Chicago Beer Diary | Neighborhoods

A well-worn adage is that "Chicago is a city of neighborhoods." This certainly is true. Ask residents of the city where they're from and they'll probably give you the name of their neighborhood rather than a "side" (e.g. north side, south side) of the city. And in the current craft beer and brewery boom that Chicago is experiencing, chances are that the beer you drink might originate in your favored neighborhood. Do you live in Lakeview? You might gravitate toward brand new brewpub DryHop. Do you like to hang out in Logan Square? You'll probably be found at Revolution. Is Wicker Park or Bucktown your thing? You might be downing pints at Piece.

6.13.13 | The Neighborhoods: Lincoln Park & Andersonville

Near the DePaul campus in Lincoln Park is Local Option. Here you see the slogan, Scheiß Bier kann tödlich sein: Shitty beer can kill you. If ever wiser words were spoken...

The vibe is metal; think Sinking Ship if you're Naptowner. 31 taps of craft beers from across the country and abroad, along with countless bottles and stoic but efficient service...I would frequent this place if I lived in Lincoln Park or anywhere remotely close for that matter. I might not be metal enough to completely fit in at Local Option--the closest I come to being metal is liking Motörhead--but I would do my best.

Bierwerker, which is Local Option's brewing arm, brews at other breweries, but they don't like to be called gypsy brewers or even contract brewers. Whatever you want to call Bierwerker, they make a formidable beer in American Muscle DIPA, which they brewed at Louisville favorite Against The Grain. American Muscle is sweet, potent, citrusy, sneaky. A second snifter is tempting, but I have another place to visit for a drink.

Up the Red Line to the city's far north side and I disembark at the Berwyn station for a westward hike to my Andersonville destination, the Hopleaf. I've been to the Hopleaf many times over the last five years, but I cannot pass up the opportunity to visit again. This place is comfort incarnate, and in my experience, the tap and bottle list has no equal in the city (really, look at this menu). It's an ideal place for Indy folks who enjoy Brugge Brasserie because the focus is Belgian--Belgian food and as well as Belgian beers. It's also a good place to strike up a conversation with a stranger. No one drinking or dining here is pretentious. Making new friends is easy.

Rarely do I encounter a gueuze on tap, so St. Louis Gueuze Fond Tradition on the draft list grabs my attention. Exceptionally tart; pleasingly crisp; notes of apple, oak, and berry. Further delving into the tap list reveals Tart Hopfentea, a unique Berliner weisse brewed in collaboration with the Hopleaf by Perennial Artisan Ales. Lightly sour, herbal, spicy, notes of tropical fruit.

6.14.13 | The Neighborhoods: West Loop and Loop

Green Line from the Loop to the West Loop. West Randolph Street, to be precise. This area is teeming with bars and restaurants. Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard has two acclaimed restaurants here. And it's home to Haymarket Pub & Brewery. As far as brewpubs go, Haymarket is the pressed tin ceiling variety of brewpub. The food isn't exceptional but is still solid. A friendly and knowledgeable staff. A bartender named "Drogo," as in "Khal Drogo." I was tempted to instruct him to carefully disinfect any cuts lest Mirri Maz Duur needs to be called in and everything goes to hell. Next thing you know, Khaleesi is smothering him with a pillow.

At Haymarket, the beer is the real attraction. Loads of house beers and quality guest taps. The Mash Made in Heaven VI White Peach Wit is a memorable quaff. An unfiltered witbier brewed with coriander, sweet and bitter orange peel, and white peach juice. It's the peach juice that pushes this beer from the good to the exceptional category. There's also Girl & the Goatee IV, a Belgian pale ale which is a collab brew with Stephanie Izard that features rhubarb and blackberries. Dry, a bit tart, floral, spicy, delicious.

Wit in the middle; Girl & Goatee on the right.

Two other special beers in the Haymarket lineup are Defender American Stout and Ombibulous American IPA. Defender is heavily dry hopped with Pacific Northwest hops, resulting in a chocolaty and citrusy brew. Best characterized as a Tootsie Roll in a pint glass. And the Ombibulous could also be called "Hop Cornucopia"--Citra, Centennial, Cascade, Amarillo, and Crystal are all in there. Super citrus and pine abound. A hop-head's best friend.

Defender on the right; Ombibulous in the center.

A return to the Loop and to the Palmer House, which is my house for the evening. The blend of Baroque and Art Deco in the hotel lobby brings to mind the scene in The Untouchables where Eliot Ness confronts Al Capone on the grand staircase of the Lexington Hotel. I half expect the lobby bar to use Al Capone's shoe as a cocktail shaker. You know, the one that Geraldo Rivera found in Capone's vault back in the '80s.

Speaking of the lobby bar, it fortunately carries some craft, including Revolution Brewing Company's Rosa Hibiscus Ale in a can. A tart ale infused with hibiscus flowers and orange peel. In the words of a craft-beer-ignorant friend, "Sounds girly." But it's not girly. Rather, it's a fitting nightcap for an expedition through some of Chicago's neighborhoods. And I'll be back to explore more of them.

Beer Diary #22 - Jim | Not Alphabetical . . . Autobiographical

Date: Monday, 1 August 2011
Location: The Hopleaf Bar
Andersonville, Chicago

Andersonville. The Hopleaf. We've been here before.

Some might say that going to familiar places is boring. It lacks novelty. It shows that one isn't adventurous. But for me, going to The Hopleaf is sort of like turning on the television and coming across a favorite movie that you've seen many times before. You know the kind of film I'm talking about--the kind that makes you stop flipping through the channels and watch it for awhile (lately, it's Batman Begins on F/X for me).

The wonderful thing about halting your channel surfing to watch such a film is that you usually catch something about the movie that you didn't notice before--a nuance to an actor's performance that finally stands out, or a line that you didn't quite "get" until the most recent viewing.

So we are in the familiar confines of The Hopleaf looking for a new experience. What do I hope to get out of our visit this time? The pub is known for its Belgian offerings, and they are what I've enjoyed during previous visits. This time, I want to focus on domestic beers. Local beers. So Half Acre's Daisy Cutter Pale Ale moves into frame. It's bone dry. Aromatic. Bitter, bitter citrus--so bitter that it almost stings my palate. Not a lot of malt backing there, and I like my pale ales on the malty side. Still, this is a killer beer, a good representative of the APA style for the city of Chicago's brewers.

Next, I turn to Finch's Sapsucker California Common Rye Ale. Finch's is new in town. Their flagship offerings are a blonde and a pale ale, and they seem to be spreading all over town. Sapsucker appears to be a seasonal. It is dry, bready, light in flavor, but a little too heavy on the rye if that makes any sense. Seems to me that the brewery might still be trying to find its legs. While Sapsucker doesn't wow me, I know that I'll be trying Finch's beers in the future to see how things are progressing.

Date: Thursday, 4 August 2011
Location: Handlebar
Wicker Park, Chicago

It's been eight years since we visited Wicker Park. Back then, the neighborhood was only partly gentrified. Large patches of the neighborhood were gritty in a way that Fountain Square is today. Indeed, in 2003, Wicker Park was still the neighborhood of Championship Vinyl and its "fetish properties."

"Do you even know your daughter? There's no way she likes that song."

Today, Milwaukee Avenue is teeming with shops that were vacant storefronts eight years ago. Many of these shops are independent, but a good number are national or semi-national: American Apparel, Starbucks, Pitaya, Urban Outfitters. Mind you, I'm not anti-gentrification. Progress is a good thing, and the neighborhood certainly made for an entertaining shopping experience for us.

But damn, the neighborhood made me feel like I had entered my dotage. Case in point--we stumbled on to a coffeehouse called The Wormhole. This place is a themed coffeehouse. The theme? Full-on cheesy '80s nostalgia (a visit to their Facebook page's photo album will give you a taste). They even had *full-size* replica of the Delorian time machine from Back to the Future and a Nintendo NES set up on an '80s-era tube television so people could play Mario Bros. After walking into the place, I finally had a good idea of how my parents must feel when they walk into a '50s-themed restaurant.

Exactly 1.21 gigawatts.

Before we went shopping and experienced the shock of The Wormhole, we ate lunch at Handlebar. We were initially attracted by the place's vegetarian offerings, but the tap list certainly didn't hurt. My selection: Lagunitas' A Little Sumpin' Sumpin'. I'm ashamed to admit that this is the first time I tried A Little Sumpin'. This wheat ale is best described as Gumballhead's West Coast fraternal twin. It's cloudy with a golden-orange hue instead of the clear yellow color of Gumballhead, but its flavor profile is very similar to Gumballhead's: citrus with a bit of mango and pine topped off with a slightly sweet malt backing. If I had ready access to this beer, I'd be on it consistently in the summer months.

Date: Thursday, 4 August 2011
Location: Acre Restaurant
Andersonville, Chicago

Back in our home away from home, Andersonville. Ask anyone who's spent any period of time in this neighborhood and you're not likely to find much of a bad word. And I'm not kidding when I say that this is our home away from home. This is the fourth time we've stayed in the neighborhood while visiting the city.

Our selection for a dinner location is Acre Restaurant, which is less than a year old because it wasn't around when we visited Andersonville last summer. What drew me is the amazing beer list. Whoever is the beverage manager at this place is not messing around. My guess is that Acre boasted 20 taps plus around a 50 to 60 beer bottle list. All craft, and diverse to boot.

The star of the night at Acre was Port's Mongo IPA, which is a double IPA. It's also one of the most citrus-dominated IPAs I've ever had. I got a different citrus fruit character on each sip--lemon, grapefruit, orange all came through. Nice caramel malt backing as well. This beer was so nice that I picked up a bottle at Binny's the next day to take home with me, plus some other selections that I'd been craving. What are they? Come to Tailgate for Nothing 5 this fall and you might find out.

Beer Diary #9 - Jim | Puckering up with Sour Ales at the Hopleaf Bar

22 June 2008
The Hopleaf Bar
5148 N. Clark St.
Chicago, Illinois

On vacation in the Andersonville neighborhood on Chicago's north side.

Before I proceed with the rest of this beer diary, I'm going to gush about the nabe for a moment. Judging by our three-day trip, I can say this about Andersonville: if ever a perfect neighborhood was created, Andersonville is it. Well, perhaps close to perfect, if not for Chicago's notoriously crummy weather come the winter months. This neighborhood has nearly everything a city-dweller could desire--an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse population, beautiful turn-of-the-last-century architecture, cozy tree-lined residential streets, close proximity to the beach, and a killer collection of independent bars, shops, and restaurants. Consequently, we were really, really sad to come home. This is not to say that our home sweet home, Meridian Park, doesn't have its charm or that we dislike living here. It's just...well, it's just not a Chicago neighborhood, is it?

After checking in to our B&B (which we highly recommend, by the way), we headed down to North Clark Street and made a beeline for The Hopleaf Bar with its amazing variety of Belgian beers on tap. At 5:00 on a Sunday evening, the Hopleaf was already getting crowded as Andersonville's regulars grabbed a booth, table, or barstool to relax and drink a few. The patrons reminded me of the variety of people you might see at the Rathskeller biergarten--young and old, guys and gals, straight and gay, hipsters and the Dockers crowd, and, above all, laid-back beer drinkers. In short, it was a very diverse group that seemed to have no pretentiousness.

We sat at the bar right next to the servers' station and ordered. My first move was for the beer I'd heard so much about but had yet to try--

Rodenbach Grand Cru. A Flanders Red Ale, served in a tulip glass. Had a beautiful reddish brown color. Nose exhibited oak, apples, and cherries. Mouthfeel was crisp. Flavor was slightly tart, again with notes of oak, apples, and cherries. In addition, I detected a hint of vanilla. An absolute stunner of a beer. Must get a bottle of this from Kahn's ASAP.

As I sipped the Rodenbach Grand Cru and the Lovely Redhead enjoyed her vodka tonic, I took note of the beers that were popular with the other patrons. From what I was able to observe, the bartender was pouring a lot of the following: Delirium Tremens, Leffe Blonde, Saison DuPont, and the most popular, the oddly-named Kwak. Each Kwak was poured in a special "Kwak glass," which was a beaker-looking thing mounted on a wooden handle, much like the yards and half-yards they used to pour at the Irish Lion. I contemplated ordering a Kwak, but I was in a sour ale mood, so my next choice was--

Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus. A Lambic fermented with raspberries. Served in a tulip glass. Poured with a pinkish red color and a pink, fizzy head. Strong nose of raspberries and vinegar. Had a strikingly sharp mouthfeel and a predominantly sour flavor with notes of raspberry and cherry. True to form with all the Cantillon ales I've tried--very, very tart and refreshing.

With that, we decided to take a walk to absorb the night life as it bubbled up along Clark Street.

23 June 2008
The Hopleaf Bar

Our return trip to the Hopleaf Bar for a nightcap. I was still in the mood for sour beers--yes, I have a one-track mind--so I went for an Oud Beersel Framboise. To be brief, it had much the same color, mouthfeel, and flavor as the Rose de Gambrinus. However, there was more sweetness backing up the tartness of this Lambic. In addition, an oak-like character came through in the nose and the taste more prevalently for this beer. On comparison to the Rose de Gambrinus, I can say that I liked this Lambic a little better, but I have a bit of a sweet tooth.

I know that a number of readers have already been to the Hopleaf, and they can vouch for the quality of the beer selection as well as I can. I'm sure they'd join me in encouraging the rest of you who haven't yet been there to drop by if you're ever in Chicago. Not only will you be greatly pleased with the beer selection, but you'll get to hang out in a great neighborhood with a mellow crowd as well.

Aid regarding ales in Andersonville

This weekend, the Lovely Redhead and I are traveling to Chicago for a little R&R. We're eagerly looking forward to this trip, especially because we've decided to stay a little off the beaten path by foregoing accommodations downtown, which is where we usually stay. Instead, we've found a cool little B&B in Andersonville.

Once the center of Chicago's Swedish community, Andersonville is now one of the funkiest and fastest growing neighborhoods in the city. We are amped to explore the independent shops and restaurants that Andersonville is known for. I'm particularly excited about visiting the neighborhood's crown jewel of beer geekdom, The Hopleaf Bar. This bar is a well-known Chicago attraction for beer aficionados, and I'm pretty sure that at least one of our readers has visited (though I can't remember who that is--maybe Rodney or Matt, or both of them).

Anyway, I need some tips on what to drink while I'm there. So, fair readers, if you wouldn't mind, please peruse the draft and bottle menus and give me some suggestions, 'kay? I will be forever in your debt--that is, until I'm able to buy you some Rodenbach Grand Cru when Brugge opens their upper level.