Pomona Cider Company Opening in City

A new cidery planned for Milwaukee’s Lower East Side would transform a former office building into a cozy, urban oasis.

Co-owners Tom Gabert and Sawyer Purman would open Pomona Cider Company, named for the Roman goddess of orchards, at 2163 N. Farwell Ave.

Set to open in early 2023, the “warm and cozy feel” of the cidery, according to Gabert, would come as a welcome respite from the chill of Wisconsin winters.

Gabert, who also owns the mobile bartending business Pour Inc., said he first turned to hard cider as an alternative to beer. He later became a sales rep for the Door County cidery Island Orchard, where he grew close with owners Bob and Yannique Purman.

“You fall down the rabbit hole of cider making,” Gabert said. “You start picking apples with them on the island and just kind of fall in love with everything. They’re phenomenal to work with.”

Gabert and Sawyer Purman would maintain the Door County connection with their Milwaukee venture, sourcing juice from Island Orchard’s 40-acre orchard on Washington Island to ferment on-site in Milwaukee with a focus on Normandy ciders, which are dry and less sweet than traditional brands — almost akin to champagne, according to Gabert.

The Milwaukee cidery would create small-batch and experimental craft ciders. Some would be barrel aged, while others would flow directly from fermentation tank to tapline, Gabert said. A selection of Island Orchard ciders would also be available.

Visitors at Pomona will be able to observe the fermenting process through a display window.

The cidery also has plans for a kitchen, serving small and large plates plus a variety of charcuterie boards from the chefs at Strega, who recently left their hawker stall at 3rd Street Market Hall. With sustainability top of mind, Gabert said he plans to create a no-waste kitchen and source ingredients from local vendors.

Pomona’s local focus goes beyond the kitchen — nearly everything in the 2,100-square-foot cidery, including the benches, tables, sake cups and even the lampshades, was handmade by a local artist.

“We want to awe people a little bit when they walk in,” Gabert said. “Just like cider, just like the process of using your hands and making cider from scratch, we wanted to give that feel in the aesthetic as well. Everything in this was done by someone, it wasn’t just manufactured.”

The Roman goddess Pomona is displayed in some renditions of the cidery’s logo and also shows up in interior decorations, but Gabert said he hopes to eventually go bigger and commission a mural of the goddess on the building’s exterior.

Though the cidery is still a few months out from opening, Gabert is already planning for the future. He shared plans to host events, private dinners and even small weddings in the space, which holds approximately 50 to 60 people. He also plans to redo the back patio, which overlooks the Oak Leaf trail.

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