Lombardi Brewing Company, which opened in September in the former City Lights Brewing facility at 2200 W. Mount Vernon Ave. in the Menomonee Valley, is moving in to coffee, too.
The brewery – which brews its beer at District 1 in Stevens Point, as it has been doing since before it opened the Milwaukee taproom – has added an espresso machine and expects to install a roaster in January, too.
The addition of coffee is expected to lead to an expansion of the taproom hours.
At the moment, Lombardi Brewing is open 3-9 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m.-9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 11-7 Sundays. A social post, however, says that coffee, “will take us to full taproom hours, likely opening 6 a.m. (Monday-Friday), 7 or 8 Saturday and Sunday.”
The owners – Amanda Gethers, Tim Kunze and John Lombardi, the grandson of Packers coach Vince Lombardi – are working on getting the kitchen up and running, too.
On the beer side, I was excited to see Lombardi unveil Eschweiler Pils, a tribute to architect Alexander C. Eschweiler, who designed the former coal gasification buildings that are now home to the brewery and other businesses.
The 4.6 percent ABV Czech pale lager sits alongside another site referencing beer called Gaslight. That one is a Czech-style dark lager that is 5 percent ABV.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press. A fifth collects Urban Spelunking articles about breweries and maltsters.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has been heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
