Chicagoland, NW Indiana

[chicanuck]

I visited Chicago and surrounding area last week for various reasons and found time to visit some great breweries / brewpubs, here is a brief report:

Stopped into the Goose Island Brewpub on North & Clybourne, where they still brew small batch beers for the brewpub and special releases. I understand this brewery is owned by ABInBev but the small batch tap menu is as long as it is diverse, there are barrel aged options, cask ales, a Belgian menu and a sour menu including Belgian and American styles. I visited the brewpub twice during this trip, sampled many of their small batch beers and almost all of them were very good, I would suggest a visit despite being owned by a huge company......good beer is good beer.

Goose Island.jpg

Not a brewery but I spent an evening at the Hopleaf, which is Belgian style beer bar on ~5100N Clark that has a very strong tap and bottle list of micro's. The food was good as well, if you go here then I would plan to stay for the night as you are not going to want to leave. Also, bring friends as there is not a TV in the place - http://www.hopleaf.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Heading south about an hour from Chicago, I stopped into Brickstone Brewery in Bourbonnais, IL. Their food was weak but their beer was surprising good, I really likely their Amarillo packed APA which has won a bunch of awards....so says the menu. I would not plan a trip to visit this brewery, but it is definitely worth taking the exit if you are passing by on I-57: http://www.brickstonebrewery.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Brickstone Menu 1.jpg

Brickstone Menu 2.jpg

Head back up north on the I-57 and east on I-80 for about 40 miles (or about 30 minutes south of Chicago) to find Flossmoor Station Brewery, thanks to Chalmers for the advice. This place is pretty cool on the inside as it is an old refurbished train station. The food was good and they had 16 of their beers on tap, 8 seasonals and 8 year around. Their Rail Hopper IPA and Kaleidoscope DIPA were both very good. http://www.flossmoorstation.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Flossmoor Station Beers.jpg

Flossmoor Station Menu.jpg

I visited in-laws in Northwest Indiana and luckily visited a few breweries while I was there. First up was 3 Floyd's Brewery, which was a wild place to say the least. The wait to get into the brewpub was 30 minutes at 2:30pm on Wednesday afternoon and the beer to go line-up was into the parking lot, which was at least 50 people. For beer to go, the limit was 2 cases per customer so they must have a volume problem as they definitely did not have a customer problem that day. The bacon mac n cheese in the brewpub was very tasty but the beer was awesome. I had a flight sampler of Alpha King, Zombie Dust, Dreadnaught, Robert the Bruce, Pride and Joy, and the Berzerker DIPA; the Dreadnaught was the best but they were all top shelf beers if you like hard and heavy hops. http://www.3floyds.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

3 Floyds Outside.jpg

My last stop was in Crown Point, IN at Crown Point Brewing. It is a nice little town with a nice brewery right next to awesome smelling smokehouse. I only had time for a 6 sample flight but the beers were worth the stop, the best two were the Industrial Porter and seasonal Pumpkin Ale. http://www.crownbrewing.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Crown Point Brewing.jpg

Crown Point Menu.jpg

- chicanuck

[chalmers]

Thanks for the report, CC! It's been several years since my visit to Chicagoland, I'm glad that you were able to find a few nice places to drink.

[LiverDance]

Awesome write up. Thanks for the info. I was very jealous following what you were drinking on untappd

[gm-]

Cool pictures, and thanks for the write up. Will need to do a cross USA roadtrip at some point and check out all the breweries along the way

[Keith]

Thanks for sharing. Now to convince the boss I need to go on a road trip haha.