Any beer houses in Chicago? (Franklin: estimate, trading, rain)

[Attrill]

It's kind of shocking how few true brewpubs there are in Chicago. It's very easy to find good beer, but few places actually brew their own. The only places I can think of are Goose Island, Piece, Rockbottom..... and???

There is one new place scheduled to open in the next year or so - Revolution Brewing
It's owned by the owner of Handlebar.

Pittsburgh and Denver are definitely great brewery towns - I especially like the Brewery in an old church in Pittsburgh. Chicago needs more places like that.

[Drover]

Well I wouldn't say Pittsburgh is a great "brewery" town. Pittsburgh Brewing produces mostly crap (Iron City, I.C. Light), though they do contract-brew a lot of Sam Adams stuff, for better or worse. Church Brew Works makes OK beer; the setting itself is a far bigger draw than the beer. Penn Brewing does German beer pretty well, but German beer is very traditional and doesn't leave a lot of room for variation so you won't see any experimental beers coming out of there. That leaves East End, which makes pretty good beers but is so small that there is almost no distribution outside of Allegheny County.

Pittsburgh is really more of a craft-beer town than a brewing town; that is, beers served from around the country and the world. The Sharp Edge and Creekhouse (basically Sharp Edge II) compete toe-to-toe with Hop Leaf and Map Room. Fat Head's and Smokin' Joe's have about the best collection of American craft beers in the USA, though they don't skimp on the imports either. Then there's D's, which is nominally a hot dog stand.... but it happens to have nearly 1,000 different beers available. That place is incredible.

[steelcitygirl1004]

Drover is quite mistaken. IC LITE is a natural, light and enjoyable beer. Iron City is a heavy taste that doesn't appeal that much to me. But given that the Steelers will be in Super Bowl 2009, plenty of both are sure to be consumed. In fact I'm trying to locate some here in Chicago for our Super Bowl Party.

[Drover]

Nah, I'm not mistaken. IC and IC Light are both lowest-common-denominator corn sodas rife with cheap adjuncts -- Pittsburgh's answer to Budweiser or Miller High Life, as if either needed an answer.

Nonetheless, you can find Iron City at the larger Binny's liquor stores in the area. I don't know if they carry IC Light though.

[IloveLoganSquare]

Denver actually does have BOMB breweries. They are just not in Denver. They are in Boulder.

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

I just saw a story on Television a few weeks ago about how Denver is becoming the "Napa Valley of brewing". I have absolutely no firsthand knowledge to back this up and can only think of a few Colorado-based micro-breweries I respect, however. Does anyone have any knowledge of this? I do wish that Chicago had more micro-breweries with good distribution. Goose Island can be great (especially their small batch four packs in the brown packaging), but it would be nice to have other options nearby as well.

Speaking of this, I may go to the fridge and enjoy a Goose Island Pierre Jacques right now! Nothing like sitting around home waiting for a baby to be born...

[via chicago]

Theres supposedly a new microbrewery opening up here. You can read about it below
After ten years and innumerable roadblocks, Handlebar’s Josh Deth has finally broken ground on his brewpub.

Best of luck to him. It really is a shame for a city of Chicago's size and stature we really dont have all that many brewpubs

[coldwine]

*sighs*

Why so much emphasis on beer, of all things?

[Drover]

Because, despite making your distaste for beer well-known in other threads, some of us actually like it.

[coldwine]

But it's all the same!

Why are you not mourning the death of the great Noilly Prat? The martini will never be the same!

[Drover]

Originally Posted by coldwine

But it's all the same!

Why are you not mourning the death of the great Noilly Prat? The martini will never be the same!

You keep saying that. And you keep being wrong. Someone who can't tell the difference between Hamm's and Duchesse de Bourgogne really has no business talking about beer at all, even to tell others how much they hate it.
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