Beer shrine puts little Potosi, Wis., on tourism map Posted on June 22nd
Like any good Wisconsin boy, I collected beer cans when I was young. It was a veritable rite of passage to acquire all the Schmidt cans with their varying pictures, and you were a hero in my neighborhood if you found one of the old bottle-can hybrids known as a cone-top. So when I heard about the National Brewery Museum and its collection of beer memorabilia (known as breweriana), I felt a nostalgic urge to get in my car right away and drive straight to … Milwaukee? Nope. St. Louis then? No way. If you guessed Potosi, Wis., you either live there or are out of your mind.
But indeed, Potosi it is, where seven-eleven is not a convenience store but rather the population number on the sign at the edge of town. And now it’s the home of a $7 million project in a restored 1852 brewery building that includes a restaurant, microbrewery and an unrivaled exhibit of often rare collectibles from the history of brewing in America. As if the World’s Largest Cone-top Beer Can weren’t reason enough to visit Potosi.
I follow my urge and drive to the southwest corner of Wisconsin to the banks of the Mississippi along the Great River Road. At the edge of town is a four-story brick building tucked into a bluff. The grand opening is 4th of July weekend, but Potosi isn’t hung up on big-city official hours.
Frank Fiorenza, the village president and a board member of the Potosi Brewery Foundation, is my guide. He walks me through as he’s been doing for anyone who has randomly stopped by in these last few weeks, and I witness the finishing touches being put on. His excitement is palpable; he seems almost unsure of what to show me first. “This has far exceeded my expectations,” Fiorenza said.
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