In a deal that closed on Dec. 16, Milwaukee's Gathering Place Brewing, which has locations in Riverwest and East Tosa, bought the intellectual property and equipment of Grafton's Sahale Ale Works, 1505 Wisconsin Ave., Suite 170.
The purchase – which includes a three-barrel brew system – marks the latest in a series of announcements of brewery closings and mergers, including the closings of MobCraft on Nov. 30 and Enlightened, which will shut on Jan. 5.
Beer sales overall fell by 4.4 percent in 2023, according to the Beverage Information Group’s 2024 Industry Overview and the Brewers Association estimates that craft beer production fell 2 percent in 2024 with sales numbers mostly holding steady in the face of competition from seltzers and other beverages.
However, according to Gathering Place founder Joe Yeado, this acquisition is a different story.
"This is very much a transition," he says, for Sahale owner Matthew Hofmann, who did not respond to a request for comment. "This runs a little contrary to the narrative as of late of breweries being in trouble and looking to sell. That's not the case here.
"(Hofmann) built a really strong company, built a strong brand. I am thankful that he is entrusting that to us for the continued growth of Sahale. And he's going to work with us. He's on board with the transition, and so it's kind of all good things."
Yeado says that the customer-facing side of Sahale, which has a large patio just outside its 2,700-square-foot taproom, won't change much.
"We are keeping the brands, we're keeping the name, the signage, the logos, everything," Yeado says, noting that he's been on-site for a couple weeks now, since the sale was finalized.
"The main changes will be production. We will still brew in Grafton, but some of those beers, some of those recipes we'll make in Riverwest on our larger brewing system.
"There will be new beers that we create under the Sahale brand, but then there's also going to be their flagships and seasonals that we will make under the Sahale name and recipes."
Yeado says that Sahale – which opened in 2019, two years after Gathering Place debuted – will have a couple Gathering Place taplines and vice versa, especially since the two breweries have sort of developed in complementary ways.
"When I was thinking about things more deeply, one thing that came to mind is that these two brands are really compatible," Yeado says. "We make a lot of lagers. They make almost no lagers.
"They make a lot of fruited beers and sours, and we make almost none of those. So, as I started to think about the two companies under one umbrella and their portfolio is strong where we are weak and vice versa. So I think they fit together pretty well."
Yeado says he first learned about Sahale's availability over the summer, when he received a postcard from a mergers and acquisitions brokerage firm.
"It was kind of like, 'a brewery in your area for sale,' so I was just curious more than anything else, and so I reached out and then once I saw who it was and I got a look at the financials it started to make a lot of sense," he explains.
"Matt and his team have built a really strong company up there; a strong brand that has really resonated with the local people in Grafton and the North Shore in general."
Yeado began talking with Hofmann during the summer and, he adds, "those got more serious, and then we came to an agreement in the fall and had this transition timeline that finalized in mid-December."
At the moment, Yeado and Gathering Place's head brewer Matt Cisz have been working to get to know Sahale, its team and its customers.
"Word has kind of spread up there and it's been nice to meet regulars and get to know what they enjoy about that place and why they choose to go there."
I asked Yeado if the new capacity in Grafton means the idea of bringing brewing back to the East Tosa space – which made beer on a 1.5-barrel system when it was home to Stock House Brewing – was dead, and he said the idea was already moot.
"We are looking at the Tosa location for barrel aging and maybe doing some sour production," he says, noting that he sold the small brew system this past October. It was acquired in 2022 from Stock House when Gathering Place took over there.
"The reality is it's just too small (a space)," he adds. "In Riverwest we can make beer at one barrel at a time, or seven or 15. So it didn't make sense from a time and effort perspective. But we do want to keep doing fermentation in that space and, and we do have room there to do that."
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.
