By Michael Nagrant

There’s something about the burnished hues of fall and the crisp smoky air that signals a coming of age for the earth and channels a separate peace within me that none of the other seasons accomplish. A season of refuge, it’s the first opportunity to hunker down against the razor chafe of Chicago’s winds. No longer celebrating the freshness of spring or luxuriating in the summer sun, I urgently seek warmth and sustenance in hearty braises like winy rosemary-perfumed pot roast or chocolate-dusted short ribs.

Then there’s the football and beer. I grew up in Detroit, where the Lions’ failure surpasses J. Lo and Elizabeth Taylor’s marital difficulties combined. Like a hapless Richard Burton or an unsuspecting Ben Affleck, I always line up hopeful, but by mid-September, the reality of another losing season is upon me. The brutality requires a special salve. Beer, lots of it. I prefer my brews like my eats, seasonal, and the malt beverage of choice is pumpkin beer. Having sampled only a couple of these pumpkin brews, I was curious about the best.

According to the Beer Advocate, there are 115 different pumpkin beers where “brewers opt to add hand-cut pumpkins and drop them in the mash, while others use puree or pumpkin flavoring. These beers also tend to be spiced with pumpkin pie spices, like: ground ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.”

While I come from the Jeffrey Steingarten school of food exploration (the legendary Vogue magazine food writer is a boundless investigator, prone to cooking up hundreds of batches of potatoes in various lipids in search of the perfect French fry–Belgian Horse fat is best), my budget only allowed for a blind tasting of the five pumpkin brews available at Sam’s Wine and Spirits.

I compensated for the sample size by selecting a remarkably exhaustive tasting panel consisting of a pregnant woman (adhering to the European view of gestation), a beer aficionado, an avowed “beer hater” and a woman who prefers pinot grigio served with ice cubes. Our exploration follows, with the results listed from worst to best.

Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale (Coors Brewing Company)

This was the darkest of the beers, a deep shade of amber. Perhaps in a nod to its corporate lineage and economic efficiency, this was the only beer not brewed with pumpkin, but instead enhanced with “natural flavor.”

Tasting notes:

Pinot Grigio: Heavy, a man’s beer. I might order it to impress a guy. Pumpkin? Never would’ve known.

Pregnant woman: Extreme funkiness in odor and taste.

Beer hater: Tastes like every other foul beer I’ve had with a bad aftertaste.

Beer aficionado: No head. No pumpkin. Flat.

Buffalo Bill’s Pumpkin Ale (Pyramid Brewing Co.)

This caramel-colored liquid tasted more like a novelty soda. Although brewed with actual pumpkin, it tasted more naturally flavored than the Blue Moon.

Tasting notes:

Pint Grigio: Holy pumpkin, batman!

Pregnant woman: Festive, but a bit too sweet.

Beer hater: Too pumpkiny. Very strong cinnamon and nutmeg flavors.

Beer aficionado: Somebody just threw a pumpkin cream pie in my face.

Ichabod Pumpkin Ale (New Holland Brewing Company)

This Michigan microbrew had a decent structure, but little pumpkin taste, and recalled the color of urine after a few too many multivitamins.

Tasting Notes:

Pinot Grigio: Bitter, yet tart. No pumpkin flavor.

Pregnant woman: Spicy, light and refreshing. Not too heavy.

Beer hater: Made me say mmm, but in a bad way.

Beer aficionado: Cinnamon and nutmeg, malted barley, nice bitter finish.

Punkin Ale (Dogfish Head Craft Brewery)

A bronze full-bodied ale brewed with pumpkin, brown sugar, nutmeg, allspice and cinnamon, with a hoppy bitter finish. Dogfish is one of the premier craft breweries in the country, and the beer aficionado expected this to be the best of lot. In a triumph of blind tasting, the beer aficionado rated it the worst of the five, while the beer hater rated it number one.

Tasting Notes:

Pinot Grigio: Bitter, semi-heavy. Most ale-tasting. It’s making me full. Has the most foam. Very little pumpkin, but sweet brown sugar and cinnamon hint

Pregnant woman: Fishy taste. Skunky.

Beer hater: No bad aftertaste, nice strong finish.

Beer aficionado: Good foamy head, fruity beginning, but totally unbalanced. The bitter hoppy end washes out everything.

Pumpkin Ale (O’ Fallon Brewery)

This cloudy orange brew from St. Louis, channeled a wheat-style beer, similar to Goose Island 312 with a perfect amount of pumpkin, and spicy bursts of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove.

Tasting Notes:

Pinot Grigio: Very spicy. Unique. Light. I could drink this all night.

Pregnant woman: Perfect spiciness and fruitiness.

Beer hater: Not too bad of an aftertaste. Yay.

Beer aficionado: Banana like esters. Almost like a wheat beer with a hint of apple. Balanced, with a perfect amount of pumpkin.

Go east, and it’s summer on the beach. Right here, it’s summer on the street.

A drunken parade every time. The art punks and the sandaled sirens, the transplant khaki crew and tattooed industry. Wicker Park’s Pontiac Café, in all its glory, is a window into the neighborhood itself, as all mingle and burn under the heavy sun and the rays that reflect off the Damen Street cement. Under the roof, the bar’s empty—the outdoor patio houses the mayhem, enclosed by a two-foot fence to keep the animals from wildly escaping into the street. The Blue Line train barrels and shrieks overhead, the night’s act at Double Door pours equipment inside. It’s 2pm on a Saturday and this morning’s hangover is long gone. Eat a sandwich, have another Bitburger, chances are you’re here for awhile.

You head to Lake Michigan on a ninety-degree day in July, plop yourself on the sand and close your eyes, and you could be in California for all you know. At the Pontiac it truly is the summer in the city, a great big Lovin’ Spoonful of screeching brakes, CTA announcements and the occasional drift of the smell of garbage. The spot was once a gas station—nothing could be more appropriate—the grand pusher of all things urban. Suddenly, a whiff of meat, another half-pound burger served.

The Lincoln Park professionals go to Pontiac to have some brews with their bros, the Carrie Bradshaws soak up the sun, the bartenders and servers from other bars in the neighborhood have a bite and quick drink with some friends before they start their shifts and the hipsters just want to be seen, by those they know, those they don’t know and those they met last night at Rainbo. Not quite the meat market that’s Nick’s Beer Garden or Estelle’s, both just around the corner, you’re not embarrassed to be there while the sky’s still a rich blue. The Pontiac’s a street fest every day, most of the food under ten bucks, the beer no cheaper than $4.

Nighttime’s a different story. Though it’s easy to imagine that those that parade in the day are still at it at night, it still seems like a different crowd. Weekend live-band karaoke draws in hoards—you can feel the inexperience in your bones as you walk down neighboring Milwaukee Avenue. It’s just not the same. The sun is as important as the booze. The Pontiac dominates the afternoon-drink market—it’s a sun-beer saloon.

“But I can see you/Your brown skin shinin’ in the sun/You got your hair combed back and your sunglasses on, baby/And I can tell you my love for you will still be strong/After the boys of summer have gone.” Love for you will still be strong? It better be. (Tom Lynch)

The Pontiac Café & Bar, 1531 North Damen, (773)252-7767. 

By Michael Nagrant

The complexity of beer is underrated. There are infinite combinations of malted barleys, herbal hops and brewer’s yeasts that can be combined to yield uniquely crafted beers. Harvested barleys are roasted like green coffee beans, yielding different taste characteristics. “Terroir,” the character of the earth in which a plant grows, is important to beer, and also like wine, there is probably a beer for every food or occasion.

We decided to ask some of Chicago’s top sommeliers, wine directors and beverage experts how they would steer a customer who might be a beer enthusiast, or who didn’t particularly like wine, in three classic food scenarios:

Steak with a red-wine reduction sauce like merlot

Foie gras  on brioche toast with a fruit sauce like cherry or huckleberry

Lobster in a white wine butter sauce

We also asked the sommeliers to recommend their favorite personal “go to” or “under the radar” beers.

Alpana Singh, Director of Wine and Spirits, Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises

Steak Pairing: Goose Island Bourbon County Stout—“It’s heavier and richer with the same weight as red wine. Any beer that you can’t see through, that’s got more of a brown chocolatey color to it, or a dense mouth feel that can stand up to the intense red wine reduction is good.”

Foie gras: Hoegaarden white ale—“It can act like a Burgundy white.”

Lobster: Lindeman’s Gueuze—“It’s light and crisp to counter the butter sauce.”

Go To Beer: Stella Artois

Steak: Bell’s Stout

Foie gras: Bosteel Tripel Karmeliet

Lobster: Mendocino Red Tail Ale—“It’s got a creamy consistency that will play up the richness in the lobster.”

Under the Radar: Three Floyd’s Alpha King

Matthew Gundlach, Sommelier, Moto restaurant

Steak: Summit Great Northern Porter—“I think of a porter, the bold flavor going with the bold flavor of the steak. We used the Summit in a wine progression paired up with a black bean soup with chocolate marshmallows.”

Foie gras: “I would probably just grab a mix-and-match six pack and have a lot of fun with this.”

Lobster: New Glarus Spotted Cow—“It’s an amber with light fruity flavors.”

Under the radar favorite: New Glarus Uff-da Bock

Joe Catterson, Wine Director, Alinea restaurant

Steak: Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale

Foie gras: Binchois Reserve—“It’s a Belgian beer, off dry, rich with a nice touch of spice.”

Lobster: Pilsner Urquell—“It’s light and clean”

Go to beer: Guinness Stout

Adam Seger, Wine Director/Bar Chef, Nacional 27

Steak: Chimay Blue—“I’d go towards Belgium, because you get the higher alcohol like you would with a full-bodied wine.”

Foie gras: Lindemans Kriek

Lobster: Anchor Steam—“Nothing too hoppy. I’d go more towards a lager because of the lighter acidity.”

Under the Radar: Goose Island Pere Jacques

By Kathy O’Neill

Like the sports events so often connected to beer, brewing itself is a competitive game. And when Chicago restaurant Piece netted a top prize in April at the World Beer Cup for Champion Small Brewpub and gold medals for its Top Heavy Hefeweizen and Worryin’ Ales, it was something of a Cinderella story for this relative unknown among the titans of microbrewing. But it wasn’t a surprise for those following the career of Piece brew-master Jonathan Cutler.

Cutler developed a taste for quality beer long before he was supposed to—about age 16. At a time when most kids are sneaking Old Style, if anything, Cutler was trying to score German beers. In college, he tried home-brewing, “with horrible results,” but he kept at it and went from making five gallons to twenty at a time. After college, it dawned on him that “people were doing this for a living.”

He enrolled in Chicago’s esteemed Siebel Institute, with its intense eight-week training program. After Siebel, he went to work for Leinenkugel on the packaging end, “to get a foot in the door.” Siebel’s Brewer for Hire program landed him a stint at Goose Island and then at Sierra Nevada in Chico, California. In 2001, he ended up back in Chicago, where he hung his brew hat at Piece, which opened that July. Piece pairs New Haven-style thin-crust pizza with microbrews in a transformed roofing-company garage that includes an onsite brewery.

“Piece does not have a holier-than-thou attitude about beer. It’s more about educating people,“ says Cutler. “If someone wants a Miller Lite, we’ll encourage you to try something similar to that style beer. No one is going to look down their nose at you.”

Seasoned bartender Darcy Tanelian agrees. If someone says, “Gimme a beer, I ask what they normally drink. I try and match the style of what we serve with what they like.” Cutler says that customers like Golden Arm, a homage to writer Nelson Algren. Golden Arm is a traditionally brewed Kolsch beer, similar to a lager, but is a light German ale. It remains Piece’s most popular brew.

Piece has recently expanded its brew house, doubled its fermentation pace, and unlike a lot of the brewpubs of the early nineties, is not going anywhere soon. It serves about 4,000 pints per week.

Despite being immersed in suds, Jonathan Cutler still likes beer. “Whatever I’m not doing, we fill in with guest beers,” says Cutler. Piece has ten taps and twelve bottles of guest beers, such as Three Floyds and Bell’s.

Co-owner Bill Jacobs thinks Piece’s simple approach works. “We’re not trying to do everything. We try and stay focused on what we do. Beer is never going to go out of style; pizza is never going to go out of style.”

Says bartender Darcy, “It’s just beer and pizza. It’s not brain surgery.” But, she adds, “It’s good beer and pizza.” 

By Brad Knutson

Corner pubs and sports bars are a dime a dozen in Chicago. No matter where you travel in this town, you’re probably not more than a block away from a local watering hole serving up the usual array of light domestics and skunky imports. If you’re just out to get a quick beer buzz, these places can’t be beat. However, for those a bit more interested in the quality of each pint rather than the quantity poured, we also have our fair share of places to satisfy the appetites of the fiercest beer snobs. While Chicago may not be on quite the same level as microbrew-obsessed towns like Portland and Boulder, local establishments like Delilah’s, Sheffield’s and Quencher’s that boast a hundred to 200 varieties of beer each help alleviate the stereotype that we’re all a bunch of Old Style-chugging yokels.

Taking the appreciation of beer to an even further level in Chicago are The Map Room in Bucktown and The Hop Leaf in Andersonville. Both featuring copious amounts of hard-to-find imports and microbrews, these two bars are the end-all, be-all for the serious beer fan. Not only are you not able to find any light beer at these bars, you almost have to go out of your way to find a beer that doesn’t have an alcohol content of at least seven percent or higher.

Located at the corner of Armitage and Hoyne, The Map Room features a rotating stock of twenty-six beers on tap and a total of about 200 varieties of beer available. You can find just about any style of beer from around the world here, though there is a definite emphasis on Belgian ales and American craft brews. As in Belgium, every beer on tap is served in a style-specific glass that is best suited to bring out the optimum body, aroma and flavor for that beer. The selection changes rapidly and serious fans can even track the latest additions at the bar’s Web site, which is updated almost daily. The sheer number of choices can be almost overwhelming to the uninitiated, so you may want to pair up with an experienced friend who can steer you in the right direction. If you’re really serious about brushing up on your beer knowledge, The Map Room even offers monthly “beer school” sessions taught by local brewers.

Further up north on Clark near Foster is Chicago’s other must-visit destination for beer aficionados, The Hop Leaf. Also specializing in Belgian ales and domestic micros, The Hop Leaf shares the same beer-obsessed mantra as Map Room. In fact, The Hop Leaf may even slightly eclipse The Map Room in terms of overall variety. They have four more tap handles for a grand total of thirty beers on draft and also feature an easier-to-read menu (also updated online) that gives brief descriptions of every beer. As an added bonus, The Hop Leaf doubles as a full-service restaurant, with a food menu that has garnered as many rave reviews as its beer. After a full meal of steak and potato frites washed down with a couple of full-bodied Belgian ales, it’s hard not to walk out of this place without a big dumb grin on your face.

As anyone who’s ever enjoyed a freshly poured glass of Delirium Tremens can attest, enjoying a fine beer is a refined experience not unlike slowly sipping an expensive wine. Once you’ve experienced one of these bars, you won’t look at beer the same way again. 

By Emerson Dameron

Launching a microbrew is a bit like founding an indie rock band. It needs to be good. More importantly, it needs an intriguing back-story and a lot of personality. And it helps if the name converts to a cheap pun—even if it’s a lightly derogatory one, it’ll serve as a pneumonic device.

Earlier this year, Fat Tire, an amber ale concocted by the New Belgium Brewing Company in Fort Collins, Colorado, got a ceremonious rollout in Chicago. The makers insinuated that, with the first bottles “served (legally) in the Second City,” they were displacing a black market. Local nightlife journalists and bloggers began to chatter, swapping tips on which bars were serving the beer. Predictably, some drinkers resisted the hype, and some brew enthusiasts are heard to say, “Fat Tire? More like Flat Tire.”

That isn’t quite fair. Fat Tire isn’t a snob’s microbrew and it doesn’t try to be. It’s a tasty, fruity, friendly beer, easy on the untrained palate. It’s got class. It doesn’t dominate the senses. It’s got a sour kick, but stays light. It’s nothing revolutionary, but the fans don’t mind.

“A lot of microbrews are too flavorful and heavy,” says Sara, a native Coloradan who loves the stuff. “Their taste is so strong that you can’t handle more than one or two before you get sick of it. But Fat Tire does have a complex, interesting flavor, and it doesn’t overwhelm you. It doesn’t get that sour, heavy taste that sticks to your tongue that most ‘good’ beers get, even if you drink, like, eight in a night… It’s an amber ale, but it’s got this nice, almost creamy sweetness to it. It’s perfectly drinkable and its flavor is perfectly balanced.”

Plus, Fat Tire packs a lot of marketing finesse. According to its readymade mythology, a brewer’s barhopping bike odyssey through Belgium inspired the recipe. The labels feature the charming words “toasty” and “biscuit-like,” along with a standing invitation to visit the company. It comes in twenty-two-ounce bottles, which pleasantly corrupts “one beer” as a unit of measurement.

Of course, when something gets this sort of concentrated attention out of the box, there’s a temptation to deride it, particularly when it disappoints. Blogger Seth Anderson writes that he “really wanted to like this ale” and rates it an overall “B+,” but describes the “bouquet” as “a hint of bleach, the odor of old sweat-socks, and pinch of nervous energy.” And when we feel as though something’s been pushed on us and we find that we enjoy it regardless, we’ll sometimes try to have it both ways.

A grinning man with a shaved head sits in a tavern, pouring his Fat Tire from the bomber to the glass. He sacrificed seven bucks for this pleasure. Why does he like it? “It’s made from tires,” he says. “It’s from Colorado. It’s made from mountain spring water… It comes in the most prominent bottle.”

By David Witter

Chicago was built on beer. Names like William Ogden, Michael Diversey, Conrad Sulzer, Charles Wacker and William Lill sound like a Chicago street guide, but these civic leaders made their fortunes by owning breweries. Yet if you were to sum up the history of brewing in Chicago, you could do it with one word—failure.

As the city with the largest German population, the second-largest Irish population, access to unlimited fresh water, grains via barge, and the railroad center of the nation, Chicago should be the beer capital of the world. Even after Prohibition, there were thirty-three large breweries running in Chicago. Yet since the Peter Hand/Meister Brau brewery closed in l978, there has not been one major brewery located in the windy city. Instead, that honor is split by our smaller neighbors, Milwaukee and St. Louis. The reasons why at least 10,000 Chicagoans are not cashing brewing-related paychecks this Friday are legion, but words like laziness, shortsightedness and the corrupting influence of gangsters and politicians have more than a little to do with it.

It all started in 1854, when an exceptionally hot summer exhausted Chicago’s supply of beer. Happy to oblige, the smaller Milwaukee brewers like Joseph Schlitz came to the rescue. It happened again in 1871, when the Chicago Fire devastated at least twenty breweries. The Chicago brewers cannot be faulted for these misfortunes, but after that, they deserve most of the blame.

In his definitive book, “The History of Beer and Brewing in Chicago, 1833-1978,” author Bob Skilnik notes that, by and large, the Chicago brewers were happy to stand pat and make their money close by, while Milwaukee was forced to use creativity in manufacturing, transporting and marketing to sell their product in Chicago and the growing markets in the South and West.

“The Chicago brewers’ provincial view of brewing was first reflected in the production figures of 1879,” Skilnik writes. “Milwaukee, with a population of 115,000, surpassed Chicago’s beer production having brewed 411,245 barrels of beer. Chicago brewers initially showed no alarm at this creeping trend. They were content to manufacture 336,204 barrels for a city of 503,000, selling almost all of it in the city.”

Today, Milwaukee and St. Louis are the beer capitals due to greater distribution, advertising and marketing. The availability of ice in Milwaukee meant that beer in railroad cars packed with ice and hay could survive the hot summers in the southern and western U.S. The innovation of rubber-lined railroad cars, or “rolling kegs” aided this, and by 1884 Milwaukee had doubled its production to 803,000 barrels a year while Chicago was brewing about 350,000.

Chicago also became a center of beer marketing—for other companies. Before TV and print ads, Schlitz came up with the idea of the “Schlitz House.” At one time, mansion-like saloons adorned with a globe and the Schlitz logo covered the city. Today, Schubas and The Southport Lanes are a few of the surviving examples of this idea.

Even though Chicago breweries were not gaining ground, fortunes were still being made, and the local beer business thrived in Chicago through the end of World War II. Some of the many great breweries included the Manhattan Brewery at 3901 S. Emerald (now Chiappetti Lamb and Veal) Schoenhofen Brewery at 500 W. 18^th Street, Monarch Brewery at 2419-2443 W. 21^st Street, White Eagle Brewery at 3735-3755 S. Racine, The Canadian Ace Brewery at 3940 S. Union, The Pilsen Brewery at 3024 W. 26^th Street and Peter Hand/Meister Brau at 1612 N. Sheffield. Some of the famous brands made in Chicago included Fox de Luxe, Bismark Beer, Bull Frog Beer, Ambrosia Lager, Prima Beer, Monarch Beer, Olympia Beer, Meister Brau and Old Chicago Beer.

It is not hard to imagine that many of Chicago’s breweries were controlled by gangsters. The Manhattan Brewery was the first casualty, sold to Johnny Torrio in 1919. Just a few of the other breweries controlled by Torrio, who deeded his empire to Al Capone and later Frank Nitti, included the Pfeiffer Brewery on Leavitt and Irving, the Atlas Brewery, Canadian Ace and thousands of smaller, “garage breweries” across the city. During Prohibition, these breweries survived by making hundreds of thousands of barrels of non-alcoholic “near beer.” Bar owners paid for the beer, and after receiving the federal stamp, they simply injected the barrels with alcohol, selling what was known as “needle beer” in speakeasies across the city. Obviously, these gangsters knew nothing about making beer, beer quality and the brewing tradition, and cared less about the future of Chicago’s beer industry. Instead, they were content to take their large weekly payoffs—and run Chicago’s beer business into the ground.

The final nails in the Chicago beer coffin can once again be traced to shortsightedness. After World War II, a new invention, television, brought entertainment and sports into the American home. While Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Schlitz and Hamm’s told us about “The King of Beers,” “Miller Time,” “the land of sky blue waters” and “God’s Country,” in their infinite wisdom, Chicago’s breweries concentrated their marketing on tie-ins with local supermarkets. To add insult to injury, it was the Chicago-based firm, Meister Brau, that came up with the idea of a “lighter, less filling” beer in the mid-1960s. Although they eventually landed as number twenty out of the twenty largest beer companies in the nation, Meister Brau/Peter Hand experienced financial troubles. In 1972, they sold the “lite product” to the Philip Morris Company, who owned Miller Beer. The rest, they say, is history.

By J.C. Geiger

Since the first night Greg Hall stole a Stroh´s from his father’s fridge, he’s always wanted more.

“That was what my father drank,” the Goose Island brewmaster explains. “That was back when they had the old gold-and-white label. In those early years of discovery, the easiest place for me to explore was the basement fridge. My dad always had a variety of interesting beer bottles too, but only two or three of them. I knew he wouldn’t miss much from a twenty-four pack.”

As Hall got older, the allure of the more exotic bottles grew. “I loved seeing them in the liquor store, even as a kid. Those different beers always seemed so much more interesting to me than the stacks and cases—and there was something on the label you could read about.”

Greg Hall now supplies shops with his own share of literature—over fourteen different beer labels, some boasting origin tales to rival Greek myth.

Demolition, a strong, golden beer, rose from the rubble of a nearby building teardown to reward their most intrepid regulars. Pere Jacques, a malty, fruity ale, commemorates an Abbot by the same name who allowed Hall and his team a peek at his notoriously secretive Trappist brewery. One of their newer ales, Matilda, inspired by Belgian legends and landscapes, recently took home a silver award from Seattle’s World Beer Cup.

“We’re really proud of that one,” Hall says. “It takes two different temperamental yeast strains, and requires most of our team—brewers and cellar-men—to make it happen.” In other brewing achievements, Hall’s received golds for his IPA and Hex Nut Brown Ale, and in 1998 brewed over 100 different beers in a single calendar year. These days, the work is paying off.

Last week alone Goose Island Brewery garnered mentions in both Esquire and Food & Wine magazines, as well as an appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. Hall’s segment involved the host assisting in the production of his own, honorary brew: ¨Conan the Red Ale.”

“He wanted it to be called Conan the Pale Ale, or Conan the Pale, Pale Ale. He’s pretty self-deprecating about his complexion,” Hall adds.

Seeing a brewmaster spotlighted on late-night television is something new to America; only since the mid-nineties has there been a real craft-beer culture to speak of. Hall sees the increase in publicity as being indicative of a national trend—one the numbers reflect.

“Last year the craft beer market grew by 9 percent. Within that market, IPAs grew by over 24 percent. That’s a ridiculous growth to have in any market. It tells us once people get those big tastes in their beers—once they have those IPA hops, they find it hard to go back. Small breweries have done for beer what Starbucks and Intelligentsia have done for coffee; you get used to that strong taste, and that cup of Folgers just doesn’t cut it anymore.”

Hall cites this demand as being responsible for Chicago’s rapidly changing beer landscape. “I remember, years ago, I had a friend bragging to me about his bar. He said ‘We’ve got variety here, too. We’ve got Miller, Miller Light, Bud, Bud Light, Coors and Michelob.’ He was serious. That’s not enough now. Even bars like Bar Louie and Shaw’s Crab House, where you wouldn’t expect good craft beers, are serving a great variety now, and that’s going to continue.” 

Despite the trend in what’s being poured at local bars, in Chicago’s metropolitan area of more than ten million people, Goose Island remains one of the city’s few craft breweries. Portland, Oregon boasts more than twenty-five; even Anchorage, Alaska has five. Why is Chicago, a beer-drinkers’ city, so lacking?

“I ask myself that question almost everyday,” Hall muses. “There’s a number of reasons. The big guys don’t spend their advertising money in Portland or Alaska, they spend it here. Also, brewpubs thrive on their food business, and the expectations for food in Chicago are high. Very high.”

Building on these expectations, Hall’s currently campaigning to have Goose Island beers served in Chicago’s finest restaurants. He’s taken the lead in his own pubs by offering pairing suggestions with several dishes. Goose Island’s menu suggests an Oatmeal Stout with Campfire Pork and Beans, an IPA with jambalaya, and a Nut Brown Ale with pulled pork. He hopes his culinary ambitions are contagious.

“I don’t understand how a four-star chef will send back a whole box of shallots because the first one he pulls out is a little wilted, then turn around and sign for a palette of skunky, imported beer. The new generation of American chefs are about flavors, and with so many big flavors on the table, they’re going to need them in the glass too.”

Hall admits the wine bottle casts a long shadow in the culinary world, but has seen a recent shift in gourmet attitudes. “For example, I got a chance to visit the American Cheese Society. They told me although they still drink wine with their cheese, they actually prefer beer.” He’s not just referring to mozzarella on a deep-dish crust; Hall has held a number of gourmet-cheese pairing sessions, specifically aimed at educating the beer drinker’s palette.

“It’s true that the best wines in the world achieve a level of complexity that beer probably can’t. But beers have bigger and broader tastes than wine can hope for. Beers are less subtle, and you don’t have to be an expert to appreciate them.”

In that vein, Hall contends he’s no beer snob.

“Not at all. That’s what’s great about beer. You can wear jeans and be loud. You can stand at Navy Pier and shout over a band while you’re drinking it. You don’t have to put on a three-piece suit, and walk around sipping and talking quietly.” Likewise, he admits he doesn’t always have to drink the good stuff.        “Sometimes you’re at the Empty Bottle at 2am, and after a night of drinking IPAs and stouts you don’t want anything too heavy. You know, I might go home and grab an import or something light.”

Is there still a case of Stroh’s in the fridge? Hall laughs, and doesn’t answer. 

By Michael Nagrant

Libertyville is a beer-geek mecca. Aficionados from California, and occasionally Europe, belly up to Mickey Finn’s, a brewpub nestled between a collection of turn-of-the-century Georgian painted ladies with ornate hand-carved wooden crowned roofs. They come to this North Shore community, forty miles outside of Chicago, to taste the biscuity carmel-flavored Maibocks and the banana-perfumed Hefeweizen’s, the signature craft-brewed beers of Greg Browne.

Browne, a barrel-chested hulk of a man with a salt-and-pepper goatee, wears denim overalls, sturdy boots and a long-sleeve black T-shirt that bears the word “Toronado” on his right sleeve, a San Francisco brewpub he likens to Chicago’s The Map Room where he teaches a monthly beer school. Browne speaks with an Australian brogue that’s softened by fifteen years of living in Chicago, and he’s a still-waters sort—laidback, quiet and focused. It’s a demeanor that he acquired growing up in the Central Coast of Australia in New South Wales, a sleepy Pacific Ocean tourist community located just north of Sydney.

That’s also where his beer education began. Browne says, “My old man used to give me sips of Shandy when I was about six. It’s half beer, half lemonade, not a traditional one, more lemon-lime like a Sprite. It’s what old women drink in Australia and the U.K.”

It wasn’t only Shandy, but the powdered malt syrup he was fed as a baby that provided the subconscious linchpin that led him on his career path. Indeed, standing in the malt room of a brewery is like sitting in a box of Whopper’s malted-milk balls or swimming in a box of Grape Nuts. It’s familiar and soothing.

While Browne was growing up, regional breweries like Toohey’s or Cooper’s were ubiquitous in New South Wales. Their beers were more bitter than what the American palate is used to. For perspective, the bitterness in a beer, which comes from the herbal hop flower, is measured in International Bitter Units (IBUs). Budweiser is brewed in the 8-9 IBU range, while Toohey’s would rate around 23. As a result, Browne, who came to Chicago while he was stationed at the Great Lakes Naval base as an electrician in the Australian Navy, developed a palate that demanded a greater bitterness than what he could find in America.

“I didn’t really like the beer here. I didn’t know at the time there was anything better than Bud or Miller, so I’m like, ‘Screw it. I’ll start home-brewing.’”

His first batch was a familiar blend. “It was a Cooper’s stout malt extract,” Browne says. “I was pretty psyched that I could get Cooper’s malt extract here.”

He got hooked on the roasted smells, recalling his childhood in the sweet waft of stout malt syrup. He says he had a couple of exploding bottles in that first batch, “and it made a pretty good mess.”

Brown then attended Chicago’s Siebel Institute, one of the premier beer schools in the U.S., and began his career at the now-defunct Weinkeller, the same place that Nick Floyd, the brewmaster and owner of Three Floyd’s brewing in Munster, Indiana got his start.

Browne developed his focus on sanitation and quality control at Goose Island, but his creative identity was established as the founding brewmaster of Weeghman Park (the original name of Wrigley Field) where he took a bit of a gamble and brewed up an English Mild. It was a clean, drinkable, low-alcohol beer, which in beer-speak is often called a “session beer.” He dubbed it “Old Trafford” after the Manchester, England cricket grounds. Browne recalls that bar patrons didn’t know what it was and often mispronounced the name.

He said, “People would walk in and order a ‘milled.’ You know you’re ahead of your time when people think it’s something exotic.”

Today, Browne’s especially proud of his lagers, which he attributes to his extensive travel. He believes you have to sample the classics in Germany and Belgium to understand the soul of a beer. Like most brewers, he spends his vacation as busman’s holidays, always in search of the perfect beer. He’s drunk beer with monks at Orval in Belgium, and hoisted steins overlooking the Upper Bavarian Alps at the Andechs monastery.

A memorable trip to the Abbaye Notre-Dame de Saint-Remy, a brewery that was rarely open to the outside world and, until that trip, closed entirely to women, ended with Browne eating chocolate cookies made by the local cloister of nuns and drinking steins of Rochefort beer, talking up the head of the abbey, Père Jacques. Greg Hall, the Goose Island brewmaster, was also on that trip, and concocted his Pere Jacques beer as a tribute to that encounter.

After far-flung beer trips, Browne is usually inspired to try new ideas. He’s been harboring a used Woodford Reserve bourbon barrel in the basement of Mickey Finn’s. He plans to age an Imperial Stout in the barrel, hoping to soak up its charred oak and vanilla flavors. Inspired by a coffee-flavored breakfast stout he recently drank, Browne’s contemplating brewing up a breakfast stout flavored with Earl Grey Tea.

While’s Browne’s always thinking about his next brew, he’s devoted to the craft. He likes Mickey Finn’s and the autonomy he has. He doesn’t want to be a celebrity. His vision for the future is to continue to build the reputation of Mickey Finn’s. He said, “I don’t want to be on the cover of brewing magazines. I just want to have a solid reputation around the country for good beer and good variety. I want to open up the American palate to better beer.”