Greetings,

In beer news this week, Belgium based InBev, owners of Budweiser, announced plans to change the beer’s name to “America.” In related news, it was revealed today that Cameroon’s National Soccer Team, Les Lions Indomptables, has replaced the Green Bay Packers as  “America’s Team” and a sequel to the movie classic featuring Jason Biggs and Tara Reid will be titled “Brussel Sprouts Pie.”
 
Brew master Jimmy recently returned from an action-packed week at the Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia. Highlights of the week included an industry reception on the stairs of the Philadelphia Art Museum made famous by Rocky, a series of technical seminars, vendor meetings, round table discussions to share industry best practices, one-on-ones with other craft brew masters and the requisite tasting of a beers.  Jimmy continues to strive to learn in a never-ending quest for brewing excellence.  Anecdotally, Jimmy reported a preponderance of gnarly beards and flannel shirts.
 
City Lights is a part of the newly-formed Milwaukee Craft Brewers League. The goal of the organization is to create more awareness about the great things happening locally in the craft beer space. Milwaukee was once the epicenter of beer.  Barons such as Schlitz, Pabst, Best, Miller and Blatz defined the industry a century ago.  Fast forward to today: the brewing operations of many of the Founding Fathers have disappeared locally. But make no mistake: their vision hasn’t died. It has simply evolved. We’re proud and honored to partner with other craft brewers and help Milwaukee regain its rightful reputation as the Beer Capital of the World.
 
Last week’s announcement of our “Bend and Brew” yoga series got some serious props from a variety of City Lights followers. One woman called to see if the classes could help her do the splits. I asked her how flexible she was and she replied she could make the Saturday morning class but not the Thursday evening one.
 
City Lights is excited to partner with local businesses, service providers and entrepreneurs.  Our mantra is “local first, local only.” We’re proud to announce  partnership with Stone Creek coffee. We’ve been huge Stone Creek fans for quite some time. Eric and his team do wonderful things with coffee, with space and with a community of like-minded enthusiasts. We’ll be collaborating with Stone Creek on an exclusive “Beans and Beers” tour where participants will get a behind the scenes look at the art and science of both roasting and brewing. We’ll be featuring Stone Creek coffees in our tasting room and for special events and Jimmy and Eric will be collaborating on some intriguing coffee-infused beers.
 
And one time at beer camp….

Cheers,

Robin