Kathy Flanigan | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

The building might be from the 19th century, but the beer is fresh and hopped like it's 2019.

Foxtown Brewing, 6411 W. Mequon Road, Mequon, expects to open Nov. 6 with 13 beers on tap (plus or minus one), a full kitchen and more than a passing glance to the history that preceded it.

The brewery is a modern resurrection of the Opitz-Zimmerman Brewery, which provided beer to Ozaukee County in the mid-1800s, and a project of Thomas Nieman, president of Mequon-based pet food maker Fromm Family Foods.

The brewery and restaurant will be the first two parts to open in the 17-acre Foxtown complex. Next door, workers are finishing up a banquet hall, a 42-seat restaurant, a retail area for Foxtown merchandise, a bar area with general-use space, a reserve tasting room for specialty beers and events, and a courtyard patio with fire pits.

Down the line in 2022, the complex expects to add a beer hall in an existing building that will be renovated, along with a butcher, deli and bakery in adjoining buildings. Eventually, the complex will hold apartments, a Fromm Family Food office, single-family houses and an extended-stay hotel.

That's getting ahead of what is currently in place. The brewery has a 7½-barrel brewhouse visible from the copper-topped bar made from rustic timbers. Cream City brick walls have been exposed, as has a second story where, long ago, there was a chute sending grains to a kiln.

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"It's all about history," said Kyle Smith, Foxtown's general manager.

Kathy Flanigan

Much of the brewery's beer is brewed offsite in Germantown. Nate Bahr, formerly of the Bavarian Bierhaus, is the Foxtown brewmaster. Some specialty beers will be made at the Foxtown location.

Samples on tap currently include Flag Day Pale Ale (Flag Day was conceived in Ozaukee County) and Stanford's IPA (the brewery suggests a connection). In an afternoon beer flight, there was also a Brick Oven Amber and Augie's Dunkel (named for August Gerlach, who owned a later iteration of the brewery). Foxtown will highlight its German roots.

Most beers hover between 5% and 6% alcohol by volume (ABV), although two Northeast IPAs hit the high end of 6%, Smith said.

Joe Suarez, Foxtown's chef, plans a menu of deluxe burgers, salads, sandwiches, a fish fry on Fridays and clever foods such as cheese puffs, a cream puff-inspired pastry with white cheddar mousse topped with white cheddar powder.

Kathy Flanigan

At first, patrons won't often get to see the coolest part of the complex — the caves below where Opitz-Zimmerman left beer to lager in 1857. The caves, which occupy two levels underground, have been cleaned up to hold barrels for upcoming beers. The caves could become part of brewery tours in the future, Smith said.

The brewery has been in planning stages for years, and is the result of a group of home brewers who meet regularly at a Nieman property to experiment with a pilot brewery. Bahr produces some of the recipes on a larger scale for the brewery.

Starting Nov. 6, the brewery will be open to the public 3 to 11 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.

Contact Kathy at (414) 224-2974 or kathy.flanigan@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @katflanigan.

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