Gratitude of Great Proportions

Building at Pabst Brewery, Milwaukee, WI

Two weeks ago I went with friends to the Christkindlmarket in Milwaukee. It was a super fun time. Just so you know, the market pictured in the link is from Nuremberg, Germany, not Milwaukee—our Milwaukee market was at the former Pabst Brewery, a community of 25 well-worn corporate and manufacturing structures like the one pictured above. Even though our market wasn’t of Nuremberg standards, it was fascinating to see the buildings that make up this historic district.

We’re now past Thanksgiving but I’m still thinking about these buildings. Maybe because over the holiday weekend we started a major renovation ruckus in our house (I always say we so I sound involved, but really I mean my husband—more on that another time). Or maybe because lately this has been the harsh, wintery scene out my office window. Anyway, I’ve been wondering what it was like to work in these cavernous warehouses back in the day.

Warehouse at Pabst Brewery Complex, Milwaukee, WI

From 1844, when the brewery was founded by Jacob Best, until 1996, when the Pabst line was contracted out to Stroh Brewing Company in LaCrosse, thousands of hardworking Milwaukeeans spent the majority of their days in buildings similar to these. Wouldn’t you think it must have been super cold in winter? And hot in summer? It must have been dirty, laborious and sometimes unsafe. And yet for over a hundred years the heart of Milwaukee’s culture was this neighborhood of Cream City Bricks, now blackened with production and time.

Pabst Brewery Complex sign

Pabst Brewing Company is now owned by a Russian beverage distributor and, sadly, is no longer headquartered in Milwaukee. But one of the many gazillion obscure things for which I’m thankful is that the high architectural and historical integrity of these buildings has not been lost. They haven’t been demolished and replaced with characterless, poor construction.

In 2006, Joseph Zilber’s investment group Brewery Project LLC purchased the complex for $13 million and is renovating it for residential, office and retail use. It’s called The Brewery. The old Mill House, aka Building 21, is now the Brewhouse Inn & Suites and Jackson’s Blue Ribbon Pub. Don’t these sound like a fun places to visit?

Office building at Pabst Brewery Complex, Milwaukee, WI

So, even though I’m totally thankful I get to work from home in a warm, toasty office, I do sort of fantasize moving my office to this building. Isn’t it the most Gothically gorgeous thing ever?

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