Chicago Brew tour -suggestions?

you'll love haymarket. the great thing about that place is they offer 4 oz pours and your arent paying more per ounce so that way you can try as many as you want. if its available, try mathias. that is their flagship beer. revolution is decent. their IPA is pretty solid. if you have time, check out Hopleaf. its not a brewery but arguably the best beer bar in the city with fantastic belgian style food.

 

I might suggest Piece as well (on North Avenue). Solid tap offerings that are
brewed on site, and excellent thin crust pizza (New Haven style). Half Acre
has a "tasting room", but no pub. You can get growlers or cans there.

 

Is the plan to hit all of these in the same day? Particularly with Half Acre, you're going to be cab'ing it for a while or stuck dealing with multiple transfers between trains/buses. Just so you know what you're in for.

I would also ditch Rock Bottom and swap in Piece. Does Rock Botton even offer brewery tours? Piece doesn't either, but I think they have a more impressive line-up (not to mention the Zombie Dust-besting APA The Weight). As for Revolution, I don't think they do tours at the brewpub anymore - just at the brewery on Kedzie (6pm - slots fill up fast, from what I've seen, so get there at least an hour before hand). Goose doesn't offer tours at its main production facility (and it isn't open to the public), so you're looking at visiting the Clybourn Ave. brewpub. Lots of decent options, usually (and some truly amazing), some made on-site, some made at Fulton. I would not expect any of the highly sought-after Goose beers. I don't think Haymarket offers tours, either.

Rev, Goose and Haymarket seem to keep their websites updated pretty well with what's on tap (not so much via BeerMenus). Piece, not so much. All of the brewpubs offer flights or $2 ~5oz. pours (more or less). Rev's tour includes a sample (and is free); Goose includes, what, 4 or 5 samples? I forget how much it costs. While out and about, look out for anything by Metropolitan, another great local brewery that probably doesn't get around much (they're pretty far up on the northside and don't offer regular tours or are otherwise open to the public).

Personally, I'd go this route - Haymarket, Half Acre, Goose Island, Piece, Revolution.

 

When you go to Revolution, just walk outside and take the Milwaukee Ave bus to North Ave and Piece is right there at Milw/North/Damen. Definitely worth it.

What train station are you coming into? Haymarket is "near" to Ogalvie and Union....but not close to Prudential Plaza station.

 

Back-tracking a little, in Rock Bottom's defense - they have great brewers working there. Nearly every single local brewery has folks who started at Rock Bottom. But for whatever reasons, what they have on tap is, maybe, not worth the stop when your day is already so full.

Between Goose and Revolution, you can take a Westbound #72 North Avenue bus instead of heading all the way back into the Loop (or walk, even - it's 1.5 miles). I would also suggest hitting Piece earlier rather than later - they get absolutely mobbed at night. And from there, yeah, either the Revolution brewpub or you might consider the brewery off Kedzie if you don't want to eat (the brewery tends to be a little less crowded and sometimes beer lasts longer there than at the brewpub and it's still pretty convenient to the Blue line (Belmont stop); no food, however). You could walk to Haymarket from the Grand Ave. Blue line stop, too.

And no one will care if you're bringing a backpack full of beer around. Aside from being $1-2 cheaper, though, it's likely that there won't be much available at any of these breweries that you couldn't get from a store at the tail end of your trek.

 

See my fixes above. Will be a bit more efffecient. I am sure there is even a better way, but this seems like a good quick first cut.

 

Beat me to it.

Also, unless Half Acre has something outside of the regular lineup (Daisy, Over Ale, Gossamer) that you want, I would wait and pick up the cans later on from a liquor store. The price is a bout the same though you may sacrifice a bit of freshness (though with the issues of keep daisy on store shelves it probably isn't much). You will be passing by plenty of options later on to buy them, like Vas Foremost across from Revoluotion. Or wost case take the pink line back from Haymarket and jump off at Van Buren and walk down to Warehouse Liq or Printer's Row wine shop and stock up before heading back. More walking but less f'ing with a bag.

 

5 brewery tour/brewpubs and all that traveling in one day. Quite the ambitious plan. Godspeed. If you don't hit everything don't worry, all those places will not disappoint.

 

Just got back from a visit last week. My $.02 as a non-local.

-RB Chicago is probably the second best RB outpost I have been to, and I think the chain is pretty good. There were 4 or 5 specialty beers on a week ago. I'd consider keeping that stop.

-Conversely, GI was a disappointment for me, much as I love their specialty beers. Lots of ho-hum selections. Food was decent.

-Haymarket's beers were terrific. A must do, I think.

-Piece was a cool stop and so close to Revolution.

-Half Acre is a nice place and probably has a cool tour (we did not do it. Seen plenty of brewery operations at this point). Cool merch and nice samplers though the lineup is pretty small. To me, it's kind of skippable as you will see draft and cans around town. But if you do go, consider hitting Bad Apple across the street for food.

-I like Revolution's beer but *love* the food. Try to eat there if the timing works. Brunch is excellent, and I think they open at 10.

 

For an even shorter walk -- stop by the Jewel-Osco less than half-a-block north. They'll probably have it. Or there's a Trader Joes a few blocks away -- they consistently have all of HA's canned offerings (and lately, Rev's, too).

Binny's on Grand will likely have it, but... but I wouldn't be as certain about it. There's a mega-Walgreens not far from Millennium Station -- they will probably have it (though it may be a touch more expensive than at these other places). On the other hand, stopping by Binny's will let you pick up Pipeworks -- some of the best beer coming out of Chicago these days.

 

I'd add that, IMO, the food in Chicago is too good to settle for dinner at RB. Their food is pretty good, but there are so many great places to eat...

 

Fair enough. There is no shortage of delicious bacon and burgers and fries...

 

Not sure what you saw on the menu at Piece but they have good standard pies too. In fact I will often just get a cheese and sausage. They do allow you to do all kinds of crazy things as well.

The Workingman burger at Revolution is pretty standard, but yet still fantastic.

Really the places most likely to have sold out of Half Acre are any given Binny's. That said it is not hard to find cans of Daisy cutter at more than a few places in the loop. I would just have their phone number and call the day of. If they recently got some in they shouldn't sell out of it that fast.