Cedarburg but with Wauwatosa suppliers,” she says. “We’ll expand after we get comfortable with food and hours."
“We’re excited to be able to serve food, though it won’t slow down us booking food trucks.”
Skinner has also been leading the charge to let the Barrel House make its nice outdoor parklet on North 70th Street permanent.
“I’ve written a letter to the city, I’ve contacted everyone I can,” she says. “I have people writing letters and joining the calls.”
The parklet – added in the early days of the Covid pandemic – was originally meant to be temporary, but The Fermentorium has given it a major upgrade and it has proved popular. Now, they're hoping it can return in April 2022.
According to Skinner, "In the first month of having our parklet space in 2020, there was a 20 percent increase in business," she wrote in a letter to the Tosa Plan Commission.
She expects to have a final answer from the City of Wauwatosa by Sept. 20.
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.
