Unlike many other industries, camaraderie often triumphs over competition in the craft brewery world.
Established brewers welcome fledgling brewers opening breweries nearby and even provide start-up assistance. In Illinois, the camaraderie has led to a marketing initiative, the Dixie Highway Brewery Trail, involving eight breweries and a tour bus company that have banded together to promote their beers and attract customers.
"All breweries on the trail are small businesses — several owned and operated by families," says Amy Kamp, the vice president of marketing at one of the breweries, Evil Horse Brewing Co. "We wanted to showcase the excellent beer produced on the south side of Chicago and in the southern suburbs, so we pooled our resources to make that happen."
Evil Horse Brewing Co. serves a brown ale called Mister Ed and a pale ale called Smoke the Donkey.
The Dixie Highway has "a long, storied past," Kamp says. "The highway was built before there was a national plan for interstate travel. Individual towns were originally responsible for building and maintaining the stretch of road in their town. These small towns working together for the greater good is part of the inspiration for creating the brewery trail."
The Dixie Highway was a 1915 idea of Carl Fisher, an Indiana entrepreneur who had business interests in cars and real estate in Florida, according to the Chicago-based Ridge Historical Society. Fisher's vision was a highway extending from Chicago to Miami. Today, the junction of the Dixie and Lincoln highways south of Chicago is known as the “Crossroads of the Nation,” the society says.
The Dixie Highway was "actually a system of interconnecting roads that wound its way through the middle of the country," the society says. Unlike Lincoln Highway, a single route better known nationally as Route 66, the Dixie Highway is a set of parallel roads that begin in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, traverse through Illinois and Indiana and zigzag down through several states before ending in Miami.
Some states have markers commemorating the historic Dixie Highway for connecting the industrial north with the agricultural south. Many stretches of the highway have been renamed by local communities.
The goal of the Dixie Highway Brewery Trail is "to promote a side of the Chicago craft beer scene that sometimes gets lost along the way," says Ryan Czaja, the head brewer of the Flossmoor Station Brewing Company in Flossmoor. "With all the breweries in Chicago, this is a great way to promote offerings on the south side of the city and bring customers to a brewery they may not have gone to otherwise."
Flossmoor Station, located in a 1906 train station, produces 500-600 barrels of beer annually and sells all in house. Some original features of the train station have been retained, including the brick floors and a ticket booth.
At Evil Horse Brewing, about 750 barrels of beer are produced annually. The brewery is near Balmoral Park, a former harness racing facility now used for show jumping.
"We are located in the far southern suburbs of Chicago, and our primary niche is creating traditional styles of beer, using ingredients that are true to the style," says Kamp, whose husband, Steve, is the brewmaster. "Our German beers use German malt and hops. We even tailor our water to the water of the region that traditionally produces a certain beer style."
Here are the eight Illinois breweries and a tour bus company that have joined forces on the Dixie Highway Brewery Trail:
Horse Thief Hollow Brewing Co., Chicago
Open Outcry Brewing Co., Chicago
Blue Island Beer Co., Blue Island
Rabid Brewing, Homewood
Flossmoor Station Brewery Company, Flossmoor
One Trick Pony Brewery, Lansing
Evil Horse Brewing Co., Crete
Thornton Distilling, Thornton
Illiana Brew Bus, Highland, Indiana
