Hamburger Mary's / Andersonville Brewing

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a beer place I would recommend moving on, perhaps down the street just a tad to a well known Chicago beer bar. The selection is primarily limited to house brew, which isn't the best.

As a restaurant it is fantastic. The burgers are great, just stick to soda or a bottled beer.

 

I stopped in for a quick bite and had only a little bit of time. Looks like a typical cafeteria but the staff is very friendly and attentive. I was very pleasantly surprised when I saw a good variety of home brew selections, but I only had a chance to try one. At the waiters suggestion I ordered the Mary's Peanut Butter Stout. The 12 oz pour was served properly in a tulip glass and very tasty. Very reasonable at $6 and well worth it. I wish I had more time to sample some of the other offerings. Food was very good also. I had an oriental salad, but the burgers ordered by some in our party looked great. Poor choice on my part. We rushed in and rushed out, but next time I'm in the area, I'll definitely stop back in.

Didn't find this place very enticing for a beer spot.

I greatly respect microbrewing and brewpubs but this place just didn't work with me. I found the space to be good; lots of room, large TV's and the bar is mostly accessible even if there are some bellies against it.

The real reason we came, however, is for the beer and I found it lacking. I went with some of Mary's reserve bottle choices, opting for their Peanut Butter Porter. Either the organic PB flavor didn't come across well or maybe it wasn't the best bottle but I didn't find much peanut butter flavor in it nor was it very good as a porter. I also tried the hibiscus and honey gluten-free beer and while that was good, I don't know that it was "have multiple bottles" good.

Probably the biggest bummer is that if you aren't connecting with Mary's house stuff, there is pretty much nothing else to fall back on in terms of beer. Of the 6 unique taps, 3 are Mary's stuff and the other three are Guinness, cider and some other ubiquitous beer.

I give Mary's props for putting effort in the original brewing but I think until this place doubles its unique offerings and/or acquires a greater number of unique non-house selections (draft and bottle), it falls short in terms of a destination beer spot and relative to other places I tab "beer bars" in Chicago.

Ever since hearing this place opened, and reading about the apparent (extract?) brewing operation here i've been curious, but not rushing over to an LGBT sports bar in Andersonville. Can't say i'd seek it out on purpose, even with LGBT friends. There was a Samwell show here apparently.

While in the area, we decided to drop in and try the selection of house beers. Inside, it was a square room with bar to the left, tables center, and booths on the right side.

Chalkboards listed their house brews. There was a decent selection of styles on draft, including a golden ale, an amber, hoppy pale (Cascade), christmas ale, and an oatmeal raisin cookie stout. Of these, the stout and pale ale were somewhat decent, and the others needed some work. A ginger mead was also on the board, made in house. There were 5 other taps, including Bourbon County, Matilda, and Miller Lite. 90% of the crowd was drinking Miller bottles... There were some featured local craft staples on the beer list like Alpha King, 2 Brothers, and Metropolitan Dynamo.

Overall it was really more your average bar selection, with a few decent beers. Apparently they do very small batches, so there's no beer to go (5 gallons, we were told, but that has to be wrong). Strangely the stout was bottled, but again not available to go... why even bottle at all? Ran out of kegs? I did see the brewing room enclosed in a small room in the back, it looked like one mash tun and two fermenters. Apparently they hosted a homebrew competition here, and the winner got to brew on their system.

During the day, the crowd was a fairly mixed bunch of neighborhood locals there for a Bears game (8 tv's in here). There was only one server for about 12 tables, so it was a little slow at times, but we had good service and some quick beer info. We only got a couple appetizers, which were pretty standard. The burgers at the adjacent chain restaurant have been featured on Check Please.

I'm still sort of on the fence about this place, for a beer bar it's lacking, especially with better options in the area (Acre, Hopleaf, Edgewater). I'd return someday to try different seasonals and see if they have improved, but can't really recommend it as a destination.

12/10: A few new seasonals, including a good coffee stout, but still a lackluster sportsbar atmosphere.

9/2011: Three strikes and you're out. Third time in two years, the beer hasn't really improved, and that's more than enough time. Awful cabaret music upstairs bled into blaring lady alt-country downstairs, with a bunch of flatscreens playing espn and baseball. Surly, indifferent bartender who silently ID'd us before greeting/speaking to us. "Oh you're ten years older than me..." you don't say. Poor quality extract beer, the only halfway decent beers here seem to be the one off seasonals for some reason (coffee stout, oatmeal raisin). Not coming back here for any reason... maybe for a burger next door, but never to the bar again.