Need Brewery suggestions.

For deep dish skip the big three and hit up Pequods, you won't regret it.

For hot dogs my personal favorites are Superdawg and Gene & Jude's, but there are a ton of places.

For beer I recommend you take a detour up north and hit up Dovetail. The clean European styles are really refreshing

 

I second Pequods, about a 10 minute drive north of the GI taproom, worth it. Piece is also solid, closer to where it sounds like you'll be, also doubles as a brewery and there stuff is decent.

As for breweries, Forbidden Root is in that general area, they brew some different stuff. I don't know that I consider it a microbrewery, but Revolution's brewpub isn't too far...

 

Asking for pizza recommendations is dangerous stuff. If you haven't had any of them before, they are all worth exploring at some point. I enjoy many different ones, including Lou Malnati's, Gino's East, Uno, Pequod's, Art of Pizza, and I've even come to enjoy Giordano's even if it's a bit too "stuffed" for me. The aforementioned Piece is great, but that is not deep dish - it's New Haven style.

Chicago style hot dogs are also something with plenty of options. Portillo's is a popular spot, or you can go up to Wiener's Circle or way north in the city to Superdawg. You'll be able to find plenty of small-ish hot dog places to just try one, though.

For breweries, I think all the ones mentioned are good, even though I haven't been to them all yet. Half Acre is one of my favorites, but not sure if you'd consider it "micro" (I'm not sure where the cutoff is for that). You can do HA, Dovetail and Begyle pretty easily together if you want to try a few.

 

Fighting words: I've never quite got the chicago beef. Wasn't my thing.

(This coming from a cincinnati native who loves Skyline and also understands how people could completely dislike Skyline.)

 

Honestly, for someone who has never had Chicago pizza before, I wouldn't suggest Pequod's to someone as it is not "traditional" deep dish pizza. Without nerding out too hard, there are three types of deep dish 1. traditional (i.e. Lou Malnati's, Gino's East), 2. stuffed (i.e. Girodano's), and 3. pan (Burt's Place, Pequod's).

IMO for someone who has never had deep dish I would go to Lou's because it is very consistent, they have a lot of locations (Pequod's can have long waits and is a bit out of the way for people visiting just "downtown") and every out-of-towner I have brought there has really enjoyed it (not the same for Pequod's IMO, which is closer to a love/don't get relationship).

 

I think this answer should be copied & pasted for any future Chicago deep dish pizza questions. Great response.

 

Very good take on the whole pizza debate.

I will say that while Lou's is my favorite of the major players, there is something about the history at Uno & Due and the atmosphere is pretty good for out-of-towners. As locals, I know it's easy to look past the 'touristy' places, but they're like that for a reason. Of course, this logic doesn't apply to Navy Pier. I tell people to avoid that at all costs.

Along those same lines, there are a multitude of hotdog/beef places around the city and everyone has a favorite. But if time and location figure heavily into the equation, Portillo's is a great spot to at least get a feel for the experience if you're staying downtown.

And depending on the age of your kids, Piece pizza can be a great stop. It's got New Haven style pizza and they brew their own beer. Lots of TVs and a good, loud, fun environment. And just walking around the North/Damen area is a good way to experience a Chicago neighborhood.

 

Keeping on the PizzaAdvocate topic, Gino's River North is technically a brewpub, which means you can get your authentic deep dish fix with house beers.

That said, as a Chicago native, I think deep dish pizza is a once or twice a year kind of food. Sure it's a rite of passage for visitors, but I'll take Southside, thin-crust, party cut pizza any day. Vito nicks rules.

At the end of the day, I always reccomend Chicago dogs and Italian beef for the Chicago cheap eat experience.

 

Gino's East has a brewery now, you can hit two in one.

edit: too slow

 

Reeling this back into beer. Moody Tongue is in Pilsen, which is between Goose and lagunitas, more or less. I also recommend Dusek's in that neighborhood. While not a brewery, Dusek's has great food, a great beer program, and a real cool basement cocktail bar called punch house.

Pilsen also has so many good taquerias.

On Tour and All Rise are each a few blocks from Goose, but I can't speak to their beer.

 

I like On Tour. The beers are solid and tend to be faithful representations of their styles. That said, it's probably not anything that will knock your socks off, though they had a really nice gin-barrel-aged IPA recently. The space itself is also a cool place to hang out.

No clue on All Rise, but other options in the general area are Forbidden Root (mentioned above) and Cruz Blanca in West Loop, both of which seem to be trying something different by using interesting ingredients.

 

Hey, it's not chili. It's just a brown faintly meat-like slurry that goes on a faintly pork-like sausage-shaped item with more cheese than could kill a cow.