non-local breweries

My recent bike trip with friends through the Great Lake State included much better imagery. Oh and we stopped at many a brewery along the way, so it qualifies for a proper retelling here. If you don't really want to read the whole story, the quick summary:

• approximately 270 miles, easterly winds
• 10 breweries
• 1 flashed tit

That night, I visited Arbor Brewing and Grizzly Peak, located in the brewpub epicenter of town. While we dawdled at Arbor, Steve hit the new Blue Tractor brewpub across the street owned by the same folks as GP. I checked it out a few months ago and liked its neat modern decor. I worked briefly at Grizzly Peak in college, under the leadership of Ron Jeffries (Jolly Pumpkin). To me, it is a great example of the adage that a successful brewpub must be run as a successful restaurant. It is very efficiently designed and quite large since expanding into the adjacent storefront (R.I.P. Del Rio and your memorable bathroom walls). They have a Brittish-style brewing system with a freestanding mash tub (a bitch to grain out) and open fermenters in a "clean room" downstairs. They make use of the "Ringwood" varietal of top-cropping ale yeast, which gives most of the beers a buttery house character from the compound, diacetyl which it produces. Some people enjoy this flavor in English beers, but it's a turn off for me and most beer-geeks.

With three brewpubs with two blocks of each other, we made quick work of this pub crawl, which was further enhanced by a special beer tasting we stumbled upon at Arbor. A bunch of the breweries we would be visiting we represented, which made for some odd foreshadowing. I'll admit to acting a bit surly when we made it to GP but so it goes.

We didn't get a chance to stop at Jolly Pumpkin the next morning because we needed to hit the road and they opened at noon. But that downer was soon counterbalanced when we arrived at Dark Horse Brewing in Marshall. Best brewpub of the trip hands down, and that is without even counting the flashed tit we received from a patron as we left. Their ceiling is lined with hundreds of hand-thrown mugs and the beer was super fresh. Even though we sell it at the Handlebar, I went for a Crooked Tree IPA that tasted like pure hop gold. And the calzone I had provides more than enough carbs to keep my engine running.

Terry, Chris, Mark & Kevin inside the pub(photo by John Greenfield):

Motorcycle parking outside:

We bunked at the "lovely" Econo Lodge in Battle Creek that night after a hearty meal at Arcadia Brewing. Although I've had some spotty bottles from them, all the beer at the pub was spot on from their Whitsun to the Double IPA. Not as over=the-top hoppy as Dark Horse but well balanced all around.

At the bar at Dark Horse we bumped into Jeff from Bell's production brewery who had previously helped me load my brewing equipment onto a truck for Revolution. He met us the next morning at their Comstock plant for a behind the scenes tour. I've blogged about how well-designed this this place is, so I'll just leave you with a picture of their newly-expanded fermentation cone room:

Chugging into K-Zoo, we had a lengthy midday stop at the Eccentric Cafe. I had a tasty smoked tofu sandwich, we all had beers, and Kevin fell asleep:

Making tracks, we hit Benton Harbor at nightfall and enjoyed The Livery, which is an oasis of tasty beer in an otherwise tough town. We hung out in the basement bar, while Kim Wilson from the Fabulous T-Birds (I'm Tough Enuff...do-do-do-do-dong) played in the cool-looking loft performance space upstairs. Steve, the owner-brewer is a big biker and played gracious host to us. The Paris-Roubaix pale ale was fittingly my favorite. Liked the red ale on hand pump as well. The next day, we made quick work of the Red Arrow Highway and passed the Shoreline Brewery which was sadly closed for Easter Sunday. Fortunately, the atheists at Three Floyds welcomed us travelers with open arms and frothy glasses. Having put in 90 miles a day for three days straight, we picked up the train in Flossmoor although the pub was closed. To get our brewery totals to 10 we hit Piece on the way and Todd where summarily excused for overuse of the TV-B-Gone. Don't you dare try using that at my place buddy!

Good trip!

I first went out to Dubuque on a Goose Island "brewer's trip" that included an amazing tour of the then operating Dubuque Star Brewery.

At the time they were making a small of the classic Star Beer and also contract brewing brands, including bottled Three Floyds beers (drafts were brewed in-house in Indiana). That brewery was one of the good ole good-ones with a full gravity layout, an ammonia-brine chilling system and pitch-lined mild-steel and wood tanks. The boiler had a cast-iron brewer's star on the access panels and we even saw a rat crawling around in the grain silo built into the building. Yikes! Their bottling line had bottle cleaners to handle reusable bottles (a conveyor through a caustic dip tank) and a case box vacuum system to reuse old cardboard cases.

While the conditions were historic, eye opening and somewhat appalling, it was clear that the brewery's days were numbered. They just weren't making enough beer to keep a facility of that size alive. Lots of old breweries had closed and the frequent changes of ownership rarely led to new found success. Nearby, the old Huber brewery now called Minhas Craft Brewery survives as the second oldest brewery in the country as evidence that you can buck the trend. Sure, they don't any strong brands, but they are still around brewing beer in a classic facility.

In the mid-1990's when I made that last trip, downtown Dubuque was a quiet place with a lot of abandoned storefronts and relics of the dwindling river trade. I kind of wrote the place off mentality and never bothered to really check up on the old brewery as the years went on. While I wasn't watching local gave Dubuque's riverfront a massive facelift into an entertainment area and the old brewery was included in the plans.

Our family gave high marks to the Mississippi River Museum, which is connected somehow with the Smithsonian. Nice educational film with Tina Turner/CCR soundtrack, but surprisingly no Johnny Cash (Dubuque gets no mention in 'Big River'). With the kids in tow, we didn't check out Diamond Joe's Casino, but that appears to be the main attraction. It was nice to see a Casino development combined with some other non-gambling institutions for once. A few blocks away from all this action, main street Dubuque is springing back to life as well so we might just have to chock one up for the "casinovelopment" approach to urban renewal.

Getting back to the brewery, they have redeveloped the buildings without too much demo, but unfortunately the place is now occupied by a winery (sacre bleu!) on the first floor and the Star Restaurant and Ultra Lounge upstairs.

What exactly is an Ultra Lounge you ask? I didn't quite figure that out either as the place was empty new years eve at 5pm when we showed with a 3 and 5 year old. On the plus side they did have a kids menu but no vegetarian entrees for daddy. I had an apple salad with Maytag Blue (when in Iowa....) that wasn't bad. The place was immense with a bar, dinning room and 4 private party rooms and the copper brew kettle remains in place, but not much else. Although our experience was mediocre it sounded like they were booked solid with revelers that night, so perhaps the cocktails are worth the return trip. They had a couple beers on tap (312, Fat Tire) and I opted for the Michelob Winter's Bourbon Cask Ale. Represented by the server (we got no drink menu) as a dark ale from Budweiser it was flavored with vanilla and didn't have a ton of flavor from the wood. Interesting, but I would have been happier with 312.

Fortunately, part of the first floor has been laid out museum style in tribute to Dubuque Star with other pieces of the brewing equipment on display. They documented the public debate over condemning the site and the process of fixing it up. Loads of breweriana behind glass and a nice wall made of case boxes. And there on the wall was the old boiler doors, minus the 6-pointed star which was pried off at some point, but its mark remains.

Next time, we'll make tracks north to check out the revitalization of Good Old Potosi.

Last Saturday, the Festival of Barrel Aged Beer rocked the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers' Hall in the West Loop. This annual tasting of strong and tangy beers from the wood was the biggest yet with 113 beers from 41 breweries from 14 states. The Plumbers' Hall turned out to be an excellent venue for this event, with visual appeal, good acessbility, and a nice loading dock for getting all those kegs in and out. The affable Pete Crowley from Rock Bottom was the driving force behind the event, and now I've got a better understanding of how they kick so much beer out of that brewpub downtown. Personally, in addition to the beer, I enjoyed the solidarity with the Plumbers' who are invaluable partners in the everyday work of making beer. The eastern spiral staircase in the hall was home to the wonderful mural above, which was credited to 'National Decorating Service "Studios" 1960'. I look forward to the day the Illinois Craft Brewers Guild has such a nice hall to decorate with inspiring verse.

Back to the beer event, there were far too many tasty beers to mention but I enjoyed Goose Island's blackberry rye aged in cabernet barrel brew aptly named Juliet. I preferred the wild, sour beers, but lord did I sampled plenty of barley wine in one day. Piece's Monkey Knuckle (cousin of the Camel Toe) had some nice hop for a barley wine and Lost Abbey's Angel's Share was the most refined of the bunch. Tomme Arthur of Lost Abbey/Pizza Port stopped by the Handlebar today in the midst of their Chicago launch of bottled product. A nice guy making nice beer.

I'm just about through with Dogfish Head founder Sam Calagione's business-advice book, Brewing Up A Business. Never being one to drift anywhere near the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this is one of the few business books I've read. It is clearly aimed at those involved in small business or thinking about getting into it, and it offers a smattering of lessons on understanding your consumer and guerrilla marketing. Given the strong following for their beers, non-business oriented beer geeks might get a kick out of it if you don't mind the constant reminders of Calagione's sales philosophy.

The book is fortunately not loaded with buzz words but they make an appearance in between fun personal stories of crashing beer delivery trucks and exploding fermenters. It is an amazingly fast read, especially for generally slow readers like myself. He got his degree in English and it shows. The book is also chopped up into short sections that are tailor made for today's news-bite hungry world.

I tend to agree with guy on most of his sales philosophy although I'm more of a fan of keeping things local rather than spreading quickly around the country as they have. But coming from little ol' Delaware, I don't blame him for looking beyond the borders. Here in Chicago, we're lucky to have lots of mouths and livers to satisfy in close proximity.

Calagione was just in town doing a tasting at Sheffield's of his beers alongside cheese from the about-to-close The Cheese Stands Alone up in Lincoln Ave. I didn't make it over but I'm sure many of the combos went well since Dogfish is known for including odd herbs, fruits and spices in their ales that could counterbalance cheese flavors nicely.

I'm a big fan of their wide range of beers and have an essentially fond memory of tasting their 60 minutes IPA for the first time in Miami Beach. While I waited in the rental car with our napping kids outside a natural foods store, my wife ventured inside to fetch a few things including some brew for daddy. South Florida is known for many things, but I wasn't finding much good beer on the trip. Not knowing what brands they would have, I asked for 'something something' pale ale leaving my fate in the wind. You've got to understand that with two kids under 3, we spent much of the trip by the beach and the pool and the opportunities for any adult debauchery were pretty slim. But later that night while the rest of Miami Beach drank cocktails in cafes and clubs, I sat on the balcony of the hotel room looking out at the ocean with the joyous taste of hops on my tongue. And all was good.