Minocqua Brewing Sues Wisconsin Over Seizure Of 1,200 Beer Cans
Kirk Bangstad alleges unfair treatment and $25,000 in damages after DOR tax dispute.
Minocqua Brewery owner and liberal activist Kirk Bangstad addresses reporters after filing a lawsuit in Dane County Circuit Court seeking to block former President Donald Trump from Wisconsin ballots, on Jan. 5, 2024 in Madison, Wis. Anya van Wagtendonk/WPR
Minocqua Brewing Company, the business run by the controversy-courting Kirk Bangstad, is suing the Wisconsin Department of Revenue after the agency seized 1,200 cans of its beer last week.
According to Bangstad, the agency claimed that the brewery did not pay about $500 in outstanding excise taxes for beers brewed out of state.
In its lawsuit, filed Friday in Dane County Circuit Court, the company argues that the agency is unfairly burdening the brewery for working with an Illinois contract brewer, and that his beer is being treated differently than other beers also produced by out-of-state contract brewers.
Bangstad also argues that the beer seized from both his Minocqua and Madison locations amounted to about $25,000 in damages.
Bangstad has a policy of not speaking to WPR. But in extensive posts on his company’s social media page, he argued that he had tried to pay his delinquent tax but wasn’t allowed to, and that the tax burden placed on his business model — selling beer largely online, rather than through retailers — placed him in a Kafkaesque bureaucratic quandary.
“We told (DOR agents) that we had complied with all of their demands since the beginning of the year, and had TRIED to pay the measly $500 in Wisconsin excise taxes, but they hadn’t let us,” Bangstad wrote. “Over the last several months of negotiation with the WDOR, they never gave us any indication that they would seize our beer while we were waiting to get the proper permitting to come into compliance.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Revenue did not immediately respond to WPR’s request for comment.
Bangstad has found himself in trouble with the law many times since he first came into prominence as a provocateur and anti-Trump activist during the COVID-19 pandemic. In April, he was questioned by federal authorities over posts he made indicating that he’d celebrate the death of President Donald Trump. Bangstad has pledged to pour free beer on the day that Trump dies, and sells merchandise advertising “Free Beer Day.”
Bangstad has also been publicly railing against the Wisconsin Elections Commission after it unanimously found he failed to submit the requisite number of signatures to get on the ballot as a gubernatorial candidate.
On social media, Bangstad argued that this latest scuffle with authorities indicates that he is being targeted by the state, and that Gov. Tony Evers might be behind the raid himself.
“I’ve been very critical of Governor Evers over the last year for not being proactive in stopping Trump’s regime from abusing Wisconsinites, and based my candidacy for Governor on forcing him to protect our upcoming elections from Trump’s slow-burning nationwide coup,” he wrote. “Since my liquor lawyer has never seen this level of punishment being exacted on any of his other brewery clients before in his career, I can’t help but wonder if there’s someone directing these enforcement agents to come down on me extra hard as a way to ‘teach me a lesson.’”
An Evers spokesperson said in a statement that the DOR enforces state tax and permitting laws, “regardless of who the actor is, where they are located, their background, or their political beliefs.”
“The governor expects his cabinet agencies to follow and enforce state laws, and he expects the Department of Revenue to continue doing the job they’re supposed to do,” the spokesperson added.
In a video posted to social media on Saturday, Bangstad also suggested that the Department of Revenue may have been reading his emails. Elsewhere on social media, he suggested that the Tavern League, the state’s powerful beer lobby, was guiding the DOR’s alcohol enforcement arm.
Bangstad has created merchandise poking light at the situation. He has t-shirts advertising drinking “bootlegged beer,” and another that reads “Al Capone has nothing on the Minocqua Brewing Company.”
Kirk Bangstad’s Minocqua Brewing Company sues state over beer seizure was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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