04/24/2018

The Best Breweries in Chicago to Visit

The Windy City is one of America’s great brewing epicenters and a wonderful place to enjoy a well-crafted pint. Here are four of the best Chi-Town breweries, each and every one of them within happy striking distance of your Autograph Collection luxury perch at Hotel Chicago!

Revolution Brewing

The biggest independently owned brewery in the Land of Lincoln, Revolution is always pouring a magnificent representation of the many beers it whips up each year at its Revolution Brewpub (2323 N Milwaukee Ave) in Logan Square. Try one of the year-round staples—Cross of Gold (Golden Ale), Anti-Hero (IPA), Button Up Wit (Witbier), and Fist City (American Pale Ale), to name a few—or partake of seasonal releases (A Little Crazy Belgian-Style Pale Ale, Sun Crusher Hoppy Wheat Ale, Rosa Hibiscus Ale, Oktoberfest German-Style Lager, or Fistmas Holiday Ale), special brews, and taproom-only one-offs.

Half Acre Beer Co.

Half Acre serves its top-quality suds on draft from taprooms connected to its two North Side brewery locations: Lincoln (4257 N Lincoln Ave) and Balmoral (2050 W Balmoral Ave). You’ll always get to enjoy Half Acre’s trio of year-round beers: Pony Pilsner, Daisy Cutter Pale Ale, and Tuna Extra Pale Ale. Right now, the brewery’s seasonal brew is the Vallejo IPA (others available at different times of year include the Deep Space Double IPA, Gone Away IPA, Navajo Double IPA, and LeadFeather Black Ale). The taprooms, meanwhile, are typically the only place you can track down one of Half Acre’s “Wyld” beers conjured up in its mixed-fermentation cellars.

Dovetail Brewery

The founders of Dovetail are Chicagoans, but they actually met while earning Master Brewer Certifications at Munich’s Doemens Institute. Appropriate, then, that Dovetail focuses on esteemed, traditionally brewed European-style beers, primarily German, Czech, and Belgian varieties. Offerings include the Dovetail Vienna Lager, Pilsner, Rauchbier, Dunkel, Hefeweizen, and White. If you respect the fine beers of the Old World, you ought to make tracks to the Dovetail taproom (1800 W Belle Plaine Ave) and appreciate how lovingly this brewery renders them.

Goose Island Beer Co.

It may be owned by Anheuser-Busch now, but Goose Island remains a must-visit on the Chicago beer scene. Among the most original breweries of the Midwest’s modern craft-beer revival—and certainly one of the best-known on the national and international stages—Goose Island began as a Lincoln Park brewpub in the late 1980s. You can still have a pint or taster flight at that original location—the Clybourn Brewhouse (1800 N Clybourn Ave)—or make your way over to the Goose Island Tap Room (1800 W Fulton St), both easy trips from Hotel Chicago. A number of Goose Island’s great beers—among them the Goose IPA, the Belgian Pale Ale Matilda, and the Belgian-Style Farmhouse Ale Sofie—have amassed a treasure chest of medals from the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup over the years.