Marquette Unversity student-run Blue & Gold Brewing LLC is releasing its second beer – this one named in honor of the now-demolished McCormick Hall dorm building that once stood at 16th and Wisconsin – on Thursday, Feb. 8 at partner breweries Good City, Broken Bat and Gathering Place Brewing (each of which has a Marquette alum among its owners).
The 5 percent ABV cream ale is called The Beer Carn, which was the nickname for the 12-story cylindrical McCormick Hall – designed by architects Brielmaier, Sherer and Sherer – which opened in 1968 and was torn down in 2019 to make way for The Commons residence hall.
McCormick was home to more than 36,000 freshmen at Marquette during its lifespan.
The beer – brewed with Michigan-grown Chinook hops – is being released in time for National Marquette Day, celebrated on Saturday, Feb. 10. It is expected to arrive at retail on Feb. 9 and will be available at Fiserv Forum when Marquette men’s basketball team faces St. John’s on the 10th.
“We decided to honor McCormick Hall in a beer not only because of its nickname and shape, but because of its influence on Marquette University history,” said Sarah Richardson, Blue & Gold Brewing spokesperson.
“We wanted to continue the legacy by giving it a new form of life within the Marquette community – beer.”
Blue & Gold Brewing, which was begun in 2022, released its first beer, ‘77 Golden Ale, for National Marquette Day last year. Later in the year, it released a series of coffees in partnership with Stone Creek.
This students working on this year’s beer release were D’Angelo Alverado, Lisa Gandolfi and Owen Krappman of the College of Business Administration, Sarah Richardson and Stella Quinlan of the Diederich College of Communication.
Blue & Gold students work on all aspects of each project, including market research, finance, product development, packaging, distribution, marketing and more.
Proceeds from the sales of the products is split between Blue & Gold and the industry partners and proceeds help fund the student-run program.
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.
