New Glarus Brewing Company is expanding

Katherine May’s handprints are all over New Glarus Brewing Company. Literally. 

Her parents, Deb and Dan Carey, co-founded the brewery in 1993.

“I grew up in the brewery,” May said. “I got to put my (handprint) in some of the concrete for their projects.”

Now, she’s their in-house architect. For over a decade, May has overseen construction projects at the brewery — including one with her 5-year-old son’s handprint. Recently, she helped design a $55 million addition to New Glarus Brewing, which will include doubling the size of their brew hall and adding a smaller pilot brewery to feed a spirit distillery. 

“Right now, we produce around 240,000 barrels a year.” May said. “I think with this addition, it’s going to get us closer to 350,000.”

One focus of the project is to expand parking to allow more visitors. 

“Something really silly was that we are completely out of parking up here. We never expected to get thousands of visitors, but we do, and our parking lot has 50 stalls,” May said. 

With the added parking, the brewery will be able to re-open to visitors on weekends, like they did before the COVID-19 pandemic, said president Deb Carey. They’re planning to welcome guests back on Saturdays at their original location on the north side of town, starting this summer. 

Carey said the company originally planned to start renovations before the pandemic.

“Sales were really strong,” Carey said. “Then COVID hit, which was really difficult, because we lost 40 percent of our business overnight. And really, we haven’t totally recovered. We’re kind of at the same level we were pre-COVID.”

Now, they are finally breaking ground on the renovation — adding more brewing, office and hosting space. Carey said she and her husband, the company’s master brewer, hope to leave the brewery in good condition for their employees, who are also part-owners, when they retire.

“Dan and I are aging,” Carey said. “We want the employee-owners to be set up for success after we retire.”

Even though they’re expanding, Carey said New Glarus Brewing is not planning to sell their beer, including Spotted Cow, outside of Wisconsin. Currently, the brewery just sells in-state. 

“Why would I do that? No, no,” Carey said. “The profitability is really not there when you’re out of state, and the people of Wisconsin are so supportive of us, and this small footprint allows us to have great relationships with our distribution network.”

Roger Truttmann, president of the Village of New Glarus, said the brewery “means an awful lot to the village.” 

“It’s a great attraction for the tourists coming to town,” Truttmann said. And it’s “absolutely fantastic,” the business plans to expand and re-open on the weekends, he added.

He said the company organizes their tours that encourage tourists to visit other businesses in the village. “Because they go up there, they take the tour, they get a token to bring into any of the businesses in town to get a free beer,” he said. 

Russ Klisch, president of Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery, said New Glarus Brewing is bucking a trend by expanding, compared to other craft breweries. 

“To me it’s a great sign that people still believe in the industry,” Klisch said. “I haven’t heard of that many expansions going on in the industry.”

Recently, Lakefront announced plans to buy Kenosha’s Public Brewing Company, according to OnMilwaukee. “That area is kind of underserved by breweries,” Klisch said.

Carey said New Glarus Brewing expects to finish their expansion efforts by the fall of 2026, at the earliest. 

“We always view Wisconsin and its people as our boss. We do what they ask of us, we do what they need,” her daughter, May, added. “So we’re really excited about this, and we can’t wait to welcome them back, we’ve been missing them on the weekends.”