Brewpubs aren’t the only source of house-brewed beer in Chicago: A few restaurants are crafting small-batch beers on premise. Here, three restaurants that are part of the trend:
Usually, at least one of the 32 draft beers at this sausage-and-beer emporium is a staff-brewed experiment in fermentation, such as a mint chocolate stout. As for the bar’s name? It refers to the British colloquialism for sausage and Belgian lace, the foam that remains on an empty beer glass.
Brewer Trevor Rose-Hamblin brews beers that toy with idiosyncratic combinations, such as The Precinct, a porter brewed with coffee beans and glazed doughnuts, at molecular gastronomist Homaro Cantu’s newest restaurant in Chicago’s Fulton Market neighborhood. That’s to be expected from Cantu, whose restaurant offers the chef’s inimitable take on Asian cuisine such as poke, a Hawaiian raw fish salad, which features ingredients like soy cotton candy.
The menu at The Publican (pictured) can be summed up in three words: oysters, pork and beer. And tucked amid beer director Michael McAvena’s well-chosen beer list is the house-blended Lambic Doux, which is made from a combination of Belgian lambic, witbier and candy sugar along with seasonal spices.
