Minocqua Brewing Co. faces a likely Madison shutdown after Wisconsin revoked its alcohol permits, the same brewery that offered free beer when Trump dies.
Owner Kirk Bangstad said Monday the Madison taproom will likely close by the end of the year as the company keeps fighting the state’s decision.
Fox News reported that the Wisconsin Department of Revenue revoked brewing permits for the firm’s Minocqua and Madison locations after alleging beer was transported from Illinois without the required permits and tax payments.
Bangstad’s operation had already made itself famous for political stunts that treated a sitting president’s death as a marketing event. That record now sits beside a state enforcement case the brewery calls unfair targeting.
The Department of Revenue says the issue is simpler. Laws were not followed.
On Jan. 22, Minocqua Brewing Company posted on Facebook a promise that left little room for spin.
The brewery wrote that free beer would flow all day “the day he dies,” and told customers to save the post so the house would “make good on that promise.” It later clarified the Madison taproom would handle the giveaway if the death came outside summer months, with Minocqua covering a summer date.
The New York Post noted the same free-beer pledge and the half-price pitch tied to another Republican target.
After a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April, where President Donald Trump was present, the company posted, “Well, we almost got #freebeerday.”
An Instagram message went further on Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, then 84 and recovering after a fall at home earlier this year. The brewery promised half-price beer “on the day they unplug the ventilator,” calling his career a “Faustian dance.”
McConnell returned to the Senate last week ahead of key votes. The half-price offer remained on the record.
Bangstad also founded the Minocqua Brewing Company SuperPAC. The brewery’s own about page says the committee aims to remove Republican federal and state officials it blames for “election lies” around January 6, 2021, and for downplaying COVID-19.
That is open political warfare from a licensed alcohol business. It is also the backdrop Bangstad now cites when he claims Wisconsin officials are punishing him for his views rather than for shipping and tax rules.
When Fox News Digital reached the brewery for comment, the company again flagged a “#freebeerday” when the president passes and added a house rule: “Reminder, however, no red hats allowed.”
Partisan score-settling is not new in American public life, including fights over disclosure and accountability that reach figures such as those covered in reporting on how Newsom waited until the final hours on tax returns. A taproom still has to obey alcohol law while it runs the politics.
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue told Fox News Digital it is “dedicated to fair and consistent enforcement of alcohol beverage regulations in Wisconsin and takes action when the laws are not followed, as occurred here.”
Officials set a hearing on the company’s appeal for Nov. 18. They also said the revocation does not take effect until the appeals process is finished.
The Washington Examiner reported the company lost its alcohol permit after a raid last month that seized products allegedly moved from Illinois without the needed permits and taxes, with revocation timed as soon as Tuesday in that account.
Bangstad disputes the state’s move and has accused officials of targeting the brewery because of its politics. The Department of Revenue has not adopted that framing. Its public line is enforcement when the rules are broken.
Channel 3000 also carried Bangstad’s warning that the Madison site is likely done by year’s end. The Minocqua location’s longer-term fate was not settled in the same terms.
Until the Nov. 18 hearing and the rest of the appeal run their course, the revoked permits are not yet final. That is the narrow window Bangstad is using to keep the fight alive.
It does not erase the posts. Free beer on a president’s death. Half-price beer framed around a senator’s ventilator. A near-miss joke after a shooting at an event Trump attended. A SuperPAC built to purge Republicans. A door policy that bars red hats.
Nor does the appeal erase the state’s allegation: Illinois beer moved without the permits and tax payments Wisconsin law requires. The brewery can call that politics. Regulators call it a violation.
Customers in Madison will feel the practical result first if Bangstad’s forecast holds and the taproom goes dark by December. Permits are not speech. They are a license to sell alcohol under state rules, and those rules still apply when the marketing is aimed at a president’s funeral day.
Businesses that turn a president’s death into a pour special should not act shocked when scrutiny follows, and alcohol permits were never a shield for skipping taxes and transport law.