The foundation for craft beer in Oshkosh was built by the Fox River Brewing Company. For many people in this city, this brewery provided their first encounter with non-industrial beer. Over the past 25 years, no other Oshkosh brewery or tavern has broadened the beer culture here to the extent that Fox River has. It could be argued that this is the most important Oshkosh brewery of the past 100 years.
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| Fox River Brewing Company Oshkosh, circa 1997. |
Oshkosh has been home to 20 licensed breweries since 1849. Fox River holds the distinction of having produced more types of beer than any other brewery in the city's history. There are 154 beer styles recognized by the Brewers Association, an industry trade group. Over the years, breweries here have produced 96 of the categorized styles. Of that group, 71 of them - or 74% - were first brewed in Oshkosh by Fox River.
Well, what of it?
It's this: hidden within that exceptional burst of new beer is a story about beer drinkers in Oshkosh. It tells how they've evolved over the past quarter-century while maintaining some of the same biases that beer drinkers here first embraced in the 1800s. As we’ll see, the beer culture that continues to develop in Oshkosh is unique to this place.
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| A brewhouse transfer sheet from July 2003 showing beer leaving fermentation tanks for packaging. |
For the past four months, I've been allowed access to the complete set of brewing logs and production reports for Fox River's Oshkosh brewery. These records form an unexpurgated diary of the brewery. Among other things, they report the materials and processes used to make every barrel of beer that Fox River Oshkosh has produced since 1995. The production logs show clearly which beers drinkers in Oshkosh embraced and those which they did not.
As I collected the information within these logs, sets of distinct patterns began to emerge. Conveniently, they cycle in five-year increments. The story begins at 11:25 AM on the Saturday of November 18, 1995, when Al Bunde began brewing Fox River’s first beer. For beer drinkers in Oshkosh, things would never be quite the same.
What follows pertains only to Fox River's Oshkosh brewery. Fox River opened a second location, in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1997. The production counts and beers made at that brewery are not included in this survey. The Hard Core: 1995-1999Total Brewery Production for the Period: 3,796 Barrels. The top five selling beers: their percentage of the total production.1) Winnebago Wheat: 17%
2) Fox Tail Amber Ale: 16%
3) Golden Ale: 14.4%
4) Caber Tossing Scottish Ale: 13.8%
5) Paine's Lumberyard Pilsner: 11%
The first beer made at Fox River was an American interpretation of a Czech-style Pilsner. It was a beer that bore a distinct similarity to the last beer that had been produced by a commercial brewery in Oshkosh. That was also an American interpretation of a Czech-style Pilsner. It had been made at Peoples Brewing just before it closed in 1972.
Fox River brewmaster Al Bunde didn't know anything about any of that. He wasn't trying to pay homage to the city's brewing history. He was hedging his bets. He was going to give Oshkosh drinkers something that at least looked familiar. Something that might entice them into the deeper end of the beer pool.
At Fox River, they soon learned that Oshkosh drinkers weren't coming to the brewpub to drink the sort of beers that looked like those poured at their corner taverns. They were arriving to try something different. The first breakout beer at Fox River was nothing like those pale lagers that had dominated the city's beer scene for so long.
Winnebago Wheat was a German-style hefeweizen. It was gold in color, hazy, and it smelled like cloves and bananas. The taste was sweet and bready. Looking back, it's not surprising that this most conspicuously German of beers would be the one that attracted so much early attention. Oshkosh's food and drink culture were marked by the German heritage of many of its residents. The expression of that influence could be seen in local taverns and restaurants. Winnebago Wheat fit comfortably into that setting. It remained the best selling beer at Fox River until 2000.
Fox Tail Amber Ale came in a close second every one of those years. This, too, was a sweetish beer, but with a bronze glow that immediately set it apart. There may have been some signaling going on here. In 1996, a glass of Winnebago Wheat or Fox Tail Amber on the table or bar was an easy-to-read indicator of beer-drinking sophistication. A symbol anyone could see from across the room. The best-selling beer in Oshkosh at this time was the ubiquitous Miller Lite. These beers looked nothing like that.
The symbolic aspect of Fox River's beer extended beyond the brewpub. By mid-1996, Fox River was distributing its beer to about 20 bars and restaurants in the Oshkosh area. Having the "home-brewed" beer pouring side-by-side with well-known craft brands helped to raise the brewery's stature. The effect was enhanced at places like Oblio's and the Lizard Lounge where Oshkosh's more dedicated craft-beer drinkers tended to congregate.
Throughout this period, the beers that sold the best for Fox River shared a common theme. They were malt-forward and gently hopped. Drinkers in Oshkosh had shown themselves to be partial to that sort of flavor profile more than 100 years earlier and their preference had been thoroughly documented in a marketing survey commissioned by the Oshkosh Brewing Company in 1957. At Fox River, they came to that realization one beer at a time.
The average hopping rate of Fox River's top three selling beers during this period was less than half a pound of hops per barrel. That was identical to the approach brewers in Oshkosh had been taking since at least the turn of the century. Fox River's more heavily hopped beers, such as Paine's Lumberyard Pilsner, with well over 1.6 pounds of hops per barrel, never made it into the upper tier of the brewery's sales charts. The first IPA brewed in Oshkosh (in August of 1996), delivered a bold bitterness from its more than two pounds of hops per-barrel hopping rate. It would be two years after that one finally came off the tap line before Fox River bothered making another IPA.
It wasn't that the brewers at Fox River had signed off on a pre-ordained approach. They were simply figuring out what worked. Early on in that process, most batches of beer they made broke new ground. In its first full year of operation, Fox River produced 20 different styles of beer. The previous 16 Oshkosh breweries – with a combined history that spanned more than 120 years – had just barely made half as many different types of beer.
Despite all the variety, drinkers in Oshkosh tended to stick to a subset of beers that came to form the brewery's core brands. In addition to the beers listed above, that line-up at various times included an oatmeal stout, a porter, and later a honey-wheat beer. The core beers accounted for 88% of the brewery's production through this period. But the one-offs and seasonals were having an impact. They were helping to re-shape the palates of Oshkosh beer drinkers and laying the groundwork for the change that was to come.
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1990s tap handles from Fox River Brewing.
Electric Streetcar Oatmeal Stout was later re-named Trolly Car Stout. |
Buzzed: 2000-2004
Total Brewery Production for the Period: 3,891 Barrels. The top five selling beers: their percentage of the total production.
1) Buzzin’ Honey Ale: 19%
2) Caber Tossing Scottish Ale: 14%
3) Fox Light Lager: 12.4%
4) Winnebago Wheat: 11.7%
5) Fox Tail Amber: 10%
Beginning in the latter half of the 1800s, American beer became an increasingly homogenized and commodified product made on an industrial scale. Along with that, the imprint of individual brewmasters faded. Brand consistency became the important thing. By the 1960s, few of the people who drank Chief Oshkosh Beer, for example, could have named the individual responsible for its production. In the year 2000, it's safe to say that most of Fox River’s regular customers could have told you that Steve Lonsway was the person brewing the beer they drank.
Lonsway had replaced Al Bunde as the Fox River brewmaster in 1997. Lonsway was replaced, in turn, by Brian Allen in 2002. The beers tended to change with the brewers. Bunde's Winnebago Wheat was not exactly the same as Lonsway's. And Allen's Winnebago Wheat was not quite like that of either of the others. Less discerning drinkers may not have noticed the difference. But as sales showed, the changes had consequences.
The best selling beer of this period, Buzzin’ Honey Ale, was an American-style wheat ale made with, of course, honey. It was first brewed by Bunde in February of 1996. In 1998, Lonsway revamped the recipe, adding 5% caramel malt to the grist which deepened the color and accentuated the beer's sweetness. Buzzin’ Honey was an immediate hit when it went on tap in the early summer of 1998. It became a core beer and remained in the Fox River line-up for the next 16 years.
The success of Buzzin’ Honey Ale may have been bittersweet for Lonsway, a self-described hop head. But his love of hoppy beer was not shared by Fox River drinkers. They continued to seek beers with a malt-driven, sweeter profile. From 2000 through 2004, Fox River produced just four IPAs. This at a time when IPA was on its way to becoming the hottest trend in craft beer. Not in Oshkosh. Here, old preferences still held sway.
There was no more obvious representation of that than Fox Light, which began its life as a bland, 4% ABV, lager brewed with flaked corn. It had replaced the light-bodied Golden Ale in 2000. This was lighter yet, a beer made to appease the dinner crowd who were coming to the brewpub because they liked the food, but had little interest in more flavorful beers. The beer geeks may have grumbled, but the punters drank it up. Fox Light grew in popularity, year after year.
The use of adjuncts such as flaked corn was not new at Fox River, but this period saw their use increase substantially. In 1995 Bunde had claimed he brewed beer according to the Reinheitsgebott, the German-purity law that prohibits the use of any ingredient other than water, malt, hops, and yeast. Bunde wasn't telling the truth then, but now there wasn't even the pretense.
Adjuncts had been part of brewing in Oshkosh since at least the 1870s, but what Fox River was doing was different. The brewery was using adjuncts to create flavors that had never been present in any previously brewed Oshkosh beers. In the early 2000s, both Lonsway and Allen leaned into the practice, using things like raisins, vanilla, lemon juice, cherries, raspberries, pumpkin, and spices of all sorts.
Most of these beers were diversions; one-offs brewed to maintain the interests of aficionados in an endless quest to drink something they'd never had before. One of those beers, first brewed by Brian Allen in April of 2004, was named BLÜ. It came and went that spring with little notice. It would turn out to be a sleeping giant.
Tossing Back Cabers: 2005-2009
Total Brewery Production for the Period: 3,838 barrels. The top five selling beers: their percentage of the total production.1) Caber Tossing Scottish Ale: 19%
2) Buzzin’ Honey Ale: 16%
3) Fox Light Lager: 12%
4) Winnebago Wheat: 11.9%
5) Fox Tail Pale Ale: 7%
On October 27, 2005, Brian Allen began an afternoon of brewing that would stretch well into the evening. He was making a barleywine to celebrate Fox Rivers's upcoming 10th Anniversary. At 10.5% ABV, it would become the strongest beer that had been made up to that point in Oshkosh. Fox River had been working its way up to something like this for some time now.
In the mid-2000s, the brewery began to rely more and more heavily on seasonals and one-off beers to sustain the interest of craft beer drinkers. With the increase in specialty beers came a boost of alcohol. Part of what could make a beer "special" was its strength. Imperial stouts, hefty Maibocks, and strong Belgian ales were beers that Fox River patrons were coming to expect at various points in the year.
Whereas beers north of 6.5% ABV had once been rare at the brewpub, it was now becoming increasingly rare to not find a beer that strong on the list. And as Oshkosh drinkers become acclimated to the stronger beers, their thirst for them grew. With that came more calls for Caber Tossing Scottish Ale.
The first batch of Caber Tossing had been brewed in November of 1995 as a 5.8% ABV Scotch Wee Heavy. It was the strongest beer in the Fox River year-round line-up and it sold fairly well from the start. The beer had been awarded a silver medal at the Great American Beer Festival in 2000 and won a gold medal there in 2001. Both awards had helped to boost sales.
When the alcohol content began to climb, though, people began taking serious notice. By 2006, some batches of Caber were coming in as strong as 6.5% ABV and the beer was selling like never before. Its day had come. A beer that had been lurking in Fox River's portfolio for a decade was now the brewery's best-seller.
Other old standbys fared less well. Fox Tail Amber Ale bit the dust in 2005 and was replaced with Fox Tail Pale Ale that same year. While Fox Light – remade into a Kolsch in 2005 – proved to be the doom of Paine's Lumberyard Pilsner, which was benched in 2003. All the while, people continued tossing back Caber Tossing. From 2007 through 2013, Caber was the brewpub’s runaway bestseller.
To Every Season: 2010-2014
Total Brewery Production for the Period: 3,066 barrels. The top five selling beers: their percentage of the total production.
1) Caber Tossing Scottish Ale: 18%
2) BLÜ 16%
3) Winnebago Wheat: 13%
4) Buzzin’ Honey Ale: 11%
5) Fox Light 8%
By 2010, fifteen years since the brewery's launch, Fox River had fallen into a steady groove. Each year saw five-to-six core beers that remained on tap throughout the year. They were supported by one-offs and seasonal specialties released every couple of weeks or so. But the steady groove was grinding a rut.
The brand loyalty the brewery had established was being undone by the change taking place among beer drinkers in Oshkosh. It used to be they would come to Fox River with the idea of having a few pints of the beer they liked best. Maybe that was Caber Tossing or Winnebago Wheat. But now they weren't doing that as much. Now, they were coming with the idea that they wanted to try whatever the new thing happened to be. And if there was nothing new on tap, they weren't bothering to come at all.
For the first time, Fox River's production slumped. Beer sales fell by 20% during this period. There were at least a couple of reasons for this. First, the brewery had almost entirely ceased distributing its beer, which diminished the brewery's presence and the attention of locals to it. The only place you were likely to see Fox River handles was at the brewpub. Second, interest in craft beer was surging in Oshkosh and there were now other players competing in the space that Fox River had owned for the previous 15 years.
New restaurants such as Becket's, Dublin's Irish Pub, and Gardina's had opened that paired large selections of craft beer on draft with a full dining menu. And these places always offered something that Fox River often didn't: IPA.
By 2012, IPA was the fastest-growing style of beer in America. It accounted for more than 15% of all craft beer sales. But you would have never suspected that if all your beer-drinking was done at Fox River. In 2010, Fox River didn't brew an IPA in Oshkosh. In 2011 and 2012, the brewery made just one IPA each year. They just didn't sell well enough to bother with. Not even slightly bitter pale ales did well. The only pale ale that had made its way into Fox River's core line-up, Fox Tail Pale Ale, was snuffed in 2012.
Meanwhile, Fox River continued catering to the more traditional Oshkosh beer drinker. The folks who preferred a maltier, less bitter beer. But that received preference was being rejected by scores of local beer drinkers. There were now significant numbers of Oshkosh drinkers who wanted a beer with profuse hop flavor and aroma. They were a new breed and they weren't going to Fox River to drink beer.
There was a bright spot, however. The growth of one-offs and seasonal specialties at Fox River continued to increase. Those beers now accounted for 34% of the brewery's output. One of the seasonals, a blueberry infused beer named BLÜ, grew so quickly that it began to propel the entire brewery forward.
Although it didn't become a year-round beer until 2013, BLÜ already accounted for 16% of the brewery's production during this period. It was another one of those "sweet" beers that Oshkosh beer drinkers had long favored. BLÜ, re-named BLÜ Bobber in 2014, was about to take Fox River to heights that had once seemed totally out of reach.
Peak BLÜ: 2015-2019
Total Brewery Production for the Period: 5,625 barrels.
The top five selling beers: their percentage of the total production.
1) BLÜ Bobber: 46%
2) Caber Tossing/Marble Eye Scottish Ale: 9%
3) 2 Dams Blonde Ale: 7%
4) Red Bobber: 6.8%
5) Reel It In IPA: 3%
The early 2010s had been an awkward time for Fox River. But there were seeds planted there that would grow into abundance. In 2015, the 20-year-old brewery was entering into what would become its most successful period. It started with the brewmaster. When Kevin Bown took over for Brian Allen in 2009, he had inherited an approach that had worked well but was on the verge of being played out. Early on, Bowen had run the brewhouse in much the same way his mentor had. But he seemed to realize that wasn't going to work much longer.
"I’ve really been working to hone my skills and nail the styles and flavors I’m setting out to achieve," he said in 2012. "For me, it’s always a progression." The work Bowen was putting in began paying off. In 2013 production began to tick upward. That continued in 2014. You could taste the difference in beers that were now selling that had sold so poorly before. In particular, there were the IPAs.
In August of 2013, Fox River released a new IPA named Optic. It was 8.2% ABV and brewed in the modern way with plenty of hops added after the boil and in the fermenter. Bowen described it as having a "super stinky hop aroma." This was not the sort of beer Fox River was known for. But in a couple of weeks, the serving tanks had been drained. After that, came one IPA after another. At the end of the summer of 2014 Fox River co-owner Jay Supple remarked to his surprise, "We were bringing IPAs out and they'd be gone in six days. It was crazy."
Fox River had entered a new era. By the end of 2015, the change was solidified. In 2016, Fox River introduced Reel It In, a session IPA that became the first year-round IPA produced by an Oshkosh brewery. The transformation wasn't just about IPA. It was also about the broadening of the Oshkosh palate in a substantive way. Fox River began putting out dark beers – bold-flavored stouts and porters – at a pace the brewery hadn't been able to before. "For years we tried to sell those sorts of beers, but they just wouldn't move," Supple said. Now they moved.
But nothing moved like BLÜ. A decade after the first 10 barrels of BLÜ had been brewed it emerged as one of those rare beers that changes everything for a brewery. Now a year-round beer, Fox River produced 339 barrels of BLÜ at the Oshkosh brewery in 2015. In 2016 that increased to 518 barrels. By 2018 it was up to 686 barrels; a full 57% of the brewery's total output. BLÜ continued growing and so quickly that it outgrew Fox River's capacity, resulting in some of its production being outsourced to Green Bay's Hinterland Brewing.
All of the change was wrapped in new packaging. Fox River re-entered distribution in 2014 and revamped its core line-up around the "Bago Brew" brand. The rebranding resulted in the loss of longtime core beers Winnebago Wheat and Fox Light; both of which became seasonals. The new line-up included a light, blonde ale named 2 Dams. The only core-beer holdover was Caber Tossing Scottish Ale. But even that was given a new name. The beer was the same but now it was called Marble Eye Scottish Ale. It's the only beer that has poured without stop throughout Fox River's entire 25-year history.
2020
This year, of course, has been like no other in Fox River's history. The COVID-19 pandemic struck at a time when the brewery was at its absolute peak. Though things have slowed, Fox River continues to innovate. Andrew Roth, who became brewmaster in August of 2019, introduced a barrel-aged sour program in September of this year. It's the first program of its type in Oshkosh.
At the end of 2020, Fox River remains Oshkosh's most successful brewery in terms of sales and overall production. The 1,200 barrels of beer the brewery produced in Oshkosh in 2019 was yet another record in an ongoing string of record years. Because of the current predicament, that string will come to an end this year.
Fox River ranks eighth in terms of longevity among all the breweries that have operated in Oshkosh. It will begin moving up that list in the next couple of years. But no matter what comes next, Fox River's pivotal role in the history of brewing in Oshkosh has already been secured.
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| The Oshkosh brewhouse at Fox River Brewing. |
The Fox River Brew LogsAbout five years ago I was in the Oshkosh brewhouse at Fox River talking with Kevin Bowen when I spotted a set of binders on a shelf. Each binder had a year written on the spine. I pulled one down and there was every recipe, all the process notes; basically, everything that went into the making of each beer made that year.
From that moment on, I wanted to write a blog post like this one. I contacted Jay Supple this past summer asking if I could borrow all of those binders. He sent one of his notoriously rapid responses: No Problem! Both Jay and his brother John Supple have been incredibly generous in allowing me such complete access to so much internal information. I appreciate their trust greatly.
Thanks also to Drew Roth who arranged to get these logs into my hands. Drew is one of the few people I've discussed this project with who didn't think my intense interest in them was strange. That probably says as much about him as it does about me.
By September, I had the binders here at my house where I began attempting to get my head around everything they contain. I can't say I've been entirely successful. The logs contain thousands of pages of documents filled with amazing amounts of detail. I am grateful to all of the Fox River brewers over the years who have been so diligent in capturing the essence of their work.
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| The brewery's log books. |
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