Casper has a lot of breweries for a town its size. I gave up keeping a count a while ago, and every time I think I’ve got it, somebody opens another one. Back in 2024, when a family asked the city for a liquor license for a little brick building on West Yellowstone Highway, K2 Radio reported it could become Casper’s ninth brewery. That place is Cygnet Brewing Company. What grabbed me wasn’t the beer count, though. It was the kitchen: a brewery whose food menu is mostly one thing, and that one thing is Detroit-style pizza.
Before I go any further, a disclosure: I haven’t eaten or had a beer at Cygnet yet. This is a scouting report. I built it from the brewery’s listings, the Visit Casper directory, local news coverage, Untappd and what diners have posted online. I’m not going to tell you how the pizza tastes or what the room feels like, because I don’t know. What I can do is lay out what’s on the public record, flag where the sources disagree and give you a head start on planning a visit. Then I’ll go myself and report back.
What Cygnet Brewing Is
Cygnet Brewing Company sits at 613 W. Yellowstone Hwy, in the Old Yellowstone District. Visit Casper calls it a microbrewery and restaurant serving craft beer and house-made pizza, and says it’s family friendly, with a pet-friendly patio.
The Building
The building has more history than most brewpubs get. It’s the old Martin’s Co-Op building. When Oil City News covered the project in 2024, Richard Schwahn, the company’s president, said the building went up in 1923. Oil City News dated the brick co-op building to the 1930s. I can’t settle that one, so I’ll just say sources differ. Either way, it’s old by Casper standards. Schwahn also said that over the years it housed a co-op, a car battery store, a hair salon and a martial arts studio, and that his family bought it in 2023.
The Family Behind It
This is a family business, and the owners have said so plainly. According to Oil City News, state business records list Kelsey, Michelle, Richard and Taylor Schwahn as company contacts. Richard Schwahn described it as a family business at a Casper City Council meeting in 2024, and the council approved a microbrewery liquor license that May. In December 2024 Oil City News identified Taylor Schwahn as a co-owner. I haven’t found a reliable public source on who actually does the brewing, so I’m leaving that out.
A Slow Road to Opening
Cygnet opened on New Year’s Day 2025, after months of delays. Oil City News covered the launch right before it happened. One fun detail from that coverage: the pizza had people talking since late October 2024, a couple of months before the brewery officially opened. That’s the first sign the food is meant to be more than an afterthought.
The Beer
The best public picture of the beer is the brewery’s Untappd page. When I checked, it listed 28 beers with an average rating of 3.8 from 676 ratings. That’s a decent number of check-ins for a brewery that’s been open less than two years. Keep in mind Untappd is a beer app, so that score says nothing about the pizza.
Here’s a sample of what’s been on the list, going by Untappd’s descriptions:
- Nordic Cowboy: an American blonde ale brewed with Kveik yeast, with “notes of peach,” listed at 6.3% ABV. (Kveik is a Norwegian farmhouse yeast, which I’m guessing explains the “Nordic.”)
- Swan Lake: a Helles lager. Nice to see the cygnet (a young swan) theme carried through.
- Trumpeter Hefeweizen: named, I assume, for the trumpeter swan.
- Handsome Jack: a Scotch ale.
- Midnight Oil Sipper: an American porter, and a Casper-appropriate name if I’ve ever heard one.
- Cygneture IPA series: the IPA line, which goes with the “My Cygneture” flatbread on the food side.
- Mountain High Maibock: a maibock, probably a seasonal.
- The Curious Peach: a peach sour.
- Choke Cherry Sour Power Outage: a fruited sour added in August 2026.
That last one stopped me. Chokecherries are a real Wyoming thing, and I’ve written about them here before. A chokecherry sour from a Casper brewery is high on my list. A Tripadvisor reviewer in September 2026 also mentioned a cherry sour, which may well be the same beer, but I can’t confirm that.
Cygnet has also offered hard seltzers, which matters if someone in your group doesn’t drink beer. Two caveats: the tap list rotates, so any of these might be gone when you show up, and ABVs vary from one source to the next. Nordic Cowboy is the only one where I’m comfortable giving a number.
The Food: Pizza First
The food side is mostly pizza, specifically Detroit-style pizza. Going by the listings and diner reviews I could find, the menu has included:
- Detroit-style pizzas, including the Motor City pepperoni and one called Hell’s Kitchen
- “My Cygneture” flatbread (one diner also mentioned a “My Cygneture Plus Flatbread”)
- A large pretzel, which is about as brewery-standard as it gets
- A Caesar salad
- A seasonal risotto-and-pistachio appetizer, mentioned by a Yelp reviewer. I didn’t expect to see that at a pizza brewery, and I’m curious about it.
One heads-up: the Yelp listing has a “Try Our New Menu” banner, so the menu has likely changed at least once. Treat this list as a starting point. I’m also not listing prices, since I couldn’t confirm current ones.
The planning detail that matters most is this one: Visit Casper says the kitchen closes at 8 p.m. each evening, even on nights when the taproom stays open later. If pizza is the reason you’re going, and it’s my reason, don’t roll in at 8:15 expecting a pan pie.
What Diners Say
The online review pool for Cygnet is small, and I want to be upfront about that. A couple of reviews don’t make a verdict. Here’s what I found:
- Tripadvisor shows a 4.0 average from just two reviews. In September 2026, a five-star reviewer called it a “perfect beer and pizza night” and singled out the Motor City pepperoni and the flatbread. In February 2026, a three-star reviewer praised the friendly service and inviting vibe but said the toppings were sparse and the flatbread was thick and doughy.
- Untappd averages 3.8 from 676 ratings, but that’s for the beer only.
- Yelp had roughly 15 reviews when I looked. That’s not enough for me to lean on a star rating, so I won’t quote one.
I’m glad the critical review is out there. “Friendly people, toppings could be heavier” is useful to know going in. And with a menu that seems to have changed since then, that February review may or may not describe what’s coming out of the oven today. That’s the part I most want to check myself.
Who It Might Suit (and Some Planning Tips)
From what’s public, Cygnet looks like a good fit for:
- Families. Visit Casper lists it as family friendly. Our son is five, so kid-friendly places matter at our house.
- Dog people. Visit Casper says the patio is pet friendly. Patio weather is limited this time of year, so that may be a spring plan.
- Beer folks who like variety. Lagers, a hefeweizen, a Scotch ale, a porter, IPAs and fruited sours cover a lot of ground.
- Anyone curious about Detroit-style pizza without driving to, well, Detroit.
A few things to know before you go:
- It’s closed Sunday and Monday. Don’t make it your Sunday football plan.
- Weekday hours start late. Tuesday and Wednesday don’t open until 3 p.m., so it’s not a weekday lunch spot early in the week.
- The kitchen closes at 8 p.m. (per Visit Casper).
- Call ahead at (307) 452-2739, especially on Thursday, when the listings disagree about closing time.
Other Wyoming Brewpubs on My List
Cygnet is part of a bigger thread on this blog: Wyoming breweries that take their food seriously. I’ve written about Black Tooth Brewing in Sheridan, Snake River Brewing in Jackson and Altitude Chophouse & Brewery in Laramie, and each one says something different about how this state likes to eat and drink. Closer to home, if you’re putting together a Casper food day, my write-up on WYO Bistro downtown covers a good lunch stop.
A Quick Detroit-Style Pizza Explainer
Since Detroit-style is the whole point of Cygnet’s kitchen, here’s the short version for anyone who, like me, didn’t grow up with it. I’m a St. Louis-area transplant, and St. Louis-style pizza is famously thin and cracker-crisp. Detroit-style is close to the opposite.
- The pan: It bakes in a rectangular steel or aluminum pan. The origin story says the first pans were borrowed from Detroit’s auto industry, where they held small parts.
- The crust: Thick, airy and bready inside, more like focaccia than a hand-tossed crust.
- The cheese: Traditionally Wisconsin brick cheese, spread all the way to the edges of the pan. It melts down the sides and caramelizes into a crispy, lacy, browned-cheese edge that people sometimes call a frico crust. As far as I can tell, that edge is what fans care about most.
- The sauce: It often goes on top, after the cheese, sometimes in stripes. Pepperoni often goes on before the cheese, so it cups and crisps underneath.
Most accounts trace the style to Buddy’s in Detroit in the 1940s, but the details vary depending on who’s telling it, so I’ll leave the family feuds to the Michiganders.
If you get hooked and want to try it at home, the deep pan is the one piece of gear that’s hard to fake. I found a Lloyd Pans 10 by 14 inch Detroit-style pizza pan. The listing describes it as a 10 x 14 x 2.5 inch aluminum pan, which matches the classic shape. (Affiliate link; I may earn a small commission if you buy, at no extra cost to you.) At our altitude, around 5,150 feet in Casper, plan on some trial and error with any yeasted dough, so give yourself a couple of practice pies.
Visiting Info
- Name: Cygnet Brewing Company
- Address: 613 W. Yellowstone Hwy, Casper, WY 82601
- Phone: (307) 452-2739
- Hours (per Visit Casper, Yelp and Tripadvisor; check before you go):
- Sunday and Monday: Closed
- Tuesday and Wednesday: 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- Thursday: 11 a.m. to 8 or 9 p.m. (Tripadvisor says 8, Yelp says 9)
- Friday and Saturday: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Kitchen: Closes at 8 p.m. each evening, per Visit Casper
- Good to know: Family friendly, with a pet-friendly patio (Visit Casper)
Hours and tap lists change, especially at a brewery this young, so give them a call before you head over.
Tell Me What to Order
This is where you come in. If you’ve been to Cygnet, I want to hear about it before Kimi and I go. Is the Motor City pepperoni the move, or should we go straight for Hell’s Kitchen? Is the chokecherry sour still pouring? Is the risotto appetizer still around? Corner pieces or center pieces? Tag @wyofood on Instagram or find Wyo Food on Facebook and tell me what to order. When I’ve been, I’ll write it up properly.
— Sean