Chemist-turned-brewer elevating local ingredients in Door County, WI
Sway Brewing + Blending is a local foods gem in small, scenic Baileys Harbor—near the tip of the Door County peninsula in Wisconsin. The brainchild of Matt Sampson, chemist and homebrewer turned pro, Sway also has a bakery and a kitchen. Everything they make features regionally sourced grains.
“I wanted to use 100% Wisconsin ingredients, but quickly found out that there was no malted barley available that was grown in-state,” said Matt. His curiosity about making beer began when he was a graduate student in San Diego. After earning his PhD in chemistry he worked in alternative energy, and about ten years ago, his wife Brooke bought a store in Fish Creek and the couple soon settled in the area, where she had vacationed as a kid.
There, Matt started working for Door County Brewing, and got additional inspiration for taking his brewing passion to the next level. He started Sway as a side project, serving only on weekends, launching the outdoor bar garden on the weekends in 2022, and opening the full inside space and bakery in May 2023. Their high season is from Memorial through Labor Day. Baked goods are built on flour from fellow AGC member Heartland Craft Grains, whose flaked grains are ingredients in some of Sway’s beers. Sugar Creek Malt provides the bulk of the malt, along with trial barleys grown and malted at University of Wisconsin.
The food and drinks are flavor-focused, and unique. For instance, there’s no flights of beer or IPA’s—two standards of craft breweries.
“I just wanted to share a different perspective on beer,” said Matt, noting that plenty of breweries make great IPAs, and he does drink them. But he also loves “drinking other styles and more lower-alcohol styles, so I wanted to highlight those.”
One of the parameters he set was making all beer under 5.5% alcohol; guidelines for IPAs are usually above 6. Sway does make hoppy pale ales, which are suggested to those who are looking for that IPA punch, but the idea is to invite customers to get curious about drinking, and share the curiosity Matt feels for the brewing process. Setting the stage for diversity, Matt said, leads to acceptance.
“When I worked at another brewery, we did a few beers using hyper local ingredients, but they didn’t seem to land as well as what I'm doing now. I think the customer base was geared to think about other norms. But, here, it's a part of everything we do,” Matt said.
Curiosity winds the clock at Sway, from the morning pastries to the foods served in the afternoon kitchen, and through the beers they pour in the taproom.
“My mind tries to figure out how everything is done on a molecular level,” Matt said. This habit comes from learning to analyze things a certain way, yet his understanding serves wonder, not science. “I try to understand how the aroma is translated, how foam is translated, how all these things come about.”
This is why they use a Czech style tapping system for some of their beers – it creates a wet dense foam from a micro-screen in the nozzle, and allows more flavors to carry through the beer to the drinker. Attending to such details is why they don’t serve flights; the pours would be too small for full expression of aroma and flavor.
Other explorations include new malting barley varieties. Matt loves the team inquiry, and Sway is currently collaborating with fellow AGC members Giant Jones Brewing Co. and Herbiery, testing some of the barleys being trailed and pilot malted at the University of Wisconsin.
Another flavor quest for Matt is tracing the impact of yeasts. This includes a culture he keeps and maintains, almost like a sourdough.
“It has some wild yeast strains that I've cultivated from around Door County, and naturally occurring bacteria,” said Matt. They keep this alive in a small keg and feed it with wort (pre-fermented beer) from time to time. When making a batch of beer, they pump it into a tank to ferment the beer. And then leave a small amount left in the keg and feed it with more wort. “We'll just keep feeding it until we need it again. But it gives a more nuanced character to the fermentation.”
A team of six works at Sway, making the kitchen and taps hum. Chef Cooper Harwood’s menu uses seasonal ingredients to animate a street-food-guided menu. Baker Jackie Thelen creates an array of baked goods and savories that highlight local bounty, too. Recently, Sway received an AGC microgrant to buy a sheeter that enables them to make more pastries from local grain. A group of them headed to Chicago last weekend, as they were finalists for the James Beard Award in the Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program!
Matt is grateful to be a part of AGC, which helps Sway pursue its mission to source as many local ingredients as possible. He also credits the organization with connecting them with Tony Shaloub's CNN show, which led to Sway being featured in the Wisconsin episode. If you haven’t already, be sure to watch Breaking Bread or this episode of Wisconsin Foodie, and get ready to get hungry—and thirsty—for a trip to Sway.
