Clipper Brewing Company is looking forward to a big weekend in Bayfield.

The Apple Festival serves as the season closeout for Clipper Brewing, which opened in August 2023.

The bar itself was designed after owner Tom Bodin’s grandfather’s original fishing boat, The Clipper.

“I built this just to kind of replicate a regular commercial fishing boat that he would have used back in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s,” Bodin said.

There are Bodin family-caught fish preserved on the walls and historical photos and artifacts scattered around the taproom, which is on the second level above Bodin Fisheries’ Fish House shop.

“Our family’s been here for 143 years,” Boding said. “We’ve been commercial fishing for over 130+. Bayfield is a huge commercial fishing community, and we’re trying to tie in Bayfield, the family, the family history of fishing, and Bayfield itself.”

He got started brewing in the basement, then moved the operation to the garage.

“It becomes an obsession, and before you know it, you’ve got something like this,” he said.

Bodin has four of his own beers on tap and features other brews from around Wisconsin too. He makes the Dick’s Bronze Star Amber, a What the Hail Brown Ale, a Pip Pip IPA, and another Roger That IPA brewed special for Apple Fest.

Clipper’s taproom is open from Memorial Day weekend through the second week of October because the space is not insulated or heated.