Milwaukee’s Sprecher Brewing sold to local investors

MILWAUKEE (AP) - Milwaukee’s first brewery since Prohibition, Sprecher Brewing, was sold Friday to a group of local investors.

Sprecher Brewing is credited with jump-starting the craft beer age in Milwaukee when Randy Sprecher and business partner James Bubolz opened shop in 1985, with $40,000 and a hand-built brew kettle. The Journal Sentinel reports Sprecher Brewing is metro Milwaukee’s longest-running craft brewery.

Sharad Chadha, former vice president for GE Medical and an executive with Samsung, will be the brewery’s CEO. Milwaukee native and entrepreneur Andy Nunemaker will be chairman of the board and Jim Kanter, the former general manager for MilllerCoors, will also be on the leadership team.

“Nothing is really going to change for our partners and suppliers and things like that,” brewery president Jeff Hamilton said Friday.

Chadha told the Journal Sentinel the goal is to make Sprecher a national craft beverage producer.