Karben4 Brewing

Karben4 has been one of Madison's better-known independent breweries for over a decade, operating out of a building on Kinsman Boulevard on the far east side near the airport — an industrial-park location that has become a genuine destination taproom rather than a production site with a bar attached. Its Fantasy Factory IPA is close to a Madison default order.

The reason it belongs in an alcohol-free guide is unglamorous and, for a taproom, exactly right. Visit Madison's own guide to non-alcoholic drinking in the city names Karben4 as the home of Wisco Pop soda and Sparkle unsweetened sparkling waters. Wisco Pop is made in Viroqua in the Driftless Area from whole organic ingredients — real ginger, real fruit, cane sugar rather than syrup concentrate — and it is a serious drink in its own right rather than a concession. Sparkle covers the other half of the problem, the person who wants something with bubbles and no sugar at all and is tired of being handed a soda water with a sad lime. Neither is a mocktail, and that is the point: in a room where everyone else is drinking a pint, the thing a non-drinker most often wants is a good cold drink they can hold for an hour, not a construction with six ingredients.

For planning, the hours are early: 2pm to 8pm Monday through Wednesday, 2pm to 9pm Thursday, noon to 9pm Friday and Saturday, noon to 6pm Sunday. It is a fifteen-minute drive from downtown and not walkable from anything else in this guide, so treat it as a destination — which it is, with a food menu, board games and a room that fills with families early in the evening. Be clear that this is a brewery: beer is the product, the alcohol-free offer is a well-chosen shelf rather than a programme, and the strength rating here reflects that.