Breweries & Craft Drinks in the St. Croix Valley: Taprooms Worth the Drive from Prescott
Western Wisconsin’s craft beer scene doesn’t announce itself — it hides in industrial parks, old limestone-walled storefronts, and a pale blue building in Somerset with an alien mural on the wall next door. But within thirty minutes of Prescott you can drink at one of the Midwest’s most respected veteran breweries, sip a house-brewed pint a block from a historic footbridge, and try a peanut-butter black ale poured by someone in tie-dye. This is the local’s guide to taprooms and craft pours across the St. Croix Valley — plus where to find the good stuff on tap without leaving Prescott.
Start Local: Prescott Tap
138 Broad St, Prescott
Prescott doesn’t have its own brewery (yet), but it has the next best thing: a downtown tap house pouring 16 drafts focused squarely on Wisconsin and Minnesota breweries. Prescott Tap is where you’ll find the region’s beers without the drive — plus pool, darts, Buck Hunter, and a kitchen that runs later than most in town. Think of it as the trailhead for everything below: taste something local here, then go visit where it’s made.
Rush River Brewing — The Region’s Elder Statesman
990 Antler Ct, River Falls | ~25 minutes from Prescott | Closed Tuesdays
Rush River has been brewing in western Wisconsin for two decades, and around here its beer is practically infrastructure — you’ll find it on tap in bars up and down the river, and even battering the cheese curds at a certain beloved supper club. The taproom is the old-school kind: a corner of the working brewery, 15 taps including barrel-aged and taproom-exclusive pours, and a crowd that usually includes a dog or two wandering between tables. Everything is unpasteurized, unfiltered, and built from US-grown malt and hops. The flagship Bubble Jack IPA is the order if you’re new; the $2 five-ounce pours make building your own flight cheap and easy, and you can walk out with bottles and cases to go.
Know before you go: It’s a production brewery first — no kitchen, industrial-park setting, zero pretense. That’s the charm. Closed Tuesdays.
Swinging Bridge Brewing — Beer and Cocktails in Downtown River Falls
120 S Main St, River Falls | ~25 minutes from Prescott | Open daily
Swinging Bridge is the downtown counterpoint: a brewery and cocktail lounge set behind native limestone walls from the late 1800s, with the brewing tanks sitting right in the front picture windows instead of hidden in back. The house beers share the menu with a serious spirits list — they pour a proper Wisconsin Old Fashioned, which makes this the rare taproom that satisfies both the beer drinker and the cocktail person at the same table — plus house-made sodas for the designated driver and food to keep the evening going. The name is literal: the historic Swinging Bridge over the Kinnickinnic River is a short walk away, and crossing it before or after your pint is the move.
Know before you go: Open seven days, late on weekends — the most flexible hours of any stop on this list. Crowlers and growlers to go.
Pitchfork Brewing — Hudson’s Small-Batch Homestead
Hudson | ~30 minutes from Prescott
Pitchfork is the little one: a small-batch brewery in an easy-to-miss spot off the highway in Hudson, with a taproom decorated in genuine farmhouse Americana — old pitchforks and burlap feed sacks on the walls, milk-pail lampshades, and a standing table built from an actual pitchfork. The tap list rotates through small-batch styles, often including cask ales you rarely see in this region, and the whole room seats a few dozen people at most. It’s the taproom equivalent of a neighborhood bar, and Packers Sundays pack it.
Know before you go: Small space, limited hours — check before making it your anchor stop. Dog-friendly.
Oliphant Brewing — The Weird, Wonderful One
Somerset | ~35 minutes from Prescott
Every great beer region needs one brewery that refuses to behave, and Oliphant is ours. The Somerset taproom is tiny, colorful, and gleefully strange — vibrant murals, a rotating list that can run a dozen or more deep, and beer names that read like inside jokes. The style range is the draw: milkshake IPAs, adventurous sours, peanut-butter black ales, barrel-aged experiments full of maple or rum — the kind of list where a flight is basically mandatory. Beer travelers from the Twin Cities and beyond make the drive on purpose, and it’s routinely called worth an hour’s trip by people who review taprooms for fun.
Know before you go: The taproom is genuinely small — cozy at best, snug on a busy Saturday — and the list changes constantly, so the beer you loved last time may be gone. That’s the point.
Pour One Out (and Where the Beer Went)
One note for anyone who remembers Hop & Barrel in downtown Hudson: the taproom closed in summer 2025 after seven and a half years — a casualty of the rising costs squeezing small breweries everywhere. The good news: the brand lives on through a partnership with Lift Bridge Brewing across the river in Stillwater, so favorites like Crooked Grin and the Breaker shandies are returning to shelves and tap lines around the region. No taproom to visit, but the beer survives.
How to Do a Taproom Day
The natural loop from Prescott: north to River Falls for Rush River (the flight-building stop) and a walk across the Kinnickinnic to Swinging Bridge (the food-and-cocktails stop), then decide — Pitchfork in Hudson for the cozy nightcap, or the full send to Oliphant in Somerset for the weird stuff. Total driving: about an hour and a quarter round trip, all of it pretty. The responsible version: pick two, eat at Swinging Bridge in the middle, and bring a designated driver or make Prescott your overnight base — crowlers travel better than people do.
Who Should Go Where
Beer traditionalists and IPA loyalists: Rush River. Mixed groups where someone wants a cocktail: Swinging Bridge. Cozy-neighborhood-taproom people and cask ale nerds: Pitchfork. Adventurous palates and flight collectors: Oliphant, always. Staying in and staying local: a Wisconsin draft at Prescott Tap counts too.
One Last Local Recommendation
If you only make one stop, make it Swinging Bridge on a warm evening — pint in hand, then the short walk to the old Swinging Bridge itself to stand over the Kinnickinnic as the light drops. A footbridge, a trout stream, and a beer brewed a block away: that’s the St. Croix Valley doing what it does best.
Plan Your Stay in Prescott
Make downtown Prescott your home base and book direct with us: The Port of Prescott for boutique king suites steps from the river, Port After Dark for romantic suites made for couples, The Harbor Hotel for themed rooms and extended stays, and The Cove Guest House for downtown condos and group getaways.
