Beer Adventures in Chicago, Part 6 of 7

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]

As I said in Part 5, ‘outgoing’ is not a word people would generally put on a form about my personality (do people fill out forms focused on my personality? Don’t put ‘paranoid,’ because I’m not.). But I was dedicated to filling the glass that was my last day in town with beer (and also horrible, horrible metaphors), so I found a good stoop a few blocks away, sat down and called the Half Acre Beer Company.

‘Hi, I was wondering if I would be able to stop by; Doug at Metro suggested I call you.’

‘Uh…’ I could almost see the guy who answered looking around uncertainly. ‘Yeah. Sure.’

And with directions on how to get there, Ken Grossman’s NHC Keynote in my ears and a bounce in my step, I headed to Half Acre.

When I visited, there was still visible construction on the outside (though that has since been fixed). I figured that the doors probably weren’t the best entrance in, but saw a sack of grain laying by the open warehouse door. I stepped inside and saw three guys busy, well, brewing beer: in this case, emptying out spent grain into barrels to be picked up by Farmer Ben (a proper name for a farmer if I’ve ever heard one). As I received the now-familiar quizzical looks I realized I didn’t know who I talked to on the phone, and so all I could muster was ‘I called, and somebody’ — real legit, Dan — ’said I could stop by?’

This day, dear readers, reinforced what I already knew to be a capital T Truth: Brewers are the friendliest people on the planet.

I defy anyone to go more than two minutes in a brewery without a beer in your hands. If you’re a homebrewer, expect inquiries as to your experiences, because chances are it’s how they started too. And while I’m not saying everyone should expect this if they visit, they gave me a cookie. So that was pretty awesome.

I got a brief tour of the construction up front as I was led through their offices to get a glass: they’ve spent the past 10 months revamping the brewery, located in the middle of a business district, with the intention of having a tasting area/storefront. They’ve also rebuilt the second floor of the brewery, reinforcing the hell out of it to allow them to store their grain up there without it, y’know, collapsing. From there they can walk it over to the barley crusher and let gravity do the rest of the work (by comparison, Metro is about to install an auger to move grain to their mash tun, which isn’t nearly as entertaining as if they were using an augur).

The nice part about intruding on breweries that aren’t equipped for tours is that you get to see them stripped naked (metaphorically: it wasn’t that kind of party), candidly going about their work. My visit to Flying Dog was nice, but the experience seemed very streamlined. The Half Acre guys didn’t really seem to know what to do with me (which made four of us), so I essentially stood around and watched them brew a batch of their Over Ale, which was really all I could have asked for: I got to see what it’s like to have a brewery (the best part, they say? The forklift.). Copies of Designing Great Beers and Radical Brewing were on a table. The beer I drank was served from five gallon corny kegs hooked up to a jockey box (the kegs are primarily for in-house consumption, but they are equipped with Sanke fittings and do occasionally get sold). These are guys living the goddamn dream.

I was asked a few times if I was planning on opening a brewery myself. No, I said, which is about 75% ‘I’m not’ and 25% ‘I got married when I was 20 and had my masters at 23 because when I say I’ll do something eventually I do it immediately.’ Watching them work, though (I could get to drive a forklift!)… it was damn tempting. The pervasive smell of malt and hops, the skateboard with the Naked Raygun sticker on it (cue my wife’s rendition of ‘Treason’) and the unexpected responsibility of being put on kettle watch were intoxicating.

But what about the beer? I had tried their Daisy Cutter Pale Ale at the Hop Leaf, so consult Part 2 of my ramblings for my (brief) opinion. Next up was their Over Ale, which is what I was witnessing the birth of during my stay. Like Metro, they aren’t so much concerned with BJCP guidelines as they are with making good beer, and so this was a bit of a bastard, stylewise. It was dark brown, just allowing light to permeate it, and smelled primarily of hops but with a taste consisting more of a malty sweetness. I thought it was closest to a hoppy brown but they consider it an ESB made with American hops, so I’ll compromise and say that if an ESB went to college in the US and then stayed to raise a baby with the brown ale it met in its accounting class, Over Ale would be the result. Writing this now, back in Buffalo, I really wish that they distributed outside of the city limits. Like, say, to Buffalo. We’re connected by lakes! Just ship it this way. I won’t tell anyone. But I digress.

I finished with the final beer in their power trio lineup, the Half Acre Lager (they do special releases and so on, but these three are their mainstays). It was a bit of a copper color, similar to that of a pale ale perhaps (apologies: I use what my boss calls ‘the eight crayon’ color palette). It was ‘loads more malty than you’re expecting,’ according to Past Dan, but still finished crisply, with a touch of bitterness in the nose and, as you drink, increasingly in the finish.

When I arrived they were cleaning out the mash tun, and by the time I left (two and a half hours later) their day still wasn’t finished; like Metro, they’re pulling double brewdays which right now run 14 hours but which they hope to get down to 12. I noticed a can sitting on the floor with a Half Acre sticker on it and inquired about canning, which they said they’d like to get into soon. It’s a very transitional time for them, with not only the construction on the brewery but doing the brewing themselves: Half Acre was started in 2007 but was contract brewed in Wisconsin. They still contract out their bottles, but since February they’ve been in their current location, filling kegs. Right now they aren’t filtering at all, but they’ll eventually use a plate filter. And as far as distribution goes (Ha! That was a pun!), at the time of my visit it was only within the city limits, but they had plans, possibly by the time this was published, to move into the suburbs.

To drive home what an incredibly friendly group of people Half Acre is, as I was leaving I inquired as to whether it would be possible to buy one of their branded 16 oz nonic glasses. With a dismissive hand gesture I was told to keep the one I was holding. I washed it out, of course, as I didn’t want to attract any attention to myself on the el, but as I walked out of the brewery I couldn’t help but reflect on how incredibly damn lucky I was.

Next up: I finish out my trip at the Rock Bottom brewpub.

Beer Adventures in Chicago, Part 2 of 7

[Part 1]

My second full day in Chicago was spent primarily wandering around the city’s art museum, and so at dinnertime I was tired and thirsty. The former was handled by a long ride on the red line (the el being vastly superior to Buffalo’s public transportation, but our metro is like being ravaged by pigs while an evil clown gouges out your eyes, so that’s not saying much), and the latter by my destination, which Ethan made sure I got to: the Hop Leaf.

It was the first time we had left the general downtown area, so it was nice to actually see a bit more of the city (I’m sure it will be similar when I get to Ethan’s other ‘must see’ attraction, the Map Room). The Hop Leaf was easy to find, and the selection of beers on draft was so extensive (and consisted almost entirely of breweries I had never been able to try) that I was almost overwhelmed. I knew I’d be coming back again, though, so there was quite a bit of ‘you can get to that later when your wife goes home without you and you come to drink yourself into a stupor because no one’s there to tell you otherwise.’

I started with Half Acre’s Daisy Cutter Pale Ale, a local Chicago beer. (It was nice to see them promoting local breweries: they gave the origin of each beer, and the Chicago entries were instead listed ‘Chicago!’) My nose was a bit screwed by our scentless candle and the shellfish at the table next to us, so the best I can give you aromawise was ‘there was a bit of hops, but not an abundance.’ The flavor was what I wanted from an APA, with a healthy dose of hop flavor taking precedence over the bitterness, which was still present and stuck with you, but wasn’t overpowering. You guys have multiple breweries and it’s no goddamn fair. The name inspires me with pictures of mowing lawns, and I’d be happy to have this around as a lawnmower beer as it has a good amount of flavor but also does a nice job of being refreshing.

The service was almost annoyingly fast: guys, I’m trying to milk this meal so I can try as many beers as possible, so you bringing us our entrees when I’m halfway done with what will be the most easy-drinking beer I’m planning to have tonight isn’t helping my cause. It also didn’t help that our waiter, faintly reminiscent of the recently deceased Billy Mays, seemed to get busy just as I got to the end of my glass and so I went beerless for a spell. Of course, he didn’t have to come to our table as much as I was expecting because he was helped by a legion of other employees clearing away dishes the moment we were finished with them and replenishing that ounce of water we just drank. I ordered the duck reuben, by the way, which was very good and just goes to show that I am unable to see a reuben on a menu and not order it. It came with frites, which is a fancy word for french fries if you aren’t Jay Brooks, that Elizabeth liked so much she ordered a side order of for herself. They were accompanied with garlic mayo, or at least something mayonnaise-based with a hell of a lot of garlic in it, which was very good but also contributed to my useless palate.

My second beer was Bell’s Two Hearted, another selection I had heard quite a lot about. And I must say… did I get the wrong beer? I had no expectations going in, but the menu listed it both as ‘Bell’s most bitter ale’ and promised ‘a full blast of hops.’ It was a good beer, doubtlessly, but it was only incrementally more bitter than the Daisy Cutter, with a similarly slightly stepped up hop aroma (though, as I’ve said, my nose was fairly useless). It’s also possible that Stone’s Ruination IPA, the last beer I had back home, totally, well, ruined me for anything claiming to be hoppy in the foreseeable future. There’s a hop flavor that I want to name but can’t (I’m still learning this stuff; be patient with me): it’s not grassy, or soapy, but it’s also not piney or citrussy or fruity or any of the other buzzwords I’ve picked up for hops. Also, let’s keep blaming those goddamn mussels.

I was hoping to finish the night with Goose Island’s 13% bourbon barrel stout, but when your wife’s annoyingly pregnant body is done playing nice with the rest of the world it’s best to admit defeat and head back to the hotel. There’ll be trip two; don’t worry, Dan.

Next up: the Clark St Ale House.