STEVENS POINT, WI. — A bartender slid a couple of cold, sweating four packs of beer across the countertop at District 1 Brewery about as smoothly as Steve Stricker rolls in four-foot putts – fitting, because the suds in question were Stricker’s “Strick9” pilsner.
The happy customer scooped up his prize – and make no mistake – it is one.
District 1 co-owner Mike Sheehan laughed and said he wished they brewed a few more batches of the light-drinking, 5.2% alcohol by volume beverage.
As other customers ordered more from the tap around him, Sheehan said their supply was already half gone by the end of Thursday night as the U.S. Senior Open at SentryWorld is mere five minutes away.
“Steve said he wanted an easy-drinker, light beer for summer,” Sheehan said. “It seems like this is blossoming a little quicker. Maybe it’s just the older guys, the golfer kind of crowd.”
A new batch is being brewed Monday and will fill 140 cases.
Stricker and his agent (and brother-in-law) Mario Tiziani selected the brew from a handful of options, and it debuted to the public this month. A few samples were given to Stricker, his family and players during the American Family Insurance Championship in Madison earlier in June.
It is already stocked at the Stricker-designed TPC Wisconsin in Madison, which is the future home of the American Family Insurance Championship.
“They reached out to us last year, so it took a few months to come up with something,” Stricker said. “They gave me three choices kind of thing after I told them what I like, so we picked one out, and we had a name. There’s some people that call me ‘Strick Nine.’ Play on words, right? Strychnine will kill you. … It’s kind of fun; all the proceeds are going to our foundation.”
Sheehan designed the logo for the back of the can, which is the molecular formula for the poison shaped and colored like a golf hole.
The beer is only available at the brewery, located at 200 Division St. N in Stevens Point, and at some local retailers. But Sheehan hopes a partnership with a bigger distributor can lead to its proliferation to locations in Milwaukee and throughout the state.
“We’re pretty small,” Sheehan said. “We opened up six weeks before COVID, so the first two years were really tough. We’re right about 800 barrels a year, so we don’t have a distributor yet. We’re kind of self-distributing, so that really limits us. We’re meeting with a distributor (in the middle of July) because they heard about this and they really wanted to see if they could help out. So that may open up some avenues in the entire southern part of the state, or maybe beyond that.”
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