R’Noggin Brewing Company

• 6521 120th Avenue
• Kenosha, WI 53142
• (262) 960-1298
• Website

J’s coach always likes to have at least one team meal when we travel to competitions.  It can sometimes be hard to find a place that 15 people agree on and find a place that can accommodate all of us.  

J always looks to me to find places to eat when we travel.  I love doing that when it’s just the four of us.  I know what we like and I know what the kids will tolerate.  

I don’t love it when she asks me to do that for a big group.  I don’t like big group meals anyway and I know there are some people with dietary restrictions in our skating family.  

We were standing at Mars Cheese Castle after a quick shopping trip when J asked again.  I said if it were just the three of us, I saw a brewery with a pizza food truck earlier in the afternoon not too far from where we were at.  J looked at the menu, consulted with the other adults and that’s where we ended up going.  

R’Noggin Brewing Company is a really cool spot on 120th Avenue south of 60th Street right along I-94/41 in Kenosha.  There really isn’t much to this brewrey.  It’s just a large concrete block garage with a lot of open space.  Everyone in our group missed it at first because they thought we were going to Rivals Sports Pub next door.  We all got turned around and were able to find parking in the large gravel/grass parking lot alongside the building. 

When we do these team dinners at competitions, I really like places like this. It’s a lot less structured. I’ll get to the pizza shop in a separate blog post.

The first order of business, after ordering food, was finding a table. There are picnic tables spread all over the property. We lucked in to a couple of empty ones next to each other and then J and I grabbed some blankets and bag chairs from our car to help with more room for everyone. There was live music and some yard games to help keep the girls entertained while the adults ate and talked about the skating so far this weekend.

I think J and I were the only ones that got beer so we were the only ones that went “inside.”

Like I said, the brewery only has the one large building. There are some tables inside and a couple of pinball machines. This is useful on inclement weather days.

There’s a small bar with a number of taps on the wall. I was little bummed they seemed to have more guest taps than taps for their own beers. I’m much more of an IPA guy and their IPA’s were all from different breweries.

Because I wanted to try their beers and not someone else’s, the first beer I ordered was Jalapeno on a Stick. I like pepper beers and this one is a blond ale brewed with jalapenos. The pepper isn’t as pronounced as I had hoped it would be but it was still there in the aftertaste. It was actually a really refreshing beer that felt good to drink outside as the sun was starting to set after a long day.

J saw a blueberry sour and got really excited…until the guy told her they were at the bottom of that keg and it was really thick and not all that great. He gave a taster of it before she ordered so she could see. It was a great tasting beer but the glass was mostly the gunk from the bottom. She ordered something else instead.

She was still able to get a fruity sour with the Lil Jus Strawberry Fluff. It wasn’t quite as good as the blueberry one…just because she likes blueberries more…but still a tasty, refreshing sour.

I went back for a second beer after getting our food. Again, was really wanting something from R’Noggin’ and not one of the guest taps. I ended up ordering the La Playa Mexican Lager which is a collab with Nosey Neighbor Brewing Company also in Kenosha. Again, light crushable beer. Lager’s aren’t my favorite and I usually wouldn’t order them, but when the goal was to drink local.

I love this space so much. R’Noggin was a really great place for us to hang out on a Friday night. The kids could run a little bit. The adults could relax. The beer was great and so was the food from Antioch Pizza. When I drove by this place earlier in the day, I didn’t think we’d get a chance on this trip to stop. I’m glad J rallied the troops for this team dinner.