More parents are raising a glass — and a toddler — at family-friendly breweries

Twice a month, 3-year-old Michael Gagnon walks into Zambaldi Beer in Allouez, Wis., like he owns the place. Sometimes at his parents’ suggestion he’ll approach the bar to say hi to the brewery’s husband-wife co-owners, David and Abigail Malcolm, but typically he walks straight past the long, wooden-top tables in the tap room and makes a beeline for the corner near the bar. There, he sits down with the trains and chalkboard provided by the Malcolms, or with the toy cellphone that another child left behind, and plays. “He is sometimes a little too confident there and will walk up to complete strangers and hug them,” his mom, Hailie Gagnon, tells Yahoo. “I think he thinks everyone there knows each other because of how open and welcoming it is and how safe he feels.”

Zambaldi — a Green Bay craft brewery that’s made a name for itself locally as being welcoming to young children — opened in January of 2020 as part passion project, part response to a community survey in which respondents asked for a gathering spot, coffee shop or brewery in the neighborhood. Its success as an explicitly kid-friendly operation is significant as the stability of the craft brewery industry has fluctuated in recent years, and taprooms — that is, spaces where patrons can come to taste and buy what’s in production — have emerged as one of the most profitable ways for craft breweries to continue to make money, according to the e-commerce platform BlueCart.

Though the controversy around babies and beer has sparked Reddit threads, explainers, chat boards and general ambient disdain in the discourse, not a single source for this story could think of an instance in which children (or parents) caused an unmanageable situation, and Stephie Grob Plante wrote for Vox in 2019 that taprooms actually tend to be family-friendly by nature. They are “typically open during daylight hours and close earlier than rowdy late-last-call spots, tend to be sunny, airy spots and often offer ample outdoor space,” she noted.

Across the country, breweries like Zambaldi and families like the Gagnons are leaning into the idea that alcohol and fun for the whole family aren’t mutually exclusive — and that blending the two benefits all. Increasingly, breweries offer parents that sense of having a “village,” and a destination where their children are not only welcome but encouraged to join. Breweries, in turn, then build relationships with multigenerational customers that translate into long-term business viability and profit. Worth noting too is that while men own more than 75% of craft breweries in the United States, “women are estimated to control 75% of discretionary spending by 2028,” according to Bankrate.com. So while men tend to be running these operations, women are the ones deciding whether or not to spend their money there.

The Malcolms, who have two children of their own, designed Zambaldi with young families in mind: They prioritized making sure there was both indoor and outdoor areas for spreading out and accounting for differing seasonal needs, put infant changing tables in all bathrooms regardless of gender and host ongoing events like Sunday family-fun days and Bingo night. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit and Zambaldi had to temporarily close their doors only two months after opening, the community rallied, Abigail says. Neighbors paid for curbside growlers and left generous tips for employees. That support helped Zambaldi stay financially afloat, and five years later it is a profitable, thriving business. “We really wanted to be a community gathering spot,” Abigail tells Yahoo — an investment that has paid both metaphorical and literal dividends.

Jeffrey Stuffings, co-founder of the award-winning Jester King Brewery in Dripping Springs, Texas, estimates that probably 50% of their clientele are families and that the business has been designed with them in mind from day one. Jester King boasts a sprawling 165 acres with goats for children to feed, wood-fired pizza and Texas beef burgers as well as other kid-friendly snacks. In 2021, the property added a large playscape — something Stuffings loves to see the community’s children enjoying in an era rife with screens.

Stuffings himself became a parent in 2010, and though he remembers a time when whether breweries should be for families was more up for debate, his stance has always been clear: “The brewery is a place for family. It's a place for community,” he says. “There's a reason the roots of America came from beer halls and the social gathering that happens over beer.”

The pandemic also brought to the foreground a renewed focus on outdoor space. A patio, lawn or playground for kids to roam and explore has always been valuable to parents, but widespread concern about air quality and ventilation put fresh air even higher on the priority list. Infants and children under the age of 5 weren’t eligible for the COVID vaccine until 2022, so Lucy Huber — an editor at McSweeney’s and writer who had her first child in June of 2020 — relied heavily on breweries as safe spaces when her family was ready to resume socializing.

“We didn’t do anything indoors,” she tells Yahoo, but the mom group she was part of kept a running list of outdoor breweries where fellow group members felt at ease with their children. She also found that breweries bridge an important gap for parents and their child-free loved ones. “Neither of my brothers have kids, right?” Huber said, “Like, they're not going to come to Trampoline Zone or whatever. But they'll definitely come to a brewery and hang out with my kid. They’re such a good bridge between being able to keep in touch with people in my life who don't have kids, and we're sort of meeting at the same level.”

Janine Liberty, a mom of two and the communications manager at MIT AeroAstro, has found this to be true even within her own home. Though the Salem, Mass., native has been taking her now 9- and 10-year-olds to breweries for about a decade, their summer 2024 trip to Dr. Beer in Antwerp stood out as having crossed a certain threshold: “It was one of the first times in their young lives when they noticed how happy we were,” Liberty recalls. “We played poker and blackjack. … Both of them still bring it up.”

In an environment with age-appropriate activities for the whole family, like cards or board games — and one that helps children witness the adults in their lives as three-dimensional people outside of being caregivers — parents can build a strong foundation for long-term relationships with their children — even as they approach the preteen years and beyond. “At a nice brewery, we can have a little of everything, while also teaching them a bit about us as people, right?” Liberty says. “And hopefully it means as they get older they'll still be willing to hang out with us in a place that's not entirely, 100% designed around their interests but is comfortable for them.”

Now that both of Huber’s two children are slightly older, their family makes frequent appearances at two Maryland favorites: BabyCat in Kensington and Lone Oak in Olney. Her main complaint? These spaces have become such a staple for families that the demand can outpace the supply of available play equipment. “There’s always a child crying,” she laughs, then pauses. “It’s usually my child.”