Actually, this handsome pub-restaurant is not on Goose Island but at the corner of Marcey and Willow Streets, west of Clybourn Avenue. Open since early June, it is at the back end of a block-long building that was a Turtle Wax factory. The brewery is the first tenant, and the rest of the building is still in early stages of renovation.
It seats 275 in three areas (a bar and double-deck dining space in the front, a large room in the back with booths and tables, and a sidewalk terrace) that collectively offer the most agreeable ambiance of the three places. ”But the free parking (across Willow) may be its greatest asset,”
observed the OSM.
The vats and brewery operation are at the basement level, but visible through the front window. During the day, you may spot the brewmaster, in pull-on overall outfit and sneakers, prowling about like a zookeeper feeding the animals.
The barroom is open. The pipes and beams are visible, as are brick walls dotted with signs, posters and memorabilia of old breweries and Illinois history. The floors are wood and the furniture substantial. The room is cozy and intimate, and seems to have been here for 20 years, or 60, despite the TV set. Farther back is a stylish tile mosaic with the Goose Island logo that explains the role of hops, barley and malt in beer making.
At night, the lighting is low and has a yellowish tint, highlighting the dark stain on the wood. The ceiling and pipes above are encased in dimness and the room shrinks in scale and feels very European. The people help, too. It`s a cosmopolitan mix of neighborhood residents and young professionals. According to a staff member, ”We are drawing a wider spread of age than we had anticipated. Many are professional people, with the bulk of them 25 to 45, but some are much younger and others much older. The crowd gets younger on weekends. Some of older folks who come in talk of the beer gardens they used to go to.”
Goose Island offers a full bar, with specialty bottled beers, wine and cocktails. The antique taps with buckets hanging on them don`t function, but you won`t go thirsty. The bottled beers are unusual: Sheaf Stout from Australia, Westmalle Ale from an abbey in Belgium, a raspberry beer from Belgium. There`s Miller Lite, too. According to a bartender: ”People start with this, then move on when they see the other beers being served. I sell one bottle for every six large glasses of ours.”
Goose Island offers three flagship beers: Goose Island Pilsner, Lincoln Park Lager and Honkers Ale. You can try them in 6-ounce tasting portions, if you wish.
We began with the pilsner. It has a golden color, good carbonation and tasted slightly creamy. It won two thumbs up from us and turns out to be the brewery`s best seller.
The lager is slightly creamier and sweeter. Food brings out the sweetness even more.
The ale is the same color as lager, though more effervescent and watery. It has a slightly bitter kick after swallowing. Two negative votes.
Brewmaster Victor Ecimovich III also makes a number of specialty beers according to the season and personal whim. During our visit weizen (a wheat beer) and porter were offered.
The weizen is cloudy and very light, with lots of carbonation. It`s served with a wedge of lemon. ”It`s a low-alcohol, high-acidity thirst-quencher,” said Ecimovich. The OSM sniffed and said, ”Something for the Corona crowd,” then added, ”but I like it.”
The dark porter was creamy, very heavy and bitter and gave off the pungent smell of hops. It struck a familiar chord to the OSM: ”This is like a cup of tobacco juice at a fraternity ritual,” he said.
The beers at Goose Island are more highly carbonated than the others. A critic commented that ”filtration here strips off aroma,” and said he found a ”lack of variety among the grains” used for brewing.
Brewmaster Ecimovich, who is very receptive to questions-as are his compatriots at Sieben`s and Tap & Growler-says: ”I wanted, first, to make lagers and ales. They are 99 percent of the world`s beers. Second, I wanted as mainstays, year-round, a working man`s ale, a German-Vienna-style lager and a special lager or ale.”
He added, ”The presence of Lite shows this is not a snob place. Also, we have a well-stocked bar. Come and enjoy the atmosphere if you wish.”
The menu here tries to cover too many bases. There are pizza and pepper steak and stir-fried shellfish, plus daily specials you`d expect to find in a full-scale Halsted Street restaurant. I came away with a sense they should stick to pub food, and so should you. The ambitious items only cause confusion as to the brewery`s priorities. After all, they aren`t asking the brewmaster to make wine, too.
Look to the selection of vegetables and poached fish with garlic mayonnaise called grand aioli, the tasty, open-face chicken sandwich, a wurst and the coleslaw. The unsalted potato chips served at the bar are homemade. For those with an appetite, Mark Knoblauch recommended the pork chops with sauerkraut in a recent Tribune review.
As we were leaving, the OSM wrinkled his nose in displeasure and said to brewmaster Ecimovich: ”This really is a brewery. You smell hops as soon as you walk in the door.” Unfazed, Ecimovich responded: ”Some people do find the smell of a brewery cloying. My wife says it reminds her of boiled socks. To keep it down on the weekends, I tend to brew in the early part of the week.”
TAP & GROWLER
This is the smallest of the three breweries and, frankly, the one that is the least likely to appeal to beer drinkers despite the availability of some very tasty beer. It is really a 120-seat restaurant, the sort of toney place whose opening announces that a warehouse neighborhood such as this is in the early stages of gentrification.
The design combines the old and the new. There are a nostalgia-invoking marble floor and dark wood, along with a trendy open kitchen and, behind a glass wall at the rear, brewery tanks. It looks quite stylish at night: globe lamps, cafe curtains, red-top tables with stainless steel bands around the sides. The wooden chairs don`t match-on purpose. There is a moose head hung above the brewery-area window-a brew-world joke. Jazz recordings play. There is a mix of people, most of them dining.
In sum, Tap & Growler has the feel of a neighborhood restaurant-bistro. You can dine here with no sense of the brewery. The bar is small and ordinary. Tables are small, too. There is no incentive for groups to gather and taste. Indeed, the erratic food and service during a pair of visits suggested a lack of management, direction, commitment.
Despite this, and the most difficult brewing situtation (lack of capacity forces brewmaster Don Outterson to stagger production), Tap & Growler beers won a gold and a silver medal at the prestigious Denver beer festival this spring. The beers do seem more complex and are tricky to appreciate on first tasting.
According to Outterson, the common denominator of his beers is freshness and a slightly slower rate of carbonation. He uses no preservatives. ”I try to do what they do over there (in Europe) over here,” he said. ”These beers are alive, they change as they age. Gruner Gold (an ale made with Whitbread yeast) develops a `zingy` flavor after six weeks.”
Outterson sees himself as able to take chances, to ”go for greatness,”
and thinks beer lovers will find ”more depth of flavor here” than at the competing breweries. Among the other beers that are available on rotating basis are Lair Dog Lager, Eagan`s Irish Ale, American-style Ambier and Ankner Best Bitter.
Our first beer was Gruner Gold: It has a metallic taste, a bitter finish, is sweet and slightly perfumed. We learn it is made with honey, has a complex sugar profile and a residual sweetness in foretaste. It became much fuller tasting with sausages. The OSM`s comment: ”It kind of grows on you.”
Next came the Eagan`s Ale, made with roasted grains, malt extract, Irish stout, honey and molasses. According to Outterson, it is ”a very sturdy beer with a great flavor format, but it wouldn`t ship worth a damn.” I liked it a lot. The OSM said, ”A little strong for my taste, but I like the bittersweet tug-of-war and the long, lingering finish.”
We moved on to the Ankner Best Bitter, another ale. It is light copper in color, not very heavy, with a gentle taste. The OSM`s verdict: ”Very drinkable; seems to mellow as you drink it.”
The final brew was the house stout, which is both smooth and bitter. The OSM, thinking back to the porter at Goose Island, said, ”I`m not sure it`s any better, but I`d probably get more down before I died.”
For eating, there are pretzels on the bar, both straight and twists, plus a homemade beer mustard that is mild and sweet. The menu with daily additions includes two soups (oxtail with vegetables was very good with beer), a daily fish special, Mexican dishes on Wednesday (I sampled a freshly made chicken enchilada alive with the taste of chilies) and lists desserts, breads and pastries as being ”made here.”
The appetizers were disappointing. Fried shrimp came with too much batter. Sweet potato chips were not crisp. A bratwurst was imperfectly grilled.
But there`s always the taste of the beer to remember. As we finished our final glasses, the OSM admitted he`d become a convert to pub crawling-and to beers with flavor and character.
”You can really play with these,” he said. ”They seem to mellow as you keep drinking. To just sip a sample, or judge several of them on the basis of brief tastes, is almost a disservice.”
Finally, for him, Goose Island`s Lincoln Park Lager edged out T&G`s Ankner Best Bitter as the overall favorite. For me, it was Eagan`s Irish Ale over the Goose Island Pilsner. But this won`t be our last taste test.
Sieben`s River North Brewery and Restaurant, 463 W. Ontario St.;
787-7313.
Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday; noon to 10 p.m. Sunday. Valet parking $4.
Regular brews:
– Amber ale
– Golden ale
– Stout
– Lager
Specials for August:
– Pilsner
– Cherry beer
– Weiss beer (end of the month)
Goose Island, 1800 N. Clybourn Ave.; 915-0071.
Open 11 a.m. to midnight Sunday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday.
Regular brews:
– Golden Goose Pilsner
– Lincoln Park Lager
– Honkers Ale
Specials for August:
– Porter
– Weizen beer
Tap & Growler, 901 W. Jackson Blvd.; 829-4141.
Open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday; 3 to 11 p.m. Saturday. Closed Sunday.
Regular brews:
– Ankner Best Bitter
– Eagan`s Irish Ale
– Gruner Gold
Special for August:
– Shippee Stout
