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Where To Find The Best Breweries In Chicago And Illinois

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The story of Illinois craft beer is a tale of two halves, according to Joshua Riley, one of the state’s beer experts.

The first half is dominated by Goose Island Beer Company and brewpubs such as Piece Brewery and Pizzeria and Flossmoor Station Restaurant & Brewery — businesses that brought craft beer to Chicago and still make award-winning beers, says Riley, a craft beer columnist for the Daily Journal in Kankakee, Illinois.

The second half, he says, is “the new guard” with some of the best beers made by “passionate brewers” including Revolution, Pipeworks, and Half Acre and the newest brewers like Hop Butcher for the World, Une Année/Hubbard’s Cave and Mikerphone. The latter three, Riley says, make beers that don’t take a back seat to the top hazy IPA beer makers on the East and West coasts.

Two neighborhoods in Chicago are renowned for their excellent beers, he says, and have been unofficially renamed Malt Row and Chicago Brewing District.

“You might think that Chicago is where the best beer is made,” says Riley who has visited more than 100 breweries. “But the suburbs hang tough with some of my favorite, truly spectacular beers produced in uninspiring locales by earnest, hard-working people.”

The following, in alphabetical order, are 15 Illinois breweries that are Riley’s favorites:

1. Brickstone Brewery, Bourbonnais, Illinois.

2. DESTIHL Brewery, Normal, Illinois.

3. Goose Island Beer Company (Anheuser-Busch InBev), Chicago.

4. Hailstorm Brewing, Tinley Park, Illinois.

5. Half Acre Beer Company, Chicago.

6. Hop Butcher for the World, Darien, Illinois.

7. Marz Community Brewing Company, Chicago.

8. Metropolitan Brewing, Chicago.

9. Mikerphone Brewing, Elk Grove Village, Illinois.

10. Off Color Brewing, Chicago.

11. Pipeworks Brewing Co., Chicago.

12. Revolution Brewing, Chicago.

13. Scratch Brewing, Ava, Illinois.

14. Two Brothers Brewing, Aurora and Warrenville, Illinois.

15. Une Année/Hubbard’s Cave Brewing, Nile, Illinois.

John Dykstra

Here’s why each one is rated so highly by Riley:

Brickstone Brewery. "My hometown brewery makes exceedingly enjoyable, fresh and fantastic beers like its Brickstone APA (American pale ale) which won a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival. The brewery recently started releasing its Haz’D Up series that has some of the best juicy, hazy IPAs in Chicago. They are available at rock-bottom prices at the brewery's great brewpub."

DESTIHL Brewery. "Based in downstate Normal, DESTIHL produces a wide range of traditional beer styles like Normal Pils and Weissenheimer Hefeweizen in cans that it distributes to 30 U.S. states. DESTIHL's fame locally comes from its well-respected barrel-aged sour series, Saint Dekkera, and the perennially popular Dosvidanya barrel-aged imperial stout."

Goose Island Beer Company.  "The originator of the barrel-aged beer continues to make some of the most sought after beers in the country. The Bourbon County Brand series and the Sour Sisters series are some of my favorites beers. Goose Island also throws some of the best parties in Chicago."

Hailstorm Brewing. "This Tinley Park brewery is the lowest-profile superstar brewery you will ever come across with hazy beers, a gold-medal-winning IPA at the Great American Beer Festival, American light lager in cans, and barrel-aged imperial stouts that people form lines in an industrial park to get. If you ask nicely, they may even serve you a hot beer."

Half Acre Beer Company. "Half Acre brews some of the best non-hazy pale ales in Chicago. Daisy Cutter, the brewery's crisp, dry, classic APA, was the beer that got me into craft beer, and I am forever grateful for that."

Hop Butcher for the World.  "This gypsy brewery (a brewery without its own facilities that produces beer at other breweries) has most recently been brewing at the Darien-based Miskatonic Brewing Company, and producing must-have beers with almost weekly releases. Hop Butcher releases the haziest of hazy IPAs and a variety of unconventional beers like Dog House imperial stout, Portillo's Chocolate Cake stout and a double IPA called Codename: Supergnarly Milkshake."

Marz Community Brewing Company. "Located on Chicago’s South Side, this brewery serves some of the most innovative and amazing beers in one of the most innovative, hippest spaces in Chicago. Marz Brewing feels like a modern art exhibit with a killer circle bar in the middle."

Metropolitan Brewing. "This lager house is a totally traditional brewery intent on the perfection of classic German style lagers served to you in a beautiful Chicago taproom and in six-pack bottles around Chicagoland. What makes this brewery unusual is its undying commitment to the craft lager. They will also serve you these quaffable lagers out of a robot at your local beer fest, because, well, why not?"

Mikerphone Brewing. "In a nondescript industrial park near O’Hare airport in Elk Grove Village, this brewery is the most talked about one in Chicagoland with ever-changing hazy IPAs like Mikerphone Check 1,2 and imperial stouts like Imperial Smells Like Bean Spirit. Mikerphone does the fanciest collaboration brews with the hottest breweries from around the country and brings them back for us to try."

Off Color Brewing. "This brewery in Lincoln Park is the quirkiest and most eccentric brewery in Chicago with beers featuring quassia bark, horehound, grains of paradise and costmary. Off Color did a collaboration with Miller High Life that added wild indigenous yeast and was called Eeek!."

Pipeworks Brewing Co. "On the west side of Chicago, Pipeworks self-distributes in flashy cans some of the best beers in Chicago. They include Lizard King Single Hop Mosiac Pale Ale, Blood of the Unicorn hoppy red, Close Encounters black IPA and Agave Heart Gose."

Revolution Brewing. "This is my favorite brewery in Chicago, maybe my favorite brewery, period. Revolution's Deep Woods series of barrel-aged beers like Deth's Tar challenge any of the biggest names in the barrel-aged game. But, for me, it's all about Fist City (a pale ale)  my idea of what a Chicago beer is."

Scratch Brewing. "Located in tiny, downstate, out-of-the-way Ava, Scratch is a hidden Illinois craft beer gem. It is a small family-owned farm and brewery that brews eccentric beers with ingredients found around the farm like black truffles and green walnuts."

Two Brothers Brewing. "With two locations in Aurora and Warrenville, Two Brothers offers a variety of styles, including bière de garde, IPA, Dortmunder, rye, gluten-reduced golden ale and session sours. Every year, Oktoberfest and Summerfest are staples on my craft beer calendar, so, in my opinion, Two Brothers is one of the anchors of Chicagoland craft beer."

Une Année/Hubbard’s Cave Brewing. "This is two breweries in one with two excellent brands in the suburbs. Une Année is dedicated to some of the best sours Chicago produces with the brewery's rotating fresh fruit series and La Grande Monde barrel-aged fruited sours. Hubbard’s Cave makes some of the best hazy IPAs in the city and some stellar stouts."

 

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