Beer Scene: Chicago (Musings From Chi-Town)

Continuing my travelogue of a recent trip to Chicago, and in no particular order, here are some more great places to try out if you love beer and food.

Revolution Brewing:  I have heard great things about this brewery over the past couple years, and my friend Chris suggested I check them out when in Chicago.  So I actually made this my first stop on our trip, dragging Sj with me into a somewhat shady area at night.  This is the main brewery site on Kedzie Avenue in a manufacturing district on the Northwest side, but they also have a more accessible brewpub site that I will visit on a future trip!  Upon arrival from our cab, we were not entirely sure we had found the right place, briefly worried we had been dropped off in The Hood--soon to be found rotting in a dark alley with empty pockets. 

The building is in a large warehouse with only a small, difficult to read neon sign above a small entry door to betray its identity.  Climbing a set of stairs past a wall mural that indicated we were on the right track, we came to a large open tasting room.  We arrived in the early evening and the place was pretty quiet at that point.  About half of the room was sectioned off for a private event for cyclists that was just starting, but there was plenty of space for all of us.  A large stack of bourbon barrels sat against one wall, filled with beer and awaiting their turn for bottling.  We could have just made a guided tour, but had an appointment with friends and couldn't linger too long...I was more interested in getting time to try all their beers than seeing more stainless steel fermenters!  From where we settled into the long bar, we had a nice view through glass of the brewery proper.  They are a pretty sizable brewery (60 barrel) and keg and can at the facility. 

Our servers were very helpful and gave me some light-hearted crap for not bringing them some Surly beers when they found out I was from Minnesota.  We were able to try individual sample glasses of all the beers, varying in price depending on the beer.  They had about 15 different beers on tap and we did not have the time (or capacity) to try them all...I was very impressed with the variety offered.  Beers ranged from Bier de Garde, to rauchbier made with 100% smoked malt, to several bourbon barrel aged concoctions.  I really enjoyed the Working Mom: an Imperial brown ale aged on Appleton Rum and Woodford Reserve Whiskey barrels--complex, sweet and boozy!  Also quite nice was the Red Skull Imperial Red ale and the Deth's Tar bourbon barrel aged Imperial stout.  We were able to pick up a bottle of the latter to take home with us!  I also picked up a large black fist shaped tap handle for my collection, that may have been the reason my carry-on bag was rechecked at the airport on the way home. 

Within 45 minutes of getting there, the large tasting room was getting crowded, loud and filled with folks wearing skinny jeans and touting ironic facial hair.  An old fashioned popcorn popper provided free sustenance to the hungry beer drinker (me).  We asked our server what the options were for getting a cab out of the area and he didn't outright laugh at us, but did offer advice on what streets to walk up to get back to civilization.  Hand on wallet we marched outside ready for a cautious hike.  Luckily a late-comer to the hipster bike event pulled up in a cab at that exact moment and we were able to both direct them to the proper entrance and snag their cab for ourselves.  I've become soft living in the country.

Swank bar at Fountainhead!

The Fountainhead:  This is a beer and spirits bar lined with tons of dark mahogany wood that conjures up feelings of old world pubs, but less cluttered.  My good friend Bryan took us here in between events.  The beer menu is freaking 14 pages long!  14 pages!  Whiskey and Scotch take up another 8 pages or more, so if that is your thing...drink up.  They have a small back Barrel Room for extra seating and events.  By all reports, the food is excellent as well, but we just stopped in for a drink.  I was impressed with the vibe of the place--comfortable and upscale, but not pretentious, everyone there seemed to be very relaxed and having a good time.  Service was very knowledgeable and quick when needed.  It took us a while to make our way through the huge beer list (which included tons of beers I'd never heard of) and eventually tried out some of the stranger ones.  There was a whole group of beers that had been collaborations with local breweries and chefs (including Stephanie Izard from Top Chef/Girl & Goat, as well Fountainhead's own Cletus Friedman.)  I would love to come back here again and strongly
recommend it to serious beer geeks.

The beer menu!

Bangers & Lace

Bangers & Lace:  This is a place that Shea and Kathleen clued us into, taking us there for Sunday brunch prior to our flight back to Minnesota.  We also got to meet up there with Michael, another friend and local librarian. This restaurant and bar specializes in (surprise!) sausage and beer.  They have 32 beers on tap a ton more in bottle to choose from.  Looking at the oh-so-subtle sign out front, I would never have even noticed this place much less stopped in.  They have an old fashioned long bar and a bunch of old poorly taxidermied animals on the walls, giving it a 1940-50's feel.  Tin ceilings and truck-stop stools complete the picture.  I tried a couple of great beers here, including two different Gose beers!  The brunch food was all amazing: can you say foie gras corn dogs?  And bacon sausage!  Sausage made out of bacon--the best of both worlds!  I would come back for the food alone, but the varied tap list would keep me here a while!  I was only sad that we had a flight scheduled and I couldn't hang out here as long as I would have liked. 

Beer Scene: Chicago, IL (Left To My Own Devices)

Ok, so I'll admit something to you.  This Minnesota oriented blog has had a lot of pieces on non-Minnesota beer places recently.  I've been doing a lot of small trips and love to visit new beer destinations, as well as write about them.  I want my readers to learn about new options for their future travels and it also helps me as a form of  journal.  So bear with me a few more times!

I recently tagged along with my wife for a library conference (those librarians get crazy!) to Chicago.  I went to Rush Medical College back in the late 1990's and lived in the city for 4 long and hazily remembered years.  I honestly was so busy with studies and was so cash-poor that I didn't get out very often.  One of my few periodic outings into town became a sort of tradition for me.  I would drive down to Goose Island Brewpub on Clybourn, parking in their (rare in Chicago) free parking lot.  I would then have lunch at the pub, usually nursing a beer sampler, studying for a while outside the confines of my closet sized subterranean apartment.  I could walk from there to a bookstore across the road and waste some more time and money, studying at their coffee shop.  There was also Sam's, one of the best liquor stores in town (now Binnys).  This is really where I discovered different beer styles, pushing me back into homebrewing to try making some of them on my own.  Back then, the selections were much more mundane than some of the modern Goose Island creations like sours and barrel aged beers, but still a good mix of some classic styles.  I do remember them doing one of the first barrel aged beer events in the country, held at the brewpub and with only about 10 different beers available.

As empty as you will ever see this place!

So on this fine fall day, with my wife off doing super-fun meetings, I took a cab back to my old haunt to see what was new.  Located in Lincoln Park, the brewery has been around since 1988, one of the earliest craft breweries in the USA.  There had been some recent Internet chatter about the lease being up and the brewpub closing after 25 years, but they apparently have arrived at an agreement and the place is safe for the next 10 years.  Whew!  I wandered into the venerable old place to find it virtually unchanged from my many visits over 15 years ago.  Their old event room now had a door with glass inserts sporting the Siebel Institute logo, complete with brewing students busy at study within.  When I arrived it was just after 11 AM and the pub was not busy yet, so I was able to snag a high table in the bar proper.  The bar is built as a central rectangle with four sides to sit at and be served.  Dark old woods with many years of wear dominate the place giving it a well-used and comfortable feel, like coming back home after a long absence.

My server, Cristina, was very up-beat and helpful during my stay.  Apparently all the servers need to be Cicerones, so she was very knowledgeable about her beer styles and pairs.  I ordered a sampler of 4 beers from the extensive list of beers split between pub exclusives and regular Goose Island beers--nearly 30 to choose from!  The place mat they bring the beers out on has a lot of details on how to taste beers--very slick.  I followed this with another sampler and a fine bowl of mussels in a Matilda and cream broth.  Since I ordered all the craziest beers they had on tap (Double IPA, smoked beer, sour saison) the servers had a little pow-wow trying to place them in the best order for me to drink them.  I appreciate the forethought and effort that they put into that!  Overall the beers were very good.  One of the strangest was a beer made with peat smoked apples that tasted like a combination of beer, smoky peated scotch and calvados.  Worth a try, but I wouldn't want a whole pint of it!  I was pleased with my trip back to Goose Island.  They have maintained their original feel, but with expanded selection and improved education of their servers.  A fine hold-over from the first wave of brewpubs.

Jealous?  Oh for the days of carry-on bags full of beer...

From the brewery, for old time's sake, I walked over to Binny's and discovered some new Goose Island beers there (Halia and Gillian) to take back to Minnesota with me.  Strange that the Brewpub itself only sold a few of their more easily found beers for sale, but you could get the good stuff across the street.

This was turning into a wonderful 50 degree and sunny day in Chicago, so I decided to go walkabout.  I walked about 2.5 miles through areas residential, industrial and commercial.  I walked over rattling bridges, beneath isolated overpasses, and through crowded streets.  One of the things I miss about this city is the variety.  Three blocks in any direction will bring you to an entirely different neighborhood, perhaps fancy and well kept, perhaps down-at-heel and crumbling.  I took some pictures with my iPhone, but didn't pause long enough to look too much like a tourist...no sense in asking for trouble.  Though the only time I've ever been accosted by a mugger was back in Minneapolis.

I eventually arrived at my next destination for day-drinking, Haymarket Pub & Brewery.  This is a newer brewery located in the West Loop, and has the feel of a neighborhood pub rather than a brewery.

The building is split into one room showcasing the bar and another with more restaurant style seating.  I sat at the bar and ordered some samples (per my usual routine) and tasted some beers.  Overall the beers were pretty solid, with none showing outright flaws.  The Bier de Garde with cherry was not my favorite, but the Simcoe hopped brown ale was a treat.  I ended up talking to one of the guys next to me at the bar and as it would turn out, he was a brewer at the newly opened Dry Hop Brewpub.  I had hoped to get down there to check it out, but time did not allow.  Oh, well something for next visit!  I can't speak to the food at Haymarket, but the beers were pretty good--I'd go back if I was in the neighborhood.

Miller signs?  And the logo might look a bit like the SS Death's Head... But great beer selection!

From there I walked about a mile to my hotel near the Merchandise Mart, by this time my feet were getting a bit tired.  I dropped off my spoils and hopped a cab for Local Option, a beer bar not far from Goose Island.  There I met up with my friend Eric Smith, a fellow beer geek that I've traded rare beers with in the past.  To this meeting I brought him a bottle of 2012 Surly Darkness in exchange for a Coffee Bourbon County Stout.  Many people in the bar kept noticing the bottle and gazing at it covetously.  The bar was loud, tight and small, a truly local watering hole for beer geeks.  Clientele ranged from hipsters to metal-heads, all enjoying unusual beers together.  I consider myself pretty well versed in beers, but I honestly had never heard of most of the beers on the chalk board!  One I certainly did recognize was Cantillon Gueuze on tap!  That alone was worth the trip.  I got to hang out with Eric, his wife Megan and two of their very nice friends for a while.  Eventually it was time to go and I hopped another cab (taking a while to flag one down in this mostly residential area) to meet up with my best friend Bryan Keehl.  Bryan, his friend Steve, and myself all went out to eat at The Meat Sauna (not it's real name) a Korean BBQ place where they bring out about 40 side dishes and condiments like 5 forms of kimchee, dried minnows, suspiciously gelatinous things, sea-weeds, etc.  Then you cook up your own meats over a bucket of hot coals placed in the center of your table.  I love this stuff!

Not even half of the condiments we got...

To finish up the evening we drove over to Half-Acre Brewing's tap room.  I had been to the brewery when they first opened and the place has changed quite a bit in that time.  The brewery has been getting very popular throughout Chicago and I found their beers all over (even in our hotel bar) during this trip.  The tap room was insane.  Very small and filled wall to wall with local hipsters, the place was a veritable zoo.  It was SRO and the room was filled with an incredible din.  The feel reminded me a lot of Dangerous Man in Nordeast Minneapolis.  I tried a couple of samples, and enjoyed the beers, but honestly I just wanted to escape to the cool and calm night.  I would like to try out the place again in off hours like early afternoon, rather than 10 PM on a Friday.

I had a very long day and visited a lot of friends and eating/drinking establishments.  I am not a lush.  Really.  The only thing wrong with the day was the absence of my wonderful wife, who I saw for a few minutes back at the hotel before we both fell into exhausted sleep.  Tomorrow is another day!

When the lights go down in the city...

Next Up:  Halloween Hijinx

Fire Trucks & Friar Tuck's: Champaign-Urbana, IL

This is the finale of my recent road trip to visit as many family members as possible in the shortest length of time.  On the way down to Tennessee we stopped off very briefly in Champaign, Illinois to stay the night with my dad.  Growing up, I spent the long cold winters in Minnesota with my mom, and most of the summers with my dad in Champaign.  When I was a kid, there wasn't a whole lot to the town other than the area around the U of I campus.  I could ride my bike in just about any direction and reach corn fields.  Things have changed a lot over the years.  Now there are several fine dining restaurants, cool bars and even a few breweries.


We arrived fairly late in the day, but had time to go out to dinner in town.  We gathered up my dad and met up with our friends Kathleen and Shea, then headed down to the Black Dog Smoke & Ale House.  This is my favorite restaurant in Urbana and has made the top 10 lists as one of the best smokehouses in the USA.  They have a small but frequently rotated list of craft beers and often serve cask ale as well.  The place is tiny and they do not take reservations, so there always a big line outside waiting...but it is so worth that wait!  While lurking outside awaiting our turn and smelling the heavenly aroma of smoked meats waft from the doorway, Shea brought us out a beer sampler tray shaped like a dog bone.  We were able to try a bunch of cool beers that are not all available in Minnesota, including the Schlafly pumpkin ale.  When finally seated, we all dug into our plethora of smoked meats and gorged ourselves until disgustingly full.  A great place to visit for food and beer.  We ended the night hanging out with our friends and testing out Shea's beer stash and putting his mixology skills to good use.  Early the next morning we headed South (see my entries on Nashville, Huntsville and Birmingham for my take on the beer scene in those cities.)

On our way back from Alabama we were able to stop off longer in Champaign.  Arriving at night again, we met up with my dad, his girlfriend Kelly and my little brother TJ at Radio Maria in downtown Champaign.  We have been going to this restaurant for many years and it is one of my favorite places to return to when coming back home.  An upscale but not hoity-toity place, they serve good quality food and tapas in a setting surrounded by found art.  They have a great coffee encrusted fillet served atop a vanilla sauce that is out of this world.  The restaurant always had a good bottle list (I remember accidentally ordering a 750 ML bottle of Avery Beast (17% ABV!) here early on and having a difficult time walking out of there,) but have expanded the tap selection greatly since adding a bar side.  They offer samplers of beers as well, so I was able to try even more unusual beers.  They offer a trip around The Wheel for $40--a sample of every beer they have on tap in their wheel shaped tap tower.  I still have to do this some day, but probably need my sister Kimmy there to help me out!

After dinner I dragged my family down the street to the Blind Pig Brewery.  This is the smaller sister to the Blind Pig pub and is often called The Piglet by locals.  They usually have 2-4 house brews, brewed on the tiniest professional brew system I've ever seen (1 barrel?), about 8 other rotating craft beers, and a ton of bottles. The place was hopping, but we managed to snag a small table near the door for our group.  I shoved my way to the bar and brought back a sampler of all four house beers to share with our group.  All of the beers were very good, showing a lot of improvement from the last visit.  The coffee stout was amazing, and the IPA was spot-on.  I could tell my party was flagging, so we finished up our sampler and headed for home and much needed rest.

The next day we had lunch at Zorba's, a college staple serving up fantastic gyros since the year I was born (1973 if you must know.)  The restaurant actually burned down a few years ago and thankfully rebuilt, so I can still visit on my rare trips through town.  This restaurant more than any other reminds me of my past--walking in at nearly 40 and having the exact same gyros and fries as I did when I was 5 is oddly comforting.

Nice wheels, bro!

It was really fun hanging out with my dad and brother on this brief visit.  TJ and I are separated by nearly 20 years and have not had much time to spend together.  Now that he is all grown up, I found that we had a lot more to talk about: gardening, grilling and smoking, etc.  Since he was 12 TJ has been buying and selling things on-line, starting with cell phones and moving up to cars.  Over the years he has owned a full sized limousine, a small school bus (yes he drove the short bus) and several other unique vehicles. We took a trip out to The Car Dealership That Time Forgot in Mahomet to check out TJ's newest acquisition: a 1975 decommissioned fire truck.  He took me for a joy-ride in this smoke belching beast of a vehicle, showing off it's crazy loud air horn and air brakes.  And when it stalled out in the middle of an intersection...who's going to complain--its a fire truck!  I was unaccountably joyous during this little jaunt, I guess the car loving gene didn't totally pass me by.  I'm waiting to show up one day and find out that my brother has bought some sort of combat assault vehicle like a tank or troop transport.  Maybe I shouldn't give him any ideas...

Action shot...

After our Sunday drive around rural Illinois in a 1975 fire truck, we headed out to Savoy, another growing suburb of Champaign area.  Our first stop there was one of my favorite beverage stores in the State: Friar Tucks.  This is a small chain of liquor stores in Illinois and Missouri that have an enormous selection of spirits (and most notably beer!)  With different distribution patterns than Minnesota, I can find a lot of beers here like Lost Abbey, Jolly Pumpkin, and a bunch of unusual Belgian imports.  They also have a homebrew section of the store, but doesn't compare to Midwest and Northern Brewer back home.  I picked up a few key beers to bring home, but had already loaded up the car with strange ones from the South and didn't have much space left in the car. 

My beer hoard

After stocking up on bottles for Minnesota, we traveled all of a half-mile to the newest brewery in the area: Triptych Brewing.  Named for the three brewers who came from separate paths of life, this is a small brewery located just a few buildings down from the dojo my family used to go to.  I never in a million years would have guessed that this rural "suburb" of a college town, known mainly for its airport and golf course, would develop its own brewery.  The world is a-changing...and only for the better if you are craft beer fiend like me!  The brewery looks like a small office building or warehouse from the outside.  Upon entering, the brewery is to the left--showing off a small system and stainless steel conical fermenters.  Straight ahead from the doors is the long bar, with a seating area to the right of that.  They serve no food, but do have a snack machine for some available munchies.  I also spotted a couple of Four Roses Bourbon barrels aging in the tasting room...what boozy secrets might they be hiding?  My family and I all bellied up to the bar and we split a sampler of all the beers (mostly Sj and myself.)  The beer menu was unique: three large TV screens above the bar with a listing of the beers that rotated through each beer and gave brewing, ABV% and hop details on each.  I would have loved to talk to one of the brewers/owners, but they were all off at GABF in Denver that week.

I liked a lot of the eight beers I tried at Triptych.  My favorite was the Dirty Hippy, and English style low alcohol mild--I could have a few pints of this and be very happy.  Second on my list was an apple beer, made with cider from the local Curtis Orchard, where I used to visit in my childhood.  They have been doing a series of single hopped beers called Hop School, and they Centennial was on tap during my visit.  I found it a bit harsh and vegetal, but like the idea of trying this type of thing commercially.  Sorry I missed the Citra version!  I also found the Double IPA to be a bit rough--I wonder if the water profile out there is hurting their hoppier beers.  Overall well worth a trip to visit, and I feel like they will continue to grow as a brewery over next couple of years. 

That evening Kelly fixed us an amazing dinner of apple and goat cheese topped salad and mushroom stuffed pork chops.  She set me to pairing beers with it, so I put some of our spoils from Friar Tuck to good use.  I decided on some great Belgian beers that I discovered on last year's trip to that wonderful country.  The Dupont Foret Organic Saison's fruity esters paired well with the light vinaigrette and apples in the salad, and Dupont Moinette Brune did wonders with the earthy mushrooms and pork.  This was a perfect end to a great day.

While some things stay the same in the Champaign-Urbana that I (at least partially) grew up in, a lot of things are changing.  Rather than just being a transient college town, it is becoming much more varied.  I'm very happy to see lots of options for my favorite hobbies (such as eating and drinking,) and was sad to head back to my real home in Waconia.  I had a great time with my family and seeing some of the old haunts...I'll be back!