Cocoon Brewing's Open for Business

Cocoon Brewing has been long anticipated in the Ledgeview area, and it's finally open. Their soft opening in the first weekend of February was the first rumbling of a formal date with the following Monday opening their doors to the public. I was planning on being in the area anyway, so I diverted my afternoon to stop in and see what they have going on so early into their new business.

​​Firstly, it is somewhat difficult to see from the highway. If you don’t know where you’re going, it would be easy to go right past it. I suspect more signage is to come over the Brewery’s life. The building is striking when you turn off onto Kaftan Way. Google Maps will get you that far, so if you come with a mission, you’ll find it just fine.

The interior of the building is bright and vibrant in a way that the exterior, modern architecture does not betray in the slightest. It felt cozy, comfortable, and welcoming, to belly up to their short bar and order. The bartender guided me through the early modifications to their business model set to get them through the first month or so.

​As of the writing of this article, their own beers are not yet available, and their taps are loaded with guest breweries from throughout the region. The bartender on staff during my visit reported a likely early March date for their own beers to begin trickling into the line up. Until then, house cocktails are available as well. If I hadn’t started out with a beer, I would have definitely been ordering from that.

The good news is that some of these guest taps are from breweries I have neither visited nor seen featured at the liquor stores around Green Bay. You’re likely to find something new when you make your visit, even if it doesn’t come from Cocoon Brewery just yet.

Their food menu focused on tasty treats to be made in the large pizza oven that takes up a good portion of their interior. The open kitchen is the first thing my eyes found when I walked in, and some snooping online confirmed a few pizzas on their menu that I was very interested in. The flavor combinations in every listing have promise of their own.

I ordered breadsticks for myself to snack on while I sat down at the bar. They arrived after a few moments of nursing my Set List Hazy IPA from Eagle Park. The breadsticks are plump at the center with tapered ends, and they are served with a small bowl of tangy marinara. That tang was also present in the dough itself. The menu didn’t specify a sourdough being used for the breadsticks and pizza, but it certainly ate like a sourdough preparation. Crunchy ends and pillowy soft interior did precisely what they were meant to do: they got me to drink. Alone, I couldn’t finish a plate, so I asked for these and my pizza to go.

The new potato pizza on their monthly rotation stuck out to me. I know that this can be a difficult preparation to execute, so I chose it to see how things were going in the kitchen. I drove home, pulled out a slice, and sat down for the evening with a fresh drink in hand. The slice couldn’t hold up to the weight of the potato slices and sagged at the center, but that isn’t an indicator of a problem. The crust was cooked and dotted with char spots along the bottom as one would expect. The white sauce and cheese beneath the potatoes coupled to create a rich, savory experience with the sour dough beneath it. 

Mandolin sliced potatoes dotted the pizza in much the same way as pepperoni would on a more traditional pizza. These potatoes, however, were still slightly raw at the end of the cook. This is a difficult preparation to achieve in the kind of oven they’re working with, and I found that the rawness dissipated when I reheated my slice in my airfryer the next morning. Day one of business, I absolutely can’t blame someone for that. If I was the only person who ordered it that day, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Cocoon Brewing is full of promise yet to entirely come out of its cocoon, and that is a discovery we risk as diners when we visit a new business so early in its lifespan. The cozy interior makes it a perfect place to get together for drinks, and the reasonably priced appetizers will keep the hungry members of a party busy. I have no doubt that their primary pizzas will meet the expectations of other diners based on the marinara I tasted with my breadsticks. I will certainly return once they announce that their own beers are on tap and a new cycle of monthly pizzas has entered the game to see how things have changed.

I wish the owners and the staff all the best on their new venture, and I am eager to see the business grow. Good luck, folks! I’m with you.