City Brewery seeks state and local funding.

Associated Press--State, city and county offers of financial assistance for a new Wisconsin brewery have taken various shapes as the company prepares to introduce its beer to more markets.

Just days after state economic development officials reached agreement with City Brewing Co. on $900,000 in loan guarantees, municipal officials sent a revised $900,000 proposal to the company Tuesday.

"Well, to be in those markets, I've got to manufacture product I've got to buy packaging materials. I've got to buy advertising materials," Smith said. "At this point, there has not been sufficient infusion of capital in this business to allow us to ramp it up to the level that everybody expects," he said.

People are asking when the company and its public financing will be fully productive, says City Brewing president Randy Smith, an executive with the former G. Heileman Brewing Co. whose plant City Brewing now owns.

The old Heileman brewery, which once provided hundreds of jobs, was acquired last year by City Brewing investors who got public officials' assurances of financial backing. It now has 58 employees, selling beer in western Wisconsin and eastern Minnesota. Products were introduced Tuesday in Eau Claire.

Plans include selling beer in Madison in two weeks, Milwaukee by March 1 and Chicago by April 1, Smith said. "As I've said before, I don't care where it comes from or how it comes but the business needs an infusion of capital," Smith said after a meeting Tuesday with city officials.

The city's $900,000 proposal was sent to investors James Strupp and John Mazzuto. Under the proposal announced last week, City Brewing would get a $900,000 loan from a La Crosse bank with $300,000 loan guarantees each from the state, city and county. The state guarantee would have required approval of the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority.

That proposal "just became too complex," Medinger said. "There were too many heads on that dragon. We couldn't get it together and we tried to figure out a simpler and fair way to proceed which gets us to the same dollar amount, $900,000."

"The players--the state of Wisconsin, the county and the city of La Crosse ...we understand the direction we're going," Medinger said.