Bog’s Edge Brewing OUR BEERS

The brewer for Bog’s Edge, Joe Villacrez, has a deep-rooted history in the beer making business. He still has his beer can collection from the mid 70’s and parts of it are on display. Schmidt, Hamm’s (the beer refreshing), Huber are just a couple examples of the classics.

Joe was friends with the day Production foreman at the Joseph Huber Brewing Company, Bruno Schrade, and was offered a job as summer help. It was a good paying summer job for the local recent high school graduates so Joe and a handful of friends signed up to work at the 2nd oldest continuously operating brewery in the United States. When the brewery was running a batch, the whole town would know by the sweet smell of grains being cooked. Joe also quickly learned if you are 2 minutes late to punch in to work you are late. The first day Bruno, a WWII German veteran, chewed Joe up and down about being on time like a drill sergeant. A lesson learned right then, right there.

The summer help at the brewery was divided by the brewhouse and bottle house. Joe got a job at the bottle house where he learned how to work on the bottling and canning production lines. Keeping the bottles upright was key and was keenly made aware if the lines were backed up. Joe also was able to help out delivering Huber’s different labels all over the Milwaukee area and up to the Appleton metro area. Small time taverns who requested the Bavarian brew were numerous and the delivery days were quite busy and long.

Working in a brewery back in these less litigious days, workers enjoyed the fruits of their labor and were able to sample the beers running down the line to “make sure” a good product was making it into the bottles. By the time Friday afternoon at 3:00 rolled around we were ready for the weekends. Joe did this summer job for 2 summers. He and his friends still talk about the times that were had at the brewery. Bottle Down Brown Ale is a tribute to those days.

Joe spent his first year of college at the UW-Lacrosse university. This city was the home of the very well renown fully krausened Old Style Beer by G. Heileman. Numerous brewery tours were made that year and Joe was rewarded with fresh, cold Old Style and Special Export beers at the end of the tour in the old Bierstube. Joe finished his college days at Boise State University, ID with a degree in chemistry. A degree that would set the base for this future endeavor. He had an organic chem prof who would spend his afternoons trying to figure out why beer would foam up more when salt was added. This was done in the chem lab offices. Joe knew right then, this degree will be the beginning of something special.

Joe followed his career as an Air Force aviator becoming a B-52G instructor/evaluator navigator and radar bombardier and then moving on to the venerable B-1B as an instructor weapons system officer. Joe is married to a northern Michigander Jodi and has 3 grown children.

Joe saw an unopened homebrew kit under his parent’s basement steps and he rescued it back in 2002. This extract beer kit was a hit with friends and family, it quickly became known as Joe Beer. There has always been a homebrew beer fermenting in the Villacrez Cellars throughout the years and within the last 3 years, Joe began experimenting with all grain batches. These all grain beers also turned out very well and we run up to the present, and the Bog’s Edge Brewing Company adventure.

Joe found his 3 barrel (1 full barrel = 31 gallons) brewing system for sale on an online brewers “craigslist” from the Trap Rock Brewing Company up in St Croix Falls, WI. Owner Brian Helm (a Marshfield native) and brewer Dan Campbell have been a huge resource in getting us set up and we owe them a large debt of gratitude.

They brewed and had 10 great beers on tap with this process system and upgraded to a 5 barrel system just this February. Joe knows he has some large shoes to fill now. Unfortunately, Brian unexpectedly pass away recently but the Trap Rock Brewery’s spirit will remain as long as Joe keeps brewing. 

The Bog’s Edge Brewing Company is named as a tribute to the world-famous cranberry bogs that are throughout northern Monroe county and the great state of Wisconsin. Joe had a flying buddy comment when he flew over the area how red the area looked from altitude one Fall. The hard-working cranberry companies employ a large number of people to get the fall cranberry harvest ready. This all culminates to an end of harvest festival called CranFest. The town of Warrens, WI, population of ~540 swells to over 150,000 on the last full weekend of every September with crafts and food venues finished off by one of the longest and always entertaining parades in the local area on the Sunday afternoon.

Joe and Jodi Villacrez invite you to make a quick stop off I-94 at ext 135 and visit our microbrewery and relax with a cool and refreshing old school craft beer or make it your destination and stay at one of the local resorts. Warrens is the gateway to the great Wisconsin Northwoods so start your journey at the Bog’s Edge Brewing Company.