Greater Milwaukee Men

The microbrewing community always seems willing and able to step up to help others when needed. Westallion Brewing Company , a new West Allis microbrewery, is showing themselves to be just another in the line of brewers doing great things for the community and beyond. On October 20 they are holding an event to raise funds for Puerto Rico relief efforts. October 20 may seem a bit away to raise funds, don't they need it now? Of course they do, but disaster relief is a tricky thing. Money is needed up front, and its important for it to go places where it will do the most help. But often people forget that it is an ongoing effort well past the initial event. Rebuilding of homes and lives needs to take place. Puerto Rico will be needing huge, long-term efforts to rebuild as their entire infrastructure is pretty much wiped out. This will take lots of time and money, and though it is a U.S. territory, it often gets forgotten by the public and the government. To me its great that they...

Yeah, that guy wears 'em. Warby Parker , an eyeglass company with a bold business model, opens a new Milwaukee store - its first in the area - this Friday.  Located at 315 N Broadway, the store will bring their David vs. Goliath battle against big eyeglass companies (really one company that manufactures for most brands) to Milwaukee, and with it affordable, stylish glasses with a BuyOneGiveOne charitable model - donating a pair of glasses to someone in need for each pair sold.

I was just at one of my favorite Milwaukee bars, well favorite anywhere,   Boone & Crocket , drinking a brew I had never seen or tried before, Montucky Cold Snack , when I noticed something cool about the can. No not its temp, but the fact it states that 8% of proceeds to local charities. So, full disclosure, this blog is about Milwaukee and Wisconsin and in this case 'local' doesn't mean here - it means Montana, home of Montucky, and some surrounding states. What makes MCS 'local' to us here is that it is brewed in LaCrosse, WI. So maybe, now that it's distributed & served here, local support could include our fine state.

Milwaukee born and raised Colectivo Coffee seems to constantly roll out the types of charitable efforts we love at GMM, the ones men just may do, namely easy ones. Buy something, give something is usually the model here. It's a bonus when what you buy is exceptionally good, and in the case of what we promote at GMM - man-friendly. Well, for Colectivo that's fairly easy - coffee is after all universal and their products are as a rule exceptional. Right now their Coffee of the Week is  a Featured Farm Series coffee that checks all the boxes. Buy a bag of this unique, flavorful coffee and $1 goes to relief efforts in Myanmar by way of the UN's World Food Programme which helps not only Myanmar but other areas with conflict.

Edited Image of WSJ Grid of Shame from David Leavitt UW-Madison has one of, if not the, premier overall NCAA sports programs in the nation (even people outside our state are coming around to it like USA Today ,  CBS Sports , even rival Minnesota's  Star Tribune  had to admit it. Their recent, long-standing, records in men's basketball & football speak for themselves but they also have been consistently great in other sports as well across men's (hockey) and women's (hockey & volleyball) teams. Perhaps most impressive is the unprecedented and unequaled 15-year streak of the football team has playing in a bowl game and men's basketball team qualifying for the NCAA tournament (3 more years then the next longest). But definitely most impressive is that the university does it all while maintaining what the Wall Street Journal has named the Most Admirable program regarding academics, violations and probation, arrests, and other ways the program is run well wi...