Barrel 41’s Opening Set

At 3 pm on Monday, November 19, Barrel 41 Brewing in Neenah will open to the public for the first time.

The Beer
Winnebago County’s newest brewery will get underway with five of its own beers on tap. Here's Nate Sharpless, head brewer and co-owner of Barrel 41, with the brewery’s starting lineup...

White Mustang
“That's my Saison. It’s 7.2% ABV, but it’s a pretty simple beer actually. We used the Belle Saison yeast which plays really well with the temperature we fermented at. It brings out all those awesome characters that people love in a saison. I think that's honestly my favorite right now.”

All Day Breakfast
“It's a New England Pale Ale of sorts. We did add some bittering hops, which kind of goes against the grain, but I still like some bitterness in my pale ales and IPAs. We used a lot of (Wisconsin-grown) hops from Tenacious Badger in there; including Bitter Gold and Columbia. I love the combination of those two. That turned out really good.”

Lance Slide
“That's our Imperial Brown Ale. Lance (Goodman) is one of our co-owners. Kind of an inside joke, but he kept playing that song Landslide over and over by the Dixie Chicks, Fleetwood Mac, everyone who did it... So Matt (co-owner Matt Stubbing) said we need to call this one Lance Slide, ‘It's gotta be Lance Slide.’ That was kind of a kitchen sink recipe I put together when we were homebrewing. It turned out to be Lance's favorite beer. It's really unique.”

Dullmore Quad
“I guess that's my beer. It's the opposite of my last name (Sharpless). That one is kind of my baby. It's a straight-up Belgian Quad. I used 55 pounds of Belgian rock candy sugar in there. We even maxed out the mash tun with that one. We're also using a newer strain of Belgian yeast that just kicks ass. It ended up being 10.3% ABV. Maybe that’s my favorite.”

Birthday Suit Blonde
“That’s our beer beer. Just an easy drinking blonde ale. We thought we needed something like that, not just to please ourselves, but for people who might be looking for a gateway beer. I brewed it once at homebrew scale and then tweaked the recipe for the seven-barrel batch. I think it turned out really well.”


The Backstory
The space Barrel 41 Brewing inhabits at 1132 South Commercial Street in Neenah was a cluttered, wreck of a place six weeks ago. Since then it's been transformed into a stylish taproom and brewery mixing modern, industrial design with warmer, natural elements. The wood-pile wall, for example...

Matt Stubing (left) and Nate Sharpless

"We've been working night and day," says Matt Stubing, who co-owns Barrel 41 along with fellow Neenah-natives Sharpless and Lance Goodman. "It's been a lot of late nights. We were still painting and doing touch ups last week. But we love it, it's all worth it. We've had a lot of fun putting it together."

The taproom enters into a lounge area that leads to a bar topped with thick slabs of white oak. Adjacent to the bar is the brewery, which forms a backdrop to the entire space.

Fermentation tanks in the Barrel 41 brewhouse.

Barrel 41 will have its grand opening at the end of the week on Saturday, November 24. The taproom will open at 10 a.m. with a couple additional beers on tap, both of them barrel-aged: Rye Whiskey Brown and Rye Whiskey Quad.

It's not often breweries feature barrel-aged beers as part of their grand opening. Sharpless managed to acquire a couple of barrels just in time to make it work. "We were able to get two Fort Hamilton Rye Whiskey barrels," he says. "They were just soaking wet when we got them. We brewed those beers on the 1 -barrel system, the day after we got our permits."

The grand opening will also include food. "Some of the brewery moms are going to put together some post-thanksgiving food," says Stubing. "Some turkey and gravy sliders and some cookies and stuff. So along with all the beer, we'll have some good home cooking. It should be a day full of fun and good beer and good food."

For more info on taproom hours and Barrel 41's grand opening, check out the brewery's website or Facebook page.