Venture Wisconsin

28/07/2025

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Year 5 of the Venture Wisconsin Original Stage at Paperfest.

Definitely the best line up yet, and the most craft beer sold. Thanks to all the craft breweries that made it possible and Appleton Beer Factory for booking the music. 🎶

17/07/2025

We're rolling all weekend at ! Year 5 of the Venture Wisconsin Original Stage.

🎤Headliners🎤
Thursday - The Psycodelics (Charleston, SC)
Friday - The Big Wu (First Band to play Bonaroo. Twin Cities, MN)
Saturday - Arts Fishing Club (Nashville, TN)
Sunday - Pendulum Hearts (Austin, TX)

Sunset Park, Kimberly, WI. Come visit.

14/07/2025

Come visit the Venture Wisconsin Original Stage this week, Thursday-Sunday at Paperfest! 😁

Year 5 of bringing craft beer and original music to Paperfest at Sunset Park in Kimberly, WI. Our best lineup yet!

🎸Original Music Lineup🎸
-Thursday -
5:00 - Pierce Merrill
6:30 - Damien Liriano
8:15 - The Psycodelics

-Friday-
1:30 - Beach Patrol
3:15 - Modern Joey
5:00 - Diggstown
7:00 - Ifdakar
9:15 - The Big Wu

-Saturday-
1:30 - Amelia Ford Music
3:15 - Mall Crawler
5:00 - More Then Merry
7:00 - Virginia Man
9:15 - Arts Fishing Club

-Sunday-
Noon - Kate Stenson
1:00 - Wire and Nail
2:45 - Pendulum Hearts
4:30 - The Deltaz

Thanks to Appleton Beer Factory, Timber Tap Taproom and Brewery, Hop Yard Ale Works , Stubborn Brothers Brewery, and TAQ Brewing for making this stage possible and supplying an epic craft beer lineup.🍺

Shoutouts:
- 91.1 The Avenue The best in community radio & original music.
- Executive Mortgage, LLC for being a huge new amplifier to the stage.
- Pfeifer Brothers Construction Co. for supplying materials for new stage signage
- Warning Lites for making the Edison-light-vibe possible.😎

16/06/2025

Cripes sakes, I'll take s'more!😋
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1D59ro5LkU/

13/06/2025

Friday the 13th Sale!🏷

$13 Off FRY-DAY T-Shirts👕 https://bit.ly/43CTGV0

$13 Off 2025 Old Fashioned Passports🥃
https://bit.ly/48Y2o2n

Now through Sunday the 15th.

Anybody have a Friday the 13th story to share?👀

07/06/2025

New song called "Door County" by Austin Skalrcki.

https://youtu.be/L9aGlT-6B6Y?si=LtE2B8muR-MFTLDl

Just released yesterday and shouts a lotnof Door County breweries. 🍻 Austin has been a semi-regular, usually bringing good vibes on Sunday's singersongwriter sets, at the Venture Wisconsin Original Music Stage at Paperfest.

Paperfest is coming up real quick. July 17-20
📍Sunset Park in Kimberly, WI

My new single, "Door County," is available now! Listen here: https://linktr.ee/AustinSkaleckiMusicCheck to see shows near you! https://austinskaleckimusic.c...

05/06/2025

🎣The Reel Story of Friday Fish Frys🎣
I just did a deep dive of the history of the Wisconsin Fryday Fish, and here's what I found.

Travel Wisconsin and, separately, The Wisconsin Foodie host Kyle Cherek (through a WUWM story) both corroborate that the reason Wisconsin loves Friday fish frys is as follows:

1. Catholics✝️
2. Proximity to Fish Sources (Lakes and Rivers)🌊
3. Prohibition🍺

🕵️‍♂️Here's what I found (I'll keep it short, the in-depth breakdown was send to our newsletter)📰

1. Catholics✝️
In short, yes. Eating fish on Fridays is a European Catholic tradition, that followed the Catholic Church around the country and world. The idea is you're supposed to not eat meat on Fridays to honor Jesus's sacrifice, buttttt.... fish aren't warm-blooded, so it's not meat, right? The tradition of substituting fish on Fridays is popular all across the US during Lent, especially in the Midwest, East Coast, and parts of the South.

2. Proximity to Fish Sources🌊
The fishing industry and availability seems to be a big factor in which parts of the country have Friday fish traditions both during Lent and extending beyond the Lenten season.🐟🐠

3. Prohibition🍺
I found little evidence from Newspaper articles from 1900-1940 to corroborate the idea that Prohibition fueled Fish Frydays or that they rose in popularity during that time. Despite my skepticism, I was able to find one original trend that may help bolster this theory, the fact that newspaper ads for Friday Fish before Prohibition were typically for local meat markets and general stores selling "Fish for Fridays" which shifted during Prohibition to more advertisements (by proportion) for dance halls and establishments selling "Fried Fish, every Friday."

My conclusion on Prohibition is, maybe, but I'm not convinced. I think with Al Capone and our alcohol-forward culture in Wisconsin, Prohibition generates a lot of lore, and maybe rightfully so, but maybe not.

I found a lot of fun newspaper ads and articles, even one from Superior, WI in 1907 where a waitress "spilled the tea" on her boss asking the staff to yell fake fish orders ("Fried Fish One!") on a Friday in Lent because the restaurant stocked up on fish, assuming it'd be a hit, and it wasn't moving. They also gave a 2 penny discount (likely 20% off) and it seems to have worked.📰

🔥Heat Maps🔥
✝️Red Map (Pew Research): Percentage of Catholics by US County
🐟Blue Map (University of Washington): Seafood Consumption by US County

Conclusion👀🍽
The conclusion I found is I'm not sure the Fish Fry is most popular in Wisconsin or unique to Wisconsin, though maybe outside of Lent we have some room to claim titles of popularity and devotion to Fridays specifically. What is clear is that we are the most aware, generally, and most proud of our relationship to the tradition. In an open Reddit thread, a New Yorker asked, roughly, "Is this a thing elsewhere? Do Friday Fish Frys go as far East as Michigan?" and Wisconsinites felt the need to point to Wisconsin as a hot-spot 10 comments to 1.

All this said, I'm still not convinced that Paul Bunyan didn't have something to do with this. I'll get back to you on that lead.🪓

If you love Fish Fryday, check out our,
1. 📘Wisconsin Fish Fry Guide: https://bit.ly/42RArbr
AND
2. 👕Preorder our FRY-DAY t-shirts: https://bit.ly/43CTGV0

What do you think? Paul Bunyan? Prohibition? Or just The Church exerting its influence through the ages?

01/06/2025

Drop 2: FRY-DAY Fish 👕

Showcase your intentions to munch some delicious seafood next Fry-Day Fish outing. Get the conversation started.🐟👀

Link: https://bit.ly/43CTGV0

These are screenprinted in Wisconsin on classic lightweight Bella Canvas cotton tees. Three color options: black, grey, and army green.

The first batch of shirts will be ready June 9th to ship in time for Father's Day. Preorder yours now.

This June drop is perfect for fathers and fish-lovers alike.😁

Who's the Fish fanatic in your life?

31/05/2025

Free T-Shirt when you purchase a 2025 Venture Wisconsin Old Fashioned Passport.🥃👕

Now through Father's Day, order an Old Fashioned Passport and get a free Whiskey vs. Brandy T-Shirt.

Link: https://bit.ly/48Y2o2n

Three color options. Screen-printed in Wisconsin.

30/05/2025

😮Drop 1: Whiskey vs. Brandy😮
Hows about starting a conversation next time you're out on the town with this t-shirt? Note: We cannot guarantee if the conversations will be sweet or sour.

🫶Monthly Drops🫶
We're going to be playing around with a monthly shirt/merch drop. Most will be limited edition and will be available for 4-8 weeks. They may disappear without warning, they may not. Who tf (tf = the frick) knows?

A few of the most popular designs are likely to come back with different colors, styles, and/or tweaked designs later in the year. We want to keep these fun and exclusive.

May's Link: https://bit.ly/3HvMGBM

Three color options. Printed in Wisconsin. This one is printed on Bella Canvas "Heavyweight" cotton. It's kind of a premium, contractor fit. Durable and comfortably loose, but has a nice shape.

So... Whiskey or Brandy for ya?🥃👀

29/05/2025

🥳The Wisconsin Supper CLUB Dining Destinations Guide Version II🥳
Experience over 140 supper clubs and unlock deals, $12 average value, along the way! Over 20 new supper club partners were added to Version II.

Map of Partner Supper Clubs: https://bit.ly/3w0hrtm

Purchase Here: https://bit.ly/4cWvEIm

The Guide is valid through 2026 and pays for itself in 1-5 trips. Enjoy our best-seller and make your memories across the Dairyland. Plus, enjoy SIX Illinois supper clubs.

What is your favorite Supper Club story? I'd love to hear it. That is what this is all about, after all.

03/05/2025

👀Explore Door County's Hidden Park System👀

Story Time! This ties into our upcoming mobile app.🤳

Ten years ago, while in college, I had an idea for a travel app to uncover hidden gems and things to do. 💎 The idea led me to pursue a summer job in Door County as a kayak tour guide with Door County Adventure Center. My wife and I lived in a haunted farmhouse just north of Sturgeon Bay with a few roommates. We met friends along the way and found hidden gems in Door County, including the amazing state parks, the Mink River, (my favorite kayak tour, pictured below) and the Door County Land Trust Preserves.

The mobile app idea and experiences like these lead the way to the creation of Venture Wisconsin around a year and a half later in 2017-2018.💡

Today, I got an email that just surpassed 10,000 acres of protected land in their portfolio! They now have more land in their nature preserves than the land protected by the FIVE amazing Wisconsin state parks in Door County. That's crazy if you think about it. A group of passionate conservationists over 39 years have pretty much doubled the amount of protected nature preserve in Door County (...kind of, there are other non-state park preserve lands). That's amazing.🥳

If you're looking for hidden gems and nature-based experiences that the typical tourist doesn't see when visiting Door County, start with Door County Land Trust public preserves (map screenshot below is from their website).🚶‍♀️

🌲From their website:

"Door County Land Trust nature preserves are open to the public at no charge for hiking, cross-country skiing, wildlife observation, some forms of hunting, and other low-impact, non-motorized recreational activities."

Door County and the Land Trust helped shape Venture Wisconsin and the first stages of the mobile app that we'll finally be brining to the world this summer (June/July). Congrats to the Land Trust for surpassing 10,000 acres.

What hidden gems in Wisconsin do you wish more people could cherish, experience, or support?❤️