Ale Asylum brewery and tasting room at 2002 Pankratz St. has closed after 16 years.
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Otto Dilba, co-founder of Ale Asylum, talks about the area's craft beer scene in 2015.
Ale Asylum's tasting room was a popular spot for craft beer lovers on Madison's North Side.
Ale Asylum patrons visit the tasting room last summer.
Madison's Ale Asylum
A bottle of Hopalicious
Madison began falling in love with hops in 2006.
People had just started calling it “craft beer” instead of “microbrew,” and the hop — a bitter, pungent little flower cone that’s been a key ingredient of beer for centuries — was starting to become the star of the show.
That July, a new business called Ale Asylum opened in a former print shop in a nondescript industrial strip mall near Madison Area Technical College, becoming the first brewery of the craft era to make and bottle beer in the city limits.
It launched with 11 beers, all of which would be familiar to Madison beer fans today and four of which hit six-packs in those stubby “heritage” bottles.
One, Hopalicious, absolutely took off.
An American pale ale — not an IPA! — loaded with piney, citrusy Cascades (a variety of hops), it was hoppy enough in aroma and name to hook itself to the hottest class of craft beers while being balanced enough to appeal to Madison’s masses.
Within five years Ale Asylum was making so much Hopalicious that it had more or less maxed out its brewery and began planning for its current facility, which opened in fall 2012 off Packers Avenue near the Dane County Regional Airport.
Alan Sponem, Ale Asylum
Chief engineer Alan Sponem checks Ale Asylum's labeler as the first-ever bottles of Unshadowed hefeweizen move down the bottling line on April 8.
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An upstairs lounge area at Ale Asylum in Madison.
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The bar area at Ale Asylum in Madison.
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The patio area at Ale Asylum in Madison.
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Windows in a seating area offer a view into the brewery at Ale Asylum in Madison.
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Of Ale Asylum's duck poppers, Hathaway Dilba, partner and director of promotions, said: “If we took these off a future menu, we would literally get hate mail."
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A seating area at Ale Asylum in Madison.
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Lemon Pepper Shrimp Tacos with chips and salsa are a favorite at Ale Asylum.
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The bar area at Ale Asylum in Madison.
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Ale Asylum is located at 2002 Pankratz St. in Madison.
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The beer taps at Ale Asylum include crowd favorites like Hopalicious.
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Ale Asylum recently unveiled their Feliz Gravitas variety pack, which contains a beer for hop heads, gravity heads and malt heads. All come at a higher ABV so you’ll be wearing a nice beer coat to combat the winter weather.
Ale Asylum 12 oz. Curl
Madison’s Ale Asylum released its first pilsner, 12 oz. Curl, this spring.
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Ale Asylum is a brewery with a full food menu, located at 2002 Pankratz St, Madison, on Thursday, Apr. 8, 2021.
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Ale Asylum Bedlam
Ale Asylum Bedlam
Ale Asylum Demento
Demento from Madison's Ale Asylum is a 4.7 percent ABV American pale ale.
Ale Asylum Feliz Gravitas
The Feliz Gravitas six-pack contains two each of three holiday-friendly beers, including the new Off Switch Double IPA.
Ale Asylum High Coup
High Coup is the latest IPA from Ale Asylum and one of at least eight IPAs the Madison brewery will release this year.
Ale Asylum Oktillion
Oktillion is the first lager Ale Asylum has bottled since it was founded in 2006.
Ale Asylum solar panels
Marc Nienhaus, an electrician with Faith Technologies, installs solar panels on the rooftop at Ale Asylum in Madison in 2014.
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Marc Nienhaus, an electrician with Faith Technologies, wires solar panels on the rooftop at Ale Asylum in 2014.
Ale Asylum Unshadowed
The label for Unshadowed was designed by Ale Asylum co-founder Otto Dilba over some two weeks earlier this year. He described the design as "delicate but ominous."
Ale Asylum Velveteen Habit
Ale Asylum Velveteen Habit
FVCK COVID
This was not the best new beer Madison’s Ale Asylum released this year, but it was unquestionably the most successful, and it’s obvious why without even cracking open the can. This beer’s label perfectly captured the zeitgeist at the time of its release in early April, and it never really stopped resonating. The pilsner was followed by a hazy pale ale version, and both were taken national by the new Wisconsin-based distributor Brew Pipeline. Locally, the brewery has offered the FVCK COVID duo and many of its other beers for $6 a six-pack for most of the year. By the way, my favorite new Ale Asylum beer also had a “ugh, 2020” theme: MRDR HRNT, the first in a new “Apocalypse Bingo” series. It’s a pale ale heavily dosed with Mosaic, Denali and Trident hops that create an intense, nearly hard seltzer-like lemongrass-lime character.
Great Taste of the Midwest 2011:08:13
8/13/2011: Vines of hops decorate the booth of Madison's Ale Asylum Brewery as visitors to the Great Taste of the Midwest craft beer festival enjoy samples of the vendor's offerings Saturday. Thousands of craft beer enthusiasts converged on the grounds of Olin-Turville Park in Madison, Wisconsin for the 25th annual gathering of the event.
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Brewmaster Dean Coffey, left, and head of sales Ross Hubbard prepare to deliver Ale Asylum's new Stray Forth hard seltzers to Madison area stores.
Hopalicious Continuum: Mosaic
Hopalicious Continuum: Mosaic is the first in a new Ale Asylum series that will showcase different varieties of hops.
Keep 'er Movin'
Keep ’er Movin’, Ale Asylum
Ya know, I didn’t think a whole lot of dis brewski at first, er even really much ‘bout it to tell ya da truth. Sure, I like dat Charlie Berens guy who da Ale Asylum team’t up wit fer dis one, but ya know me, I’m one-a dem fancy craft beer guys, so I ain’t really inta da light lagers ’n’ stuff like dis one. But ya know, guy, I picked up a sixer anyway, and just kept drinkin’ tru it, and wouldn’t ya know, after two-tree of ’em, it really started grew on me! And cripes, inn’t dat just da whole point a dees kinda beers -- ya just drink ’em, ya know?
Dey were a big trend from dem craft brewers dis year. But Keep ’er Movin’ was just, ya know, better den da ones from Founders er Sierra Nevada -- maybe cuz it was made wit’ none of da corn dat kinda defines da style, ya know, er maybe just cuz it takes a cheesehead brewery to brew da right light beer fer cheeseheads.
Ale Asylum sez Keep ’er Movin’ has been movin’ pretty quick, and it’s figgerin’ out whether it’ll keep movin’ in 2019. I say yah.
MRDR HRNT
Ale Asylum’s new Apocalypse Bingo: MRDR HRNT pale ale uses a relatively new brewing technique called dip-hopping.
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Otto Dilba of Ale Asylum
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A new hard seltzer line from Ale Asylum called Stray Forth is now arriving in Madison area shops and bars.
Stray Forth
Ale Asylum recently introduced a new line of flavored hard seltzers under the name Stray Forth.
