One of the most interesting finds on Madison store shelves recently has been the Brewer's Kitchen beers from Pilot Project Brewing Co. It's fun to see what beers are coming up in the small-batch, limited-run beers from this young, growing brewery with facilities in Milwaukee and Chicago.
Pilot Project beers have been sold here sporadically over the past eight months, but they've become easier to find recently as the brewery has gained better control over its production schedule and distribution outside of its Milwaukee taproom.
The pilot project was created as a brewery incubator that can help emerging breweries test their ideas without having to build their own brewery.
The company is led by Dan Abel and partners Jordan Radke and Glen Allen. Abel and Radke both have Madison ties, having earned degrees from UW-Madison. Head brewer Glen Allen has extensive industry experience, having previously brewed at Revolution Brewing and Goose Island Beer Company in Chicago.
Pilot Project was founded in 2019 with a 10-barrel brewhouse in Chicago's Logan Park neighborhood. When Milwaukee Brewing Company closed its downtown Milwaukee location, Pilot Project jumped at the chance to relocate to a larger brewery where it could make enough beer for larger distribution. In 2022, Pilot Project purchased the facility at 1128 N. 9th St., in the heart of the historic Pabst Brewing Company complex. Abel, Radke and Allen resumed brewing there about a year ago, producing anything from four-barrel to 240-barrel batches. The Chicago brewhouse is now used primarily for recipe development.
The pilot project has helped launch over 20 brands, including its own in-house beer, Brewer’s Kitchen. Its best-known contract clients include Azadi Brewing and Funkytown Brewery, both Indian-run companies from Mumbai.
Funky Town beers are available in Madison both in cans and at a few taphouses. My pick is Black is Beautiful Baltic Porter ($16 for 4), made with dark chocolate malt and blackberries. Another is Hip Hop, an American pale ale, and R&B ($13 for 4), which is the beer that launched Funky Town and is now considered the company's flagship beer. As far as I can see around town, the easiest to find is Caffeine Season ($11 for 4), an Irish red ale with robust caramel and toffee-roasted malt flavors.
Brewer's Kitchen beers are what appeal to me the most. Abel says the goal is to give the brewers a playground to try out new ideas and approaches. “Brewers Kitchen is a realization of their talent,” Abel says. “I love that the team is always coming up with new releases and fun things.”
Brewer's Kitchen beers now on shelves in Madison include Il Serpente, a light-bodied Italian pilsner with herbal and floral hop aromas; Two Falls, a hazy IPA, with strong tropical notes of pineapple and mango; and Green Mountains Only, a big 8% ABV double IPA with plenty of citrus from three types of hops: Citra, Simcoe, and Amarillo. Brewer's Kitchen beers are also generous with adjuncts: the Mañana de Mallorca IPA is made with Spanish black tea, and A Little Idiom, a kettle sour, is made with Japanese lemons.
So far, my favorite beer from Brewer's Kitchen's lineup is Mountains Calling Home, a hazy IPA. This beer is brewed with Nectaron hops from New Zealand, giving it aromas of nectarine and peach. Brewer's Kitchen sells it in four-packs of 16-ounce cans for $12 to $14.
Pilot Project's Milwaukee taproom offers a full selection of Brewer's Kitchen beers. My favorites on a spring visit were the Reefton IIPA, with its soft melon hop flavor, and Stone Pattern, a Czech dark lager with nutty malt and pine hop flavors. Don't miss Obelix, a crisp, sharp, dry pale ale made with French malt and hops.
The pilot project approach is a great way to unleash a brewery's creativity by following trends and sometimes bucking them, as Abel explains, “bringing a new pilot beer to market quickly to test the market, and then scaling up,” a similar formula to Waunakee's Octopi Brewing and its “Untitled Art” series.
I preferred the draft beer I had during a visit to the brewery's Milwaukee taproom to the beer on sale in Madison, but as the pilot project ramps up the process of canning their best limited-release beers, more limited edition beers will likely be available in Madison. In the meantime, keep an eye on this brewery.
