Chicagoland NE IPAs (2018)

Discussion in 'Great Lakes' started by SeanBond, Aug 29, 2016.

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  1. SeanBond

    SeanBond Pooh-Bah (2,904) Jul 30, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I think that's rapidly changing now, though. If you look at places like Forbidden Root, Moody Tongue, Dovetail (I hear), etc., more and more places are springing up, and the ones that are seem to be of a higher caliber than they used to be. Obviously I'm not just talking about places that my IPAs (or specifically NE IPAs), but in general I think the percentage of good beer coming out of Chicago taprooms/breweries is increasing pretty quickly.

    Hell, even Half Acre, who I already really liked, is starting to really step up their game.
     
    #2361 SeanBond, Feb 16, 2017
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  2. croush

    croush Pooh-Bah (2,407) Mar 20, 2015 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I don't get around to different cities/states much (it's pretty much here and MI), so I'd be interested to know where the good places are compared to Chicago. I just really don't know.
     
    #2362 croush, Feb 16, 2017
  3. FBarber

    FBarber Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,325) Mar 5, 2016 Illinois
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Hot take: That has nothing to do with the breweries themselves and way more to do with city and state liquor laws.
     
    #2363 FBarber, Feb 16, 2017
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  4. Jangoon24

    Jangoon24 Savant (1,210) Jul 25, 2015 Illinois
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    Agreed with most of what has been said about out-of-state breweries and brewpubs. My sister in CO lives 3 blocks from Weldwerks, every time we go there I don't want to leave - mainly because Colorado is awesome, and because the beer/atmosphere of WW is great.
     
    #2364 Jangoon24, Feb 16, 2017
  5. SeanBond

    SeanBond Pooh-Bah (2,904) Jul 30, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I think the specific problem here is that most places aren't Chicago. You don't hear anyone saying "man, I love the NYC beer scene so much, the vibe and locales are so great!" No, you hear "Colorado, Portland, San Diego, Vermont, those are great places for beer!"

    Yeah, I completely agree that drinking beer at the top of a fucking mountain, from a treehouse 1200 ft. in the air, or while staring out at the ocean is going to be cooler than drinking in an abandoned *****house on Lincoln Ave., but unfortunately I don't have that option here in the city. :stuck_out_tongue: Space is at much more of a premium here, so the coolest things we can expect are places like Forbidden Root, or Lagunitas (not an insult; I'm happy with it).

    (the abandoned *****house is not, to my knowledge, a real thing, btw)
     
    #2365 SeanBond, Feb 16, 2017
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  6. ratwheels

    ratwheels Initiate (0) Jan 12, 2011 Illinois

    @FBarber is right about it being a law issue.

    NYC (Other Half, Interboro, Sand City, Grimm, etc.) and LA (Monkish, Moonraker, Mumford, etc.) have passed Chicago by. Richmond is fantastic (The Veil, The Answer, and Triple Crossing). Philly has Tired Hands. Miami/Ft. Lauderale (Civil Society and soon-to-be 3 Sons). Trillium's Canton location (and their coming-soon Boston location). Portland, Maine (Bissell Brothers - I know they have minimal distro, but Swish never hits stores, Foundation). San Francisco (Cellarmaker, Rare Barrel, etc.). Hell, Nashville got 2 new cool places in the past year (Southern Grist and Bearded Iris).

    They're all over, but my main gripes are with NYC and LA passing us by.

    I think some places here are starting to catch on. Noon Whistle, RAM, and Mikerphone are or will be offering crowlers and have on-site consumption with limited to no distro of their "fresh" offerings.
     
    #2366 ratwheels, Feb 16, 2017
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  7. ratwheels

    ratwheels Initiate (0) Jan 12, 2011 Illinois

    Ha! My last post addresses this. NYC's liquor laws make it SO easy there. I can go there and find Hill Farmstead on tap at 10 different places. And new, very good breweries are popping up every day. Much better than the crap popping up around here. Compare Interboro to Corridor brewing. I mean, it's a joke.

    Look at this f'n taplist and can list. It puts the best 5 Chicago beer bars combined, to shame.

    https://www.beermenus.com/places/18701-the-well
     
    #2367 ratwheels, Feb 16, 2017
  8. Jangoon24

    Jangoon24 Savant (1,210) Jul 25, 2015 Illinois
    Trader

    I totally agree - a lot of the places in Chicago are there because of the space the building offers for the brewery, and proximity to the city. There's a certain cool vibe for places that turn run-down, or even older, formerly-famous buildings into hip new brewpubs for sure regardless of the area (for the most part).

    They're all doing just fine, and the scene in Chicago is a bit different from other places. I'm totally fine with that, and I love my normal go-to spots in the city while always trying to check out places I have yet to visit. It's just refreshing sometimes to find something really different and great at the same time (in my case Weldwerks)
     
    #2368 Jangoon24, Feb 16, 2017
  9. GuyFawkes

    GuyFawkes Grand Pooh-Bah (5,630) Apr 7, 2011 Illinois
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    Wow. Might book a flight!
     
    #2369 GuyFawkes, Feb 16, 2017
  10. SeanBond

    SeanBond Pooh-Bah (2,904) Jul 30, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I was honestly just addressing physical brewpubs (space constraints, atmosphere, etc.), not necessarily the actual beer that bars have on tap. And yeah, Chicago liquor laws are a bitch, although sadly I'm not sure we'd get Hill Farmstead either way. :wink:

    I know, I was just partially giving you shit. I actually agree with you; I even loved the vibe of some of the brewpubs I went to in Dayton Ohio, of all places. You definitely give up on some aspects of the beer scene by crowding everything into the tiny spaces we have in the city (just ask Half Acre!).

    On the other hand, our distro is second to none, so that's Chicago's way of saying "I'm sorry."
     
    #2370 SeanBond, Feb 16, 2017
  11. ratwheels

    ratwheels Initiate (0) Jan 12, 2011 Illinois

    Breweries here don't even focus on brewpubs. The focus is solely on distro. Spiteful, Pipeworks, Hop Butcher. None of them even have brewpubs. Mikerphone and Une Annee just recently went that route.

    Dovetail, Hopewell, Corridor, Dryhop, etc. don't move my needle. I realize that's a personal preference, but we are in a NE-IPA thread so that's where my focus is.
     
    #2371 ratwheels, Feb 16, 2017
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  12. HawksBeerFan

    HawksBeerFan Maven (1,378) Dec 24, 2011 Illinois
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    Man I was really disappointed by their beer when I was out there. Cool place but the beer was super average IMO
     
    #2372 HawksBeerFan, Feb 16, 2017
  13. ratwheels

    ratwheels Initiate (0) Jan 12, 2011 Illinois

    It's seriously crazy that I can drink some of the best Chicago has to offer out in NYC, in addition to all of that other stuff on the list.

    We were having a conversation last night during the share... about where we would take an out-of-towner if we could only take them to 1 place (brewery, brewpub, or bar). We couldn't come up with anything. Half Acre? Links? Hopleaf? Goose Island since they have some kind of BCS on every day right now? Those are pretty weak options.
     
    #2373 ratwheels, Feb 16, 2017
  14. ratwheels

    ratwheels Initiate (0) Jan 12, 2011 Illinois

    Man, we just don't agree on beer at all. It's cool though. Juicy Bits is great. Their Achromatic series is phenomenal and Peach Climacteric was the best beer at FOBAB this year.
     
    #2374 ratwheels, Feb 16, 2017
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  15. Jangoon24

    Jangoon24 Savant (1,210) Jul 25, 2015 Illinois
    Trader

    Really? Juicy Bits and all the variants of it were great IMO. They just came out with a peach Juicy Bits and my sister is sending me some crowlers
     
    #2375 Jangoon24, Feb 16, 2017
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  16. beersite

    beersite Initiate (0) Nov 8, 2016 Illinois

    Cha ching! We have a winner! Certainly in Chicago.

    I do see the culture developing pretty quickly here tho. it has changed a lot even in a couple years. there will be good things to come in Chitown
     
    #2376 beersite, Feb 16, 2017
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  17. SeanBond

    SeanBond Pooh-Bah (2,904) Jul 30, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    I haven't had anything from Dovetail, so I can't speak to their stuff (although I hear it's great). I like Corridor's beer, but I agree that it's nothing earth-shattering. And yeah, nothing wrong with loving IPAs; I'm not all-in on the NE IPA craze, but I certainly like them a lot. I'm a huge IPA and BA stout guy, so I certainly don't fault people who go for the more "extreme" styles.

    You're right though, one of the major downsides to brewing here is exactly that; it's such a bitch to put together a brewpub in the city, that people would rather just ship beer out to distribution (and the end result is the issue we're talking about here).
    My go-to has always been Goose Island Clybourn, but yeah, if you're looking for hoppy stuff, that's never going to be a great option.

    This is my point about Chicago, though. As someone who buys beer to drink at home, I'd never want to live anywhere else. If I were more into bars and brewpubs, then yeah, I'd be feeling it a little.
     
    #2377 SeanBond, Feb 16, 2017
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  18. ratwheels

    ratwheels Initiate (0) Jan 12, 2011 Illinois

    But all of the places I have mentioned have takeaway options - directly from the brewery. It's no different than running into Half Acre and grabbing a 4-pack of Double Daisy Cutter or going to RAM/Noon Whistle and grabbing a crowler. You can still drink at home all you like, you just cut out the middle man.
     
    #2378 ratwheels, Feb 16, 2017
  19. SeanBond

    SeanBond Pooh-Bah (2,904) Jul 30, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Sorry, I was talking about the post you quoted me in (the one about the bar), didn't even see the one you're referring to now. In terms of breweries, I'm not going to argue brewery to brewery A) because I haven't had beer from all these places and 2) because taste is so subjective (and I know you're mostly approaching this from an NE IPA perspective, in which case Chicago is unsurprisingly lagging behind), and 3) because my original argument was just about the physical aspect of drinking culture here--the breweries aren't as cool-looking, because we don't have the same spaces to work with that other smaller places throughout the country do.

    FINALLY, Chicago's got probably the best distro in the country (talking absolute # of breweries), so that's what I was trying to get at when I said there's nowhere I'd rather be. We'll probably end up drinking a lot of the NE greats here sometime soon anyway (although I'm just trying to get a bomber of King Sue in Chicago, first and foremost). :grinning:
     
    #2379 SeanBond, Feb 16, 2017
  20. croush

    croush Pooh-Bah (2,407) Mar 20, 2015 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    It seems like we don't have the same tastes for beers either, as I didn't get excited by that tap/can list, honestly. Would I like to try HF, sure, and I'd try Other Half as well. After that, nothing got me excited. I would say there are plenty of great places to go here in Chicago. Local Option, Hopleaf, Half Acre, Goose Island, Revolution and more. But, I guess it's just different strokes for different folks.
     
    #2380 croush, Feb 16, 2017
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