From backyard brews to national brewing champions

• Craft beer
• Small Business Saturday
• brewery
• black-owned

Imagine you are a small minority owned brewery in Chicago and the owner of Samuel Adams, Jim Kock, drinks your beer right in front of you and tells you that he can smell the hops exploding! Talk about a surreal moment!

For Funkytown Brewery co-founders Richard Bloomfield, Gregory Williams and Zachary Day, they did not have to imagine a moment like that, because it became their reality at the 12th Annual Samuel Adams Brewing and Business Experienceship Craft Beer Competition.

The three childhood friends from Oak Park entered into the competition among 50 other businesses and became finalists at the New York Crafting Dreams Beer Bash. Their victory sent them to the national competition, where they reigned supreme giving them access to mentorship, networking, and funding from Samuel Adams Brewing.

Funkytown Brewery is more than just craft beer. They build their business on values centered around culture and community involvement. They believe in making craft beer more accessible to women, Black people, and other demographics that are usually not at the top of the market minds of brewers.

.Funkytown started from small brew batches in their parent’s garage and is now sold at over 600 locations across the Chicagoland area and Wisconsin including Wrigley Field and the United Center. This September the co-founders will create a craft beer to showcase at the Great American beer Festival in partnership with the brewers at Samuel Adams’ Boston headquarters.

For more information about Funkytown Brewery and how they are using their entrepreneurship to give back to their community visit them here.

Illinois surpasses competitors in state business rankings

Illinois’ extensive business leadership perseveres with top rankings highlighted by CNBC’s 2023 Top States for Business publication. Business and educational opportunities continue to increase as Illinois surpasses the rankings of their neighbors and its own previous ranks. Based on 10 categories of competitiveness, Illinois is reported at top 10 in the nation for four categories and top 20 in six categories. Overall, Illinois is named the 17th best state for business, which is ahead by two places in their 2022 ranking and up from 30th in 2019.

Highlights of Illinois’ rankings:

• #2 in the nation for infrastructure
• #2 in the nation for education
• #6 in the nation for access to capital
• #9 in the nation for cost of living

Through the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois initiative, Illinois stimulates economic movement across the state with the completion of more than 5,300 miles of highway and nearly 500 bridges, as well as over 750 accessibility and safety improvements. Additionally, the initiative invests into Illinois’ educational foundation by passing Smart Start Illinois and increasing funding through the MAP Grant and AIM High.

Improved infrastructure, state-wide access to affordable education, and economic growth, combine to create higher quality of life for Illinoisans. Among its positive rankings in infrastructure and education, Illinois is a part of the top 20 states for life, health, and inclusion, which includes healthcare, worker protection, and voting rights.

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Illinois counties ranked top places to live in the U.S.

Some of America’s best counties are right here in Illinois. According to the July 2023 issue of Site Selection Magazine, several Illinois counties are cited as the best areas to live based on the total number of economic development projects each made from January 2022 to March 2023. When it comes to building a county into one of America’s best, Pat Boeshart, president and owner of LiteForm Technologies, says you must reflect on how you can do business through its inevitable challenges.

The report names Cook, Kane, DuPage, and Will counties as top ranking areas for living and business investments.

Each county takes great pride in its individual strengths and collaborative environment that continues to make them a rich blend of urban and rural locations, diverse faculties, affordability, high quality of life, and connectivity amongst their neighboring regions. Below are the four Illinois counties and their rankings.

• Cook County: Ranked #2 with 231 projects
• DuPage County: Ranked #9 with 91 projects
• Kane County: Ranked #14 with 52 projects
• Will County: Ranked #16 with 48 projects

For more information on these counties and stats, please read the report here.

How did we not know brownies were invented in Illinois?

Did you know Illinois is responsible for the creation of the brownie? This very popular sweet treat traces back to 1893 in the heart of Chicago. Bertha Palmer, the wife of the owner of the historic hotel, the Palmer House Hotel, asked her kitchen crew to whip up a desert that could be portable and served at the World’s Columbian Exposition fair at the request of the Board of

Directors of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. This iconic fudgy treat made its debut at the World Fair with crunchy walnut sprinkles and savory apricot glaze. The brownies were served near frozen at the fair, and, quickly, this new chocolatey indulgence became a huge hit! Restaurants and cafes all across the world began to sell Mrs. Palmer's Brownies the same way – ice cold! Now, over a century later, this same recipe created by Bertha Palmer in 1893 is the same recipe used to make the famous Palmer House Brownies at the historic hotel in Chicago.

Brownies are such an easy treat to make and can be modified in countless ways to to fit everyone’s taste buds. Over the years, brownie recipes have evolved to include all sorts of ingredients from caramel to cream cheese. However, there is only one Original Palmer House brownie. To experience what thousands of 1893 fairgoers experienced for the first time ever in any lifetime, follow the recipe linked below!

• The Famous Palmer House Fudge Brownie