Business of the Week: Forward Beverage Co.

Wausau Pilot & Review

Editor’s note: This sponsored weekly feature shares the stories of locally-owned and operated businesses and organizations in the Wausau area, highlighting the products and services they offer and the ways they contribute to the metro area’s unique flavor. Learn how to feature your business by emailing [email protected].

This week’s featured business brings something entirely new to downtown Wausau. At first glance, Forward Beverage Co., which officially opened its doors in early September, appears to be a cocktail lounge similar to others in the downtown area. But make no mistake – this is no ordinary bar. The craft cocktails served at Forward are an absolute delight, rivaling any upscale lounge in town. What makes them unique: None contain alcohol.

Owned by Amy and Paul Yanzer, Forward Beverage Co., 303 N. Third St., joins a growing national mocktail movement as the popularity of non-alcoholic drinks continues to grow. Experts say no- and low-alcohol products appeal to a wide range of age groups, in part due to the increasing focus on health and wellness, as more people adopt healthier lifestyles and choose to limit their alcohol intake – or abstain altogether.

If there is a science behind the perfect mocktail, Forward Beverage has an edge. Paul Yanzer, a chemist and physicist, put his research skills to work to come up with several of Forward’s most popular concoctions. Here, the beverages are crafted from real fruit juice, natural extracts, and electrolytes, and are made without added dyes, colors, artificial sugars, or sugar substitutes. The lounge is a long-overdue addition to Wausau’s entertainment scene—and the couple has plans to grow.

“Our mission is to share our beverages with the local community and the entire state,” the couple told Wausau Pilot & Review. “We are Forward Beverage Company, with a strong desire to move the industry of nonalcoholic options forward, just like our state motto. We do not claim to be a dry bar, but view our retail shop as a nonalcoholic taproom, an extension of our business that allows people to enjoy our beverages in the store from the tap and/or purchase them to go.”

Canned products will be ready to go by the end of the week, and a new flavor is coming in the days ahead. Here, Amy and Paul discuss their vision and share what to expect when you walk through the door at Forward Brewing Company.

What need did you see in downtown Wausau that you are trying to fill by launching Forward Beverage? 

We noticed a lack of local, non-alcoholic options in Central Wisconsin in general. We do not order N/A beer or sodas when we go out to dinner. We thought it would be great if there were something local without a lot of added sugar on the menus of the restaurants we frequent. We chose the 303 3rd St. location because of its unique visibility downtown, as well as the fact that it had a commercial kitchen and office space. This will allow Paul the opportunity for research and development of new recipes, flavor combinations, and types of non-alcoholic beverages.

What can visitors expect when they walk through the door? 

Visitors can expect a warm greeting, a sleek, modern taproom atmosphere with limited seating, and tasty beverages available for purchase to enjoy on the premises or to-go in our recyclable gold aluminum cups or cans. 

Tell us about the beverages you serve and how Paul’s experience as a chemist played a role in this. 

Our beverages are crafted from real fruit juice, natural extracts, and electrolytes (potassium, magnesium, and sodium).  They are made without added dyes,  colors, artificial sugars or sugar substitutes. Our In-Fashioned is sweetened with a small amount of brown sugar and molasses, but the rest, at this time, have no added sugar.  In fact, one serving of our drink contains more potassium and magnesium and less sodium than Gatorade! We serve these lightly carbonated soft cocktails to our children and they absolutely love them for a refreshing treat. Our social seltzers, designed to help a person relax without alcohol, contain hemp extract and the adaptogen ashwaghanda. Paul’s experience as a chemist, physicist, and R&D manager for Octopi Brewing in Waunakee allowed him to develop the all-natural, plant based hemp emulsion we use in our social seltzers, learn market trends in the beverage industry, troubleshoot the scale up of processes in the manufacturing of beverages, develop new flavor profiles, and help other brands bring their beverage ideas to life.

Paul has also worked as a pharmaceutical scientist in Madison, a toxicologist at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office in Chicago, and founded and ran Paragon Fitness and Nutrition with a business partner for five years before closing the supplement company during the COVID-19 pandemic. The supplement company found a niche market with service workers (nurses, police, fire, military), people working night shifts, and people suffering from PTSD by focusing on sleep and natural products and methods of recovery. Forward Beverage Co is kind of a continuation of all of the work he has done over his career. Seeing the damaging affects of alcohol and chemical dependency firsthand and recognizing that his alcohol consumption was not something he could responsibility control led to the development of Forward Beverage Co.

His current product formulation focuses on creating non-alcoholic cocktails that provide a fresh take on their alcoholic counterparts. They aren’t just a cocktail with the alcohol removed, but something that stands on its own as a well-crafted cocktail without the alcohol. Future plans include new flavors as well as beverages to naturally help with sleep and energy, without being an “energy drink.”

How do they taste, and how do they compare to alcoholic versions? 

You’ll have to make that judgement for yourself!  Our kids love them. We have had an immense amount of favorable feedback from our customers, and repeat customers to boot! The beverages are reminiscent of the alcoholic versions: sparkling, fruity, and complex, with hints of complementary herbs, or the sweet fragrance of fresh fruits like tart cherry and blood orange. The hemp extract used in the social seltzers is odorless and colorless and provides a calming effect. Drinks to try right now: The In-Fashioned, the Citrosa, and next month we will have the Guava Salted Sour and the Jalapeño Passion fruit. 

It feels like more places are introducing a few options in this regard. What do you think caused the boom in this industry? 

A lot of adults choose not to drink alcohol, and they do not need an excuse or reason to do so. What they do deserve are delicious, interesting options; not just a Shirley Temple or a soda. More and more adults are aware of the negative health effects of alcohol as the World Health Organization sounds the alarm on the dangers of alcohol consumption. The pandemic pushed many to excess, and we’ve heard from a few people that this is what prompted them to seek out alcohol alternatives. Younger people are also not drinking as much as their parents did. All of these factors contributed to the boom in this industry.

Tell us about your plans to partner with businesses in the future as a wholesale distributor. What is that going to look like, and do you have a target launch date? 

We want to drink our beverages when we go out to eat in Wausau! We want them to be available at restaurants, stadiums, theaters, golf courses, specialty shops and grocery stores here in Wausau and eventually, around the state. We will launch the wholesale business after the retail shop is up and running efficiently, hopefully in a few months. 

Tell us about the business partnerships you’ve developed and how they helped make your vision possible.

Mindy Hoppe and her team at DesignTheory19 were instrumental inspiration for the design of the shop. We purchased the bitters used in our recipe from Timekeepers Distillery. They distill and sell the best aromatic bitters we have tried! We were also lucky enough to have Scott Laub of Skeeters Woodshop agree to custom build and install our beautiful mahogany bartop. Mark Craig and his team at Compass Properties helped us to make all of this happen. 

What is so appealing about downtown Wausau as a venue for your business? 

Third Street is a lively, busy area, with a lot of traffic passing by and frequenting its restaurants and specialty shops. The Children’s Imaginarium will be completed this fall, and we think parents would love to stop in for a tasty beverage and get their children something special to drink. We sell our kid’s size beverages for $1 on Saturdays. We also love the proximity to The 400 block: Concerts on the Square, Chalk Fest, the Wausau Festival of Arts and all the other events that happen there. We also hope that The Foundry on 3rd will bring more residents, businesses, and energy to the already vibrant downtown community.