Forgottonia Brewing - New Craft Brewery coming to Macomb

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ST_Lawson
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My coworker and his partners are going to be starting up Macomb's first craft brewery...Forgottonia Brewing
He's got a great business plan, investors, and just won the Macomb Downtown Retail Business Competition for $28k in "incentives" (some of that is seed money, but there's other stuff in the package too) to help them get running. They'll be going in at the old Rock 'N Robin/Rock 'N Records location, just across the road/tracks from the train station.

I'll post updates as it comes. It's going to take them a little while to renovate the location into a full-fledged brewery with a taproom and beer garden, but once it's up and running, be sure to stop by and sample some locally-produced beer, made from locally-sourced ingredients, at a locally-owned business. UPDATE - projected opening Spring 2019.

I'm pretty excited about this, and I don't even drink beer.

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sealhall74
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Should be a nice addition to town. I wonder how long the ownership group spent wondering whether to go with one T or two Ts. How cool would it be to see them park a mobile brew truck on the track around Hanson during football games? Just wondering, does Macomb have any ordinances that require every drinking establishment to serve some kind of food? Here in the Commonwealth of VA, the laws are kind of crazy. State owns and operates all of the liquor stores. There are no "bars" and only restaurants can sell alcohol and the restaurant must take in $45 in food sales for every $55 they make selling liquor-based drinks.
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ST_Lawson
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sealhall74 wrote: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:20 pm Should be a nice addition to town. I wonder how long the ownership group spent wondering whether to go with one T or two Ts. How cool would it be to see them park a mobile brew truck on the track around Hanson during football games? Just wondering, does Macomb have any ordinances that require every drinking establishment to serve some kind of food? Here in the Commonwealth of VA, the laws are kind of crazy. State owns and operates all of the liquor stores. There are no "bars" and only restaurants can sell alcohol and the restaurant must take in $45 in food sales for every $55 they make selling liquor-based drinks.
They're working on getting a brewery license set up in Macomb. In the past, there's been licenses for bars (don't sell food) and for restaurants (must have a certain % of sales in food). The brewery license would allow making and selling alcohol (maybe just beer or drinks with alcohol content under a certain %), snacks and food products that are made offsite (they're not getting into food at this point but might be selling regionally-produced food products and snacks), and would allow people under 21 (meant to be family-friendly...going to have game nights, for example). They'll also allow people to bring food in (like from area restaurants) or order food delivered to there. They're working to partner with some area restaurants to be able to do that.

I don't know about a mobile truck, but they do plan on selling small quantities of their products to local restaurants and bars. Maybe if someone had a food truck and a license to sell alcohol, they could have it on tap. Or, if WIU wanted to get into beer sales with a beer garden area at games or something, they could carry Forgottonia Brewing products. Still very early, I think a lot of people have a lot of great ideas of things to try, other businesses to partner with, etc. At this point they just want to get the brewery, taproom, and beer garden up and running well at their location before really branching out to a bunch of other endeavors.
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wiu712
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And the Winner of the Downtown Macomb Retail Business Competition Is…Forgottonia Brewing.
From Tri-States Public Radio, WIUM-FM:
http://tspr.org/post/and-winner-downtow ... ompetition
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sealhall74
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If I did the math and geography right, at one time, Forgottonia was home to 7 different Illinois colleges, all competing in the old Illinois Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstat ... Conference
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wiu712
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The 16 counties of Forgottonia:
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Forgottonia’s state flag was the white flag of surrender, and its capital was the tiny town of Fandon in McDonough County. Fittingly, its capitol building was an empty storefront.
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Comparing the two maps, it looks like: William & Vashti College (Aledo), Monmouth, Knox (Galesburg), Lombard (Galesburg), Hedding (Abingdon), Carthage College, and WIU.
Of those, Monmouth, Knox, and WIU still exist in their current locations and Carthage College moved to Kenosha, WI.

Hedding closed in 1927 with the records being moved to Illinois Wesleyan.

Lombard College closed in 1930 and it's charter was moved to Meadville Theological School in Chicago, which eventually became Meadville Lombard Theological School (http://www.meadville.edu/).

William & Vashti closed in 1918. The campus and buildings were purchased and used by Roosevelt Military Academy from 1924 to 1973.
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wiu712
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Work has begun on the old Rock N Records store. They are starting with the pavement to clean up the exterior and make it safer before the students return in 3 weeks.

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wiu712
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A story about Forgottonia Brewing was on tonight's WGEM News.
http://www.wgem.com/story/38781423/2018 ... acomb-area
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