One Barrel Brewing Co. coming to De Pere

Rich Palzewic

Staff

September 21, 2026

DE PERE – One Barrel Brewing Co. is bringing a taste of Door County to De Pere.

Co-owner Jennifer Gentry said the craft brewery, known for its wide variety of beers and laid-back atmosphere, is setting up shop in the former Abbey Bar & Grill as it opens up another location outside of Door County.

Gentry said the location at 303 Reid St. is an “ideal spot and has been a long-standing hangout in De Pere.”

“It’s really quite special,” she said. “I was born in Green Bay and grew up here before leaving around college, and we’ve been in Madison and Door County ever since. Coming back ‘home’ was really important to me. I have two little boys – aged three and five – and my parents and sisters are still here.”

As many would agree, Gentry said the building itself brings back fond memories from her college days.

When the building came up for sale, she said they immediately envisioned what the space could look like as another One Barrel location.

“It was really special to me personally,” she said. “Beyond that, the building is really special to the community. Anyone can say ‘the Abbey,’ and people know what you’re talking about. We really want to maintain what it was and want it to be a place where people from the community are comfortable coming – no matter who you are and what you’re looking for.”

Earlier this summer, when the Abbey closed for good after 52 years in business, Gentry said there was a lot of sadness in the community.

She said she’s hoping that sadness turned into happiness when folks found out the space would still be utilized.

“It’s just being reinvented,” she said. “I had read some comments about some people being concerned because ‘we don’t need another bar in town,’ and I understand those concerns. But I truly believe what we’ve built in Door County will resonate really well here.”

Piggybacking on her comments about wanting the De Pere location to be “something for everyone,” Gentry said that includes young kids.

“It’s more than a brewery,” she said. “Yes, we serve great craft beers, but we’re also going to focus a lot on hosting festivals, having live music and really trying to maintain what the Abbey started as and bring it back to life a little bit.”

With St. Norbert College across the street, a hotel next door and downtown De Pere a stone’s throw away, Gentry said the area offers something for everyone.

“There’s so much to do here,” she said. “You can walk everywhere, and you have an array of coffee and pizza places. We really got lucky with the location.”

Much to be done

With parts of the space dating back more than 50 years, Gentry said there is much to be completed before opening in spring 2027.

She said their original target date for opening was the end of March, but she’s thinking an April or May opening is more realistic.

“The original Abbey began in the small adjoining building – which more recently was the Flour Pot – 52 years ago,” Gentry said. “The main part of the Abbey was built in the early 1990s, so even that is about 35-ish years old.”

Fox Cities Builders is handling the renovations, Gentry said, and has found some “surprises” in the process.

“Quite frankly, we are basically taking everything down to the studs,” she said. “We’ve had a little bit of a setback with some of the construction – we found asbestos and oil had leaked on some of the electrical boxes, so all of that has to be replaced. It’s a huge project.”

Additionally, Gentry said walls will be moved, a stairway will be removed and the bar will be repositioned.

“The renovations will open the space up quite a bit,” she said. “The main part will be the brewery with a full bar similar to our Door County location. We’ll be doing pizza, wings, fries and salads. Where the Flour Pot was, that will be a wine bar. We’re focusing a lot on European wines and things you don’t typically find or see in the area.”

With craft beers and the wine bar being a big focus, Gentry said One Barrel will connect the two spaces into one.

“We are expanding the patio out front, taking out those front parking spaces and making the patio a little bit bigger,” she said. “We’ll have some outdoor fire pits. The idea is that the brewery crowd and the wine bar crowd can both share the patio. It will be a little bit of everything for everyone.”

With the patio, Gentry said it will be a “huge improvement.”

“We’ll have a little sandbox on the patio, too, so it’s going to look completely different,” she said. “Realistically, the exterior walls will be the same – that’s about it.”

The upstairs part of the main building, Gentry said, will be more of an overflow area, with kids’ games and a rentable event space.

“There’s definitely a lot of space here,” she said. “Our focus really is on brightening and opening it up. That’s part of the reason why we want this middle stairwell to move. Obviously, there will be all new floors, a new bar, painting, etc. We will also be completing some kitchen work so both spaces can use one kitchen.”

Her plans for the upstairs area of the space, Gentry said, are “pretty special to” her.

“I want kids to be active in our place,” she said. “At our Door County location, we have a couple of TVs with old Nintendos to bring back some of the nostalgia from our childhood.”

A traditional start

Like many other brewery stories, Gentry said One Barrel got its start after her husband, Peter, embarked on his journey to become a homebrewer.

While she was working in healthcare IT in Madison, she said her husband was selling newspaper ads, something he wasn’t “overly passionate about.”

“Peter is a very creative person, and he was looking for a fun thing to do with his dad on Father’s Day,” she said. “This was probably 2010, so he bought a homebrewing kit – right on the cusp of when craft beer was becoming a thing. The two of them enjoyed it together, and his dad was really good at it. They entered some of their beers into contests and actually won some awards.”

From there, with Peter looking for something more creative, Gentry said he decided he wanted to open a bar.

With $700 in his bank account at the time, she said he opened One Barrel in Madison in 2012.

“He was by no means in any position to be starting a bar,” she laughed. “It was quite the crazy thing, a big risk and pretty scary. The Madison location was a tiny spot, but on the brewery’s first day, Peter sold out of beer. He had people waiting in line to come in. There was definitely interest, and the location did really well.”

Happy in Madison for the time being, Gentry said her work schedule, traveling and the couple wanting to start a family became “a little too much.”

“The thought was to open a second location so I could quit my job,” she said. “We thought maybe it could become a family business, so in 2017, we started talking about where to go. In 2018, we moved to Door County.”

Summering in Door County in her younger years at her grandparents’ place, Gentry said there was really no question in her mind that’s where One Barrel would end up.

Officially moving to the peninsula in 2018, she said the brewery opened for business a year later in 2019.

With the brewery gaining momentum, Gentry said COVID-19 threw a monkey wrench into their plans in March 2020.

“The [Egg Harbor] location was a whole different scene from our Madison spot,” she said. “We really enjoyed what we were doing and just felt everything was just right. Then, COVID happened.”

Luckily, in Door County, Gentry said One Barrel had quite a bit of community support, with people driving from Green Bay to pick up six-packs of their craft beer.

Though difficult, she said the Door County location survived – but the same couldn’t be said for their capital city location.

“In Madison, unfortunately, things stayed shut down quite a bit longer,” she said. “We didn’t have any outdoor space, so it became time to close our doors. We just didn’t see the foot traffic we needed to. Though the Madison location is no longer open, we hope to be there relatively soon again.”

Healthy competition

With the Green Bay area having at least 10 craft breweries, Gentry said “competition is healthy,” and each local brewery has its own niche.

With that said, Gentry said One Barrel likes to focus on more than craft beer.

“It’s about the experience,” she said. “That’s why we decided to do a full bar and wine bar – we want to be a place where people want to gather.”

With many craft breweries trying “funky and fun beers,” Gentry said One Barrel tries to limit those.

“Obviously, we do those from time to time, but our focus is mainly about creating beers everybody wants to drink,” she said. “While I think the craft beer population here is strong and supportive, I think there is a whole other group of people who are more interested in going to a place and just being comfortable. Every brewery certainly has its own vibe.”

Another brewery – Nicolet Ale Works – coming soon to De Pere at 301 Main Ave. also has her excited, Gentry said.

“When I heard about Nicolet Ale Works coming to De Pere, I reached out to them,” she said, noting Nicolet will be within walking distance of One Barrel. “It’s a tight community, so I’m pumped to have them nearby. Their story is interesting, so I feel it’s going to be a really good partnership/relationship between us.”

To keep up to date with One Barrel’s progress, navigate to the brewery’s Facebook page.