Crystal Lake Brewing

Friendly staff, small room available for private parties. Has a bar and tables, no food served but they encourage you to hit up the local eateries. Beers are a hit and miss for me, the Barrel aged beers from their Boathouse Reserve line are as good as anyones, and I think their IPA's are also above average. They have about 10-12 handles half are their "flagship brews", the rest are seasonal or one timers. My favorite local place.

 

Stopped at CL Brewing after dinner and we were able to get a table pretty quickly. Service was excellent. The problem that I have with CL Brewing is that they do things well, but don't appear to do anything exceptional. I was a fan of the brewer while he was at Emmett's and had higher hopes for this place but in the 5 times I have been here, I have been disappointed. They seem content to please the masses and produce fairly generic versions of styles. Not that there is anything wrong with that but I want a little more from my local brewery. I had the Wit tonight and it was good. Just good. Like CL Brewing. Just good.

 

Tap room with a bar and tables for seating. The quality of the beer is good to very good. Service was friendly, helpful and knowledgable. There is a selection of twelve beers on tap as well as cold cans to go.

 

 

 

 

My wife and I stopped here to try the beers and to introduce some local friends to the craft beer world. The brewery is close in to the center city and only a block away from the train, which was our method of arrival in town. A long bar is situated along the back wall, and the brewing equipment is visible beyond that wall. A large number of bar tables are available as well as a small patio at the front of the building. No food is served here, but a series of menus from local restaurants are in a rack on the wall for ordering in.

There are 8 taps plus a hand-pull, and we chose a sampler flight of 4 beers so that we could evaluate as many as possible. We also sampled the beer of one of our friends, so 5 of the 8 beers were sampled. All of them are brewed very well to style so that they earned a B grade for the quality. The golden ale, the Belgian wit and the German pils were tied for our favorites. This place is worthy of a visit if you are in the area.

Solid spot walking distance to the METRA station with a lot of great food options very close by.

 

 

 

 

Overall the place is ok ...stopped in for a beer on a Friday night. Overall not very busy and it still took me over 10 minutes to get a beer. That's unacceptable. If they were busy that's different but they weren't. Also seemed more focused on chatting with their "mug club" members than they were with non members. Not a good way to attract new customers. Would i stop in again? Maybe cause I support local, but there's nothing here that blows your mind. Just standard brews

Place was hopping on a Wednesday. No food but dukes is close, and walkale. Kid friendly. Definitely check it out!

Located a block away from downtown. It's a very easy walk from the Metra station; you could hit up CLB and Duke's within the span of an hour.

Cute little facility that looks like it used to be a goodwill or a maybe a tire store. Big storefront windows let in plenty of sunshine. The bar is long and woody and there's a couple TVs, but overall the place has the vibe of a retail store. That's not bad, of course, but it's also not very homey or cozy.

Waitstaff was nice. Dogs are allowed. The beers were all quite solid--even the maibock, which is a style that most Americans tend to fuck up very badly. Nothing really blew my socks off, but it was a nice enough place to while away a lazy afternoon.

Finally dropped in for a visit following a couple movies down the street at Regal Crystal Lake. It's a small-looking storefront/warehouse building a block or so up the street from the Metra station that houses the apparently-usual tap room interior: exposed ceilings, a flat screen or two, Chipotle-style metal and wood decor, some games (including shuffleboard and a room for bags matches), and the obligatory window showcasing the brewing equipment. It was shortly after opening, so I was one of but a small handful of patrons, but it was early on a Monday, so... I bellied up and ordered their sampler flight, which consists of their four year-round offerings on a circular platter; these were followed up by full pours of their four rotating/seasonal offerings. The beers are generally solid, if occasionally forgettable. The standouts were the steady marzen and rotating doppelbock. The guys behind the bar are certainly friendly and willing/able to make recommendations based on past experiences (I gathered this by overhearing a couple conversations down the bar). Pricing seemed fair by suburban standards. Overall, a nice place with plenty of promise, though it might be a little while before things fully catch on for me. I'd like to see this place really flourish in the style of Tighthead, but the beers are gonna haveta start wowing a bit more for that. I plan on revisiting in the near future to see how things are progressing.