Episode 059 - A Great Place To Gather

Episode 059 - A Great Place To Gather - Gathering Place Brewing - Joe Yeado

Many breweries talk about being a part of their community and they work to build goodwill within that community.

But what happens when you build community with the other brewers in your community, you build a syndicate. Before you go all gangster on me, the dictionary defines syndicate as: a group of individuals or organizations combined to promote some common interest.

This group of 5 breweries in the Riverwest Community of Milwaukee not only work together to promote a common interest, but they also run a bus between the 5 breweries during the summer. This allows their customers to spend the day visiting each of the breweries, building community with their customers and each other. The Syndicate also works on beer festivals and other events to help promote their breweries, and the local businesses within their community.

When I mention the Beer Festival, it is a beer festival run by the brewers. The guest breweries send their beer and show up the day of the festival to pour. Everything else is already done for them from the tent they pour from to the jockey boxes and coolers that hold their beer.

2017-081017-The-Gathering-Place-18-1024x1024

JOE YEADO

Founder

In My Spare Time I Decided To…..

In 2022, a fellow brewery owner mentioned that they were going to be selling and moving in another direction in their lives. After several more conversations, Joe decided to buy the location in Wauwatosa. Another Milwaukee community with a thriving and active population that enjoys their local businesses. The location was already home to one of 5 breweries on the same block, but now, Joe was bringing his style of brewing to a new Gathering Place.

Our Riverwest Location has a larger footprint, but we have no outdoor space. It is located in a commerical area with homes located a few blacks away.

The Wauwatosa (Tosa to the locals) is a smaller facility, but has a really great outdoor space behind the building and its in the middle of a residental area. Small business much like ours line the street, with large residetial areas behind the se small businesses.

A Sense of Community.

They have a great community outreach. In addition to listening to their customers in Tosa to determine what direction they want to go with he patio space. At the main location they have done a vinyl swap, a book swap and a clothing swap.

The clothing swap was a large event that was well attended. The marketing manager at the time pulled it all together and reached out to a few friends to help go through all the bags of clothing that was brought in. While Danielle was at the event she spoke with several other people swapping. One of those people was a teacher, like Danielle, who was buying clothing for her students. It really brought to light how an event can be so impactful within the community much deeper than anyone ever thought, including those who developed the event.

I guess the name has so much more meaning than just the brewery down the street. I truly is a Gathering Place where people watch out for each other, and their students.