City Lights Brewing Guides the Way #Visitmke

Greetings Great Beer Now fans and followers! This is the fifth entry in a multi- part series of blog posts relating to the Great Beer Now No Fibs Allowed Beer Tour 2018: A True Beer City Experience, which took place in the great city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Open up your favorite Midwestern- brewed beer and follow along as I explore Wisconsin’s largest city in search of the best in local suds. Cheers!  

When I take a beer tour in a new city, selecting which breweries to visit is often a matter of distance logistics. I try to visit breweries that represent a good cross- section of the local beer scene and I try to keep my visits reasonably close to each other so that I can quickly get from one to the next. Sometimes, I end up adding a brewery to my visitation simply because it’s so close it would seem silly not to go. Such was the case when I made my way to City Lights Brewing, located at 2200 W. Mount Vernon Ave., Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Powerhouse Personality

City Lights Brewing is housed inside an older building that was once occupied by the Milwaukee Gas Company. This utility business was responsible for lighting the streets of Milwaukee at night, hence the name of the brewery that now resides in the electricity provider’s former space.

The inside of City Lights Brewing features an indoor bar/tap room and brewhouse, with an outdoor beer garden. The inside has bar seating plus seating with high top tables. The outdoor beer garden consists of picnic table- style seating and open space, for plenty of fresh air and sunshine.

City Lights Brewing tends toward the small side, but is cozy nonetheless and I felt right at home there on a Friday evening. They serve an assortment of food, too, like appetizers, salads, sandwiches, and the like in case you need some food to wash down the brew.

Enlightened Brew

With beer, City Lights Brewing has about 10 beers on tap at any given moment, with a good range of styles and flavors. Here is a listing of the beers I tasted, alphabetical by name, followed by the style and my Untappd rating on a 5- point scale:

• Amber Ale, Red Ale, 3.75
• Coffee Stout, Stout, 4
• Coconut Porter, American Porter, 4.25
• Doppelbock, Double Bock, 4
• Hazy IPA, New England IPA, 3.5
• Irish Red Ale, Red Ale, 3
• Mexican Lager, 3.25
• Mosaic Pale Ale, American Pale Ale, 4

Overall Average Rating: 3.72 out of 5

Of the eight beers I tried, the coconut porter was the standout. I really enjoyed the coffee stout also. It seems that the dark beers were my favorites at City Lights Brewing, with any of them deserving of a second helping. And I really liked the way they serve the flight sampler, using small wooden tiles showing the specific beer style you ordered, for easy reference.

Light the Way

City Lights Brewing is one of those “accidental” brewery visits for me. I didn’t have any immediate plans to visit this specific brewery and originally planned to head back to my room at Potawatomi Hotel and Casino following my attendance at a Milwaukee Brewers Game. But once the game finished, I got a second wind and quickly discovered there was a brewery named City Lights that was within walking distance. I walked out of Miller Park and made my way in a northeast direction, across the Menomonee River to City Lights, for some late night craft beer.

I walked inside City Lights Brewing and it was then that I learned that the building was once owned by a utility company. City Lights Brewing has brought new life to the abandoned building and has staked its place in the local craft beer scene. I found it somewhat ironic that I decided to visit a place named City Lights Brewing during the late night hours and it was fitting, of course, given that the brewery was named for the artificial illumination across the area during the evening. I made my way to the bar where I managed to make some small talk with City Lights Brewing personnel while also ordering flights of beer for sampling.

City Lights Brewing has an historic look and atmosphere. The wood and brick result in an interior that tends toward the dark side, but feels warm and welcoming- the way a brewery should feel. The staff and people present were equally welcoming and I liked the beers I sampled, especially the darker offerings. Anyone who likes the flavor of coconut will quickly fall in love with the coconut porter and the coffee stout was also quite tasty.

I like what I tasted and saw at City Lights Brewing and one interesting fact I noticed about the beer is that there are no fancy names, no puns, nothing to name the beer except for the style itself. Where the majority of breweries try to come up with clever names, City Lights Brewing simply names the beer what it is: Coconut Porter, Irish Red Ale, Mexican lager, etc. Some might view this as a lack of creative effort, but in many ways it’s actually the opposite. The standard thing to do at most breweries is make up a catchy name, so the lack of any catchy name is itself a creative take on the process.

Having a plan of action is important when you travel to different cities to explore the local beer scene. It’s always a good idea to have carefully laid plans, but there is something to be said for spontaneity as well. City Lights Brewing was an unplanned yet most welcome surprise and the perfect way to wind down my first day in the great beer city of Milwaukee. This brewery has shown what can happen when new businesses replace old ones and with the close distance to Miller Park, it’s a great way to extend your day of fun before or after a Milwaukee Brewer’s baseball game. So be sure to pay a visit to City Lights Brewing when you’re in the southwest Milwaukee area, near the ballpark. And tell them Great Beer Now sent you.