Downtown Champaign will get a new chain bar soon: The Brass Tap. The Brass Tap is a chain from Tampa, Florida, though Champaign’s location is a franchise. Known for having dozens of craft brews on tap, The Brass Tap’s mission is to “To Create a Premium Beer Experience for the World.” (It looks like its starting with the US first, which could in fact be “the world” to some.) It also serves food, but as the News-Gazette reported, franchise owner Samir Naik stated, “By no means are we a restaurant, but we’ll have a variety of selections of foods.”
I’m not exactly sure what lies between “not a restaurant” and “variety of selections of 
foods,” but perhaps it resembles a Hampton Inn snack shop.
As a community with no fewer than three kicking-ass-and-taking-names breweries in its limits (not to mention breweries on the verge of opening and those just outside of C-U), I think it’s safe to say we have people who know a thing or two about craft beer.
With last week’s news that Pour Bros. will also open in Downtown Champaign, I’m left thinking that we have more than enough places to drink booze, but are perhaps wanting for some other things.
Photos from Instagram.