Minocqua Brewing Company released its new Department of Public Education Cider to protest efforts to defund the federal Department of Education — the latest in its series of politically-themed beverages to support public education in Wisconsin.
“Funding [for] the Department of Public Education has basically been canceled at the federal level,” the brewery’s owner Kirk Bangstand told The Daily Cardinal.
Bangstad said the cider’s apple theme is symbolic to the teaching profession. “That was our little way of fighting back was to create a cider, because apples and cider …go along with teaching and public schools,” he said.
The cider is the latest effort to support public education since launching political beverages five years ago. A portion of the cider’s sale will go toward the Minocqua Brewing Company Super PAC to advance public education causes in Wisconsin.
Bangstad said the COVID-19 pandemic sparked him to mix politics with business. “I started becoming very much more political when I thought that his policies were going to bankrupt me,” he said.
He said Trump downplayed the dangers of the virus and failed to support restaurant owners. “We shouldn't have been open … because that's where people spread COVID the most,” Bangstead said.
The brewery’s Super PAC financed a lawsuit in 2023 challenging private school charters that were paid for with taxpayer dollars. “We thought private school vouchers were bad for public schools in Wisconsin,” he said.
Bangstad also criticized the Trump administration for removing books from the Smithsonian Institute related to race, the LBGTQ+ community, feminism and the Holocaust. “We need to actually read more so that we can be media literate enough to know when fascism is knocking on America's door,” he said.
Minocqua Brewing Company will also release a holiday beer called Snowflake IPA, which Bangstad said is inspired by the outrage people faced for criticizing Charlie Kirk after he was killed. “Why are we celebrating a guy who said the most horrible and bigoted things?” he said.
Bangstad said this beer is about free speech, even if it does not “match the right’s mentality.”
“You only live once and [with] my time on this earth, I want to try to do what I can to make sure America doesn't fall into fascism and authoritarianism,” Bangstad said.
