The importance of well-educated, -prepared leaders in the workforce
Lakeside Foods supports food pantries, feeding programs
August 26, 2024
OCONTO – Oconto’s brewing history began in the mid-1850s when co-founders Anton Link and Louis Pahl created what became the Oconto Brewing Company.
Oconto Beer was brewed into the 20th century, and even managed to survive Prohibition – eventually ceasing production in 1967.
Now, 57 years later, two new brewery co-founders – wife and husband Courtney and Garrett Sowle – said they are excited to pen a new chapter in Oconto’s proverbial beer book.
The Sowles said The Yard Brewing Company debuted its brews this summer and vodka from the recently announced The Yard Distilling Company is not far behind.
So far, the brewery has released 12 different proprietary beers – various ales, sours and a pilsner – on tap and for some varieties, six-packs of 12-ounce cans.
Oconto’s first beer garden
Garrett and Courtney said after meeting at and graduating from the University of Wisconsin-Stout with degrees in packaging, the two moved and worked together in various cities, including Milwaukee and Philadelphia.
Changing careers to focus on real estate and property management, the Sowles said they moved to Garrett’s hometown of Oconto where they’re raising their young children.
Adapting to family life and longing for some of the bigger city options they’d grown to appreciate, the couple said, led them to brainstorming an outdoor beer garden on the three-acre plot they’d purchased on the Oconto River.
“We’re here (in Oconto), and we can’t really go to a bar with our kids – but we want some craft beer,” Garrett said. “(We felt) other families must want something like that. So that’s kind of how The Yard came to be.”
Courtney said they wanted to create “something cool” for the community.
“We thought, let’s just do a ton of giant outdoor games, and let’s feature a ton of local craft breweries,” she said.
The Sowles said after extensive work cleaning up the property and applying for the necessary permits, they opened The Yard for the summer of 2022 with games for kids (and adults), including volleyball, horseshoes, bean bags, giant versions of board games like Jenga and Connect Four, plastic axe throwing and baskets for disc golf.
For its first season, they said The Yard served craft beer on tap from a horse trailer they’d repurposed, and word of mouth spread.
Open solely for weekends in summer, the Sowles said they were encouraged by the popularity of The Yard.
For the following season, they said they bolstered the operation by scheduling regular visits from food trucks, adding mixed drinks to their menu and installing electricity and running water for their newly built tiki bar.
“It’s very tropical feeling,” Courtney said. “You feel like you’re on the ocean somewhere – not in the middle of Wisconsin.”
She said she estimates 90% of The Yard’s business has been from families.
“That was why it was created,” she said. “Parents can be sitting, having a drink at the picnic tables, and their kids are all out playing with a million friends. It’s great.”
Catering to families, the co-owners said, meant their outdoor option wasn’t directly competing with local bars – rather, “trying to build on what’s already here” – something they said was important to consider in a city of about 4,500.
“It’s people who would probably be having their own backyard barbecue, or would be going out to dinner in a different city if The Yard wasn’t there,” Courtney said of The Yard’s clientele. “It’s just something fun and different, where you can come and instead of going all the way to Green Bay to go to a food truck, you could stay right in Oconto. There are a lot of surrounding smaller cities that come and utilize that as well. And our property is right on the river, so we get boats and kayaks that pull up.”
The Sowles said their own kids enjoy hanging out at The Yard, which has also featured live music and even sessions of goat yoga, starring the goats the Sowles keep at their home “right up the road.”
Rather than relying on events to draw customers, the co-owners said The Yard’s main attraction has always been its beloved family-friendly camaraderie.
Yet in light of its successful and social business model, the other, not-as-fun feature, they said, has been a near-constant struggle to stay open.
A can-brew attitude
From land surveying discrepancies to zoning and licensure issues, the Sowles said they have endured an unenviable battle since they opened the beer garden.
Rather than add to the more than $10,000 they’ve invested in legal representation thus far, they said they instead opted to invest in producing and canning their own beer – with the added benefit of attaining the state and federal permits to retain The Yard.
Though for two and a half summers, the co-owners said The Yard served craft beer and cocktails and no products of their own, they had long considered their own creations.
“Brewing was always in the back of our mind,” Courtney said. “We actually thought about building something on that property for a brewery and just kind of expanding on that, but there was just a lot of red tape there.”
Instead, they said they opted to purchase the vacant, former feed mill at 136 Huron Ave., one mile from The Yard.
“This building came up for sale from some friends of ours in this community,” Courtney said. “There’s a lot of potential here for this to be a huge operation.”
Reviving the former feed mill into a brewery, Garrett said, “kind of go together.”
The Sowles said they appreciated the nostalgia of the old building.
Furthermore, the couple said because of their extensive experience in real estate and property renovation, they weren’t intimidated by the considerable work it would require – from its foundation to its 60-foot-tall grain bin.
They said they’re especially grateful for the contributions of Garrett’s father – whether by way of renovation or babysitting – as they began work in June.
In anticipation of this venture, the Sowles said once they confirmed the necessary permits, they spent last winter and spring working with an established brewer from North Carolina who consulted them on the right equipment to purchase and flew in to help them set it up and start brewing.
“It takes a bit more finesse than I had realized,” Garrett said. “And it’s a lot more expensive than I was expecting.”
Courtney said there’s way more that goes into all of it than they knew.
“The process is just crazy long,” she said. “We always underestimate how long these projects are going to take.”
Yet as everything timed out, they said the availability of The Yard – legally classified as the permitted, secondary location of the approved brewery – was impacted minimally.
“The day our liquor license (was revoked), our brewer’s permit went into effect – and we had beer two weeks later,” Garrett said.
The co-owners said The Yard’s customers were shocked at how The Yard Brewing Company seemed to instantly materialize.
“They’ll say, ‘I don’t know how you guys did this,’” Courtney said. “And we say, ‘we don’t know either.’ It’s pretty cool.”
Garrett said it has to be some kind of a record.
“Going from knowing nothing to putting out 10 beers in less than six months,” he said.
The most important surprise, the Sowles said, has been how well the beer is being received.
They said The Yard Brewing’s new pilsner – The Sconnie – aims to please those looking for “an easy drinker.”
They said another lighter option is their blonde ale – Speckled Goat – named in reference to The Yard’s occasional yoga companions, and a play on the somewhat similarly flavored Spotted Cow from New Glarus Brewing Company.
Other brews have included:
- Tropical Day Citrus IPA
- Hazy Day IPA
- Blueberry Bliss Ale
- Door County Cherry Ale
- Jalapeño Ale
- Vacay Vibes Piña Colada Ale
- Blood Orange Ale
- Basic B Sour
- That’s What She Said Wild Berry Sour
- Strawberry-Lemonade Sour
Courtney said The Yard offers sampling flights, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Our beer garden is doing better (business) as a brewery than it was as a craft beer garden with liquor,” she said.
Vodka and other spirits
The Sowles said some of The Yard’s customers historically only ordered mixed drinks and therefore required some adjustment to the new menu, but “almost all of them have found something that they liked.”
Still, they said these customers were “really excited” to learn about The Yard Distilling Company.
The Sowles said similarly to brewing beer, they connected with a distilling consultant to purchase equipment and develop recipes.
The first available product will be vodka, which they said will be double-distilled, charcoal-filtered and “super smooth.”
“It should be up there with a Grey Goose quality – but it’ll be more affordable than that,” Courtney said.
The excess space of the brewery/distillery, the co-owners said, will allow them to further experiment with flavored vodka in small batches – suggestions for which they plan to solicit from polls on The Yard’s Facebook page.
The Sowles said other spirits are also in the works – though delayed slightly as they had “kind of maxed out” with everything else they took on in 2024.
“We’re going to start aging whiskey this fall, and it’ll hopefully be ready for the spring,” Courtney said. “And then in the spring, we’re going to add in rum, tequila and gin. We just need a little time to figure out our recipes and research and create all of our labels over the winter.”
More on tap
As the beer garden closes for the season at the end of August, the Sowles said in September, they plan to open a small retail shop at their brewery/distillery for customers to pick up six-packs of beer and the brand-new vodka.
That room, they said, will ultimately be converted into a full-service taproom, with a targeted opening date of June 2025 – corresponding to The Yard’s opening for the season.
The co-owners said the taproom will also feature wood-fired personal pizzas and soft pretzels – thanks to a partnership with A’Pizza Napoli – a local Neapolitan pizza maker and a favorite of patrons at The Yard.
Other plans for their full operation, they said, include:
- Partnering with the local coffee shop to produce coffee-infused beer and vodka
- Canned vodka and fruit juice drinks
- Organic certification for the vodka
- Growing hops for the brewery
- Partnerships for local restaurants to serve, and for local stores to sell The Yard Brewing and The Yard Distilling products
- Wider product distribution through Wisconsin
- Organizing limousine tours of regional Wisconsin breweries
- White-label or customizable runs of beer and liquor
- Renovating a “backyard” area of their facility for outdoor seating and games
- The Midwest’s largest “beer bong” – running from atop the building’s grain bin
“There’s a lot on the horizon,” Garrett said.
Courtney said they will see how many of those plans they can get to.
However, none of their ideas, the Sowles said, would be possible without The Yard’s enthusiastic customers.
“We’re super thankful for all of our supporters,” Courtney said. “We are where we are because they’ve stuck with us for all of these years and keep coming back.”
In a sense, Courtney and Garrett said they’re also grateful for the struggle they’ve incurred so far, as they’ve tested their endurance and challenged their creativity in ways they’d never anticipated.
“The funny thing is,” Garrett said. “The (struggle) probably pushed us to do this sooner than we would have – or maybe we would have never done it – if we didn’t have that back-pressure and resistance.”
The Sowles said they hope the real winners are their customers, whether local, vacationers or willing-to-commute craft beer connoisseurs who can enjoy the results of their continued efforts.
“Great beer, great spirits, great pizza – against all odds,” Garrett said.
To learn more about The Yard, The Yard Brewing and The Yard Distilling, visit theyardbrewing.com.
