Minocqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad said his East Side Madison taproom will likely close when the lease expires at the end of the year, Channel 3000 reported recently.
The taproom on E. Washington Ave. opened in 2024 after Bangstad expanded political fights in the Northwoods and told reporters Madison was his best market. “The area’s largely Democrat and has been really welcoming, which is diametrically opposed to how it is going in Minocqua,” he said at the time. He marketed the room as a progressive gathering place, sold beers named for Democrat politicians, and told Fox News that a promised free-beer day on President Donald Trump’s death would come with a rule: “No red hats allowed.”
The Madison customers he courted didn’t embrace the progressive provocateur. Bangstad now claims the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s July notice revoking his brewer’s permits for the Madison and Minocqua locations makes the Madison rent impossible to carry through a winter legal fight. He owns the Minocqua building. In a lengthy Facebook screed, he said he expects to lose a first administrative hearing in November, cannot afford months of rent if the taproom is forced to shutter, and is looking for someone else to run the room independently as a “progressively-political and music-forward beer and wine bar” that would not need a brewer’s permit.
The state action followed a June inspection in which DOR agents seized about $25,000 in canned beer from both taprooms. Regulators alleged the beer was brewed in Illinois, shipped without required permits, and sold without Wisconsin excise taxes. DOR also cited an unpermitted warehouse and unauthorized retail activity. Bangstad has called the case political retaliation and vowed to fight it. The agency has said it enforces alcohol laws evenly.
The likely Madison closing is the latest chapter in a record Heartland Post and other outlets have documented for years. Bangstad built a brand around wishing death on the president, posting “free beer, all day long, the day he dies,” then “we almost got #freebeerday” after a security breach at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, a post that drew FBI and Secret Service attention. He sold “8647” merchandise, a coded call to eliminate the 47th president. His Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC raised more than $2 million, then faced a civil lawsuit from Lakeland Times publishers alleging he routed nearly $460,000 through unregistered shells named Effervescent Blue and NCPS, both tied to UPS Store addresses. He terminated the PAC in June after spending down the cash, failed to gather enough valid signatures to make the 2026 Democrat gubernatorial ballot, and previously pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct.
Madison was supposed to be the friendly market after the Northwoods tired of him. Neighbors fought his beer-garden noise permit. The city’s own progressive forums called the beer bad and the owner a grifter. He banned MAGA patrons on paper. The progressive city he picked still showed him the door.
Bangstad said it would break his heart to tear down the art in the Madison room and asked supporters to email if they want to keep mixing “progressive politics with beer, wine, and beautiful music.” He has not named a successor operator. The Minocqua taproom, he said, can ride out the winter because he owns the building.
