hey yall, So I'm a traveling medical student and currently in Carbondale, IL for the next month. I was curious if anyone had recommendations for beer stores or breweries close by. I will be heading to St. Louis to side project for a day but didn't know what other people out there would say to do. Let me know. Thabks!
Speakeasy Liquors in Marion, IL has a decent selection (for the area). Its pretty thin down there. However, you have to take a trip over to Scratch Brewing in Ava, IL while you are down there. Cool brewery brewing using ingredients they foraged or grew themselves. Its a gorgeous place. The trip to St. Louis will be a good chance for you to find places with good selections and good breweries. While in St. Louis, other than Side Project, I also recommend Narrow Gauge (NE style IPAs), Civil Life (traditional English and European styles), Urban Chestnut (Traditional German styles), and Perennial Artisan Ales.
If you haven't used the Places feature here on BA, here is a link to a search that I did for Carbondale. You have some places locally to explore. https://www.beeradvocate.com/place/...=&city=Carbondale&s_id=IL&c_id=&submit=Search You can also click on Places on the menu, then Nearby and get a map of the local area to see symbols of what might be available to you in nearby towns. You have to let the map service have access to your phone or pc location for this to work.
While the places search tool certainly does this, for an area like southern IL it's very helpful to have a local or someone who is familiar with the area provide input. I've found that lots of places aren't listed on here or if they are the reviews are so old they're worthless. Also as someone who travels for work a ton the map tool here on BA ... uh, doesn't work well for areas like that.
Can't say much about beer down by Carbondale but while you are in that area you really have to go to Garden of the Gods in Shawnee National Forest because that was one of the best times I had while visiting down there.
Hangar 9 in Carbondale is a good place to hang out and have a great craft beer. My favorite store in town is Westroads. They sell singles, I like that. Schnucks has a great selection as well. Pinch Penny has a great selection but lots of stuff collecting dust. Check dates anywhere you go and if there's no date, leave it unless you know it's new. Speakeasy in Marion is pretty good as well, but probably nothing you can't get in Carbondale. Definitely visit Scratch, White Rooster, and Big Muddy while you're here. Big Muddy is the first brewery in the southern part of the state and has very good beer. Scratch is like nothing else, really. People travel from all over to visit Scratch (and fall is perfect for sitting outdoors at Scratch). White Rooster is new and makes great beer. They're doing a lot of barrel aged sours, NEIPAs, and really a good variety. Molly's Pint is in Murphysboro (near Big Muddy) but I haven't been there yet. DuQuoin isn't too far away, and St. Nicholas there has great food and beer. I highly recommend the hour drive to Paducah, KY to Dry Ground Brewing (my favorite local brewery) and Roof Brothers, who always seems to have rare stuff sit on the shelf that the locals pass over. So Carbondale itself isn't too thrilling for craft beer, but it's a reasonable drive to a bunch of breweries. Also in Murphysboro is the Big Muddy Monster brew fest next month. Some great stuff there, especially if you get Imperial tent tickets. Nice and spread out, not too crowded usually and gorgeous fall weather. St. Louis of course you'll get all kinds of recommendations on that board. I always hit up Craft Beer Cellar and Wine and Cheese Place when I'm there to stock up on stuff we can't get here.
I'm just gonna second a lot of things here: Carbondale - whenever I visited friends there we went to Pinch, Hangar, Westroad, and Schnucks a lot. Copper Dragon for lots of shows, but I wouldn't go there just to drink. Hiking and exploring The Shawnee is a must if you are an outdoors person. I've hiked, camped, fished, and paddled all over out west. Being a Chicago boy growing up, the Shawnee is where I cut my teeth. It's a great spot. StL - like @FBarber said, Side Project, Narrow Gauge, Perennial, and Urban Chestnut. You'll be in damn fine shape right there. If you visit Chicago at all, Triptych (my favorite local brewery) is on your way about half way there and is a very short trip off I-57 - you'll basically drive right by it. They can, also do crowlers, howlers, and growlers. Friar Tucks (big ass craft beer store) is a 2 min drive from there. Also a Binny's in town. If you end up in Nashville, Bearded Iris.
Thanks all for the recommendation. Trying to get out to St. Louis on Sunday, we shall see how it goes. Will check out all of the spots in town. Have had a good amount of bearded iris stuff since I lived in Kentucky for a while. It was good but not great. I prefer some of the other places I have been for my NE IPA fix.
Update to Carbondale: you guys were right about the bottle dates. Found some great finds but when you look at the dates, 5-6 months old. I was fortunate to find some daisy cutter bottled 3 weeks ago and some killer finds at Pinch in the form of KBS and Central Water's BBA stout. People don't know what they have here apparently so its nice of me to swoop in and get some great things.
