This past week I was in Chicago for a couple of days for business. I always try to act as expected and fit in a visit to a great beer spot while I am anywhere. This week it was Goose Island’s brewpub located in the trendy Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. This isn’t my first trip to the Goose, but it may be my last. The pub (not the production brewery) is scheduled to close due to the very high cost of real estate in the area. That unfortunate news is compounded by the fact that the premises is also shared with the Siebel Institute, which is the oldest and one the most respected brewing schools in the world. Many a good brewer has graduated Siebel’s master brewing program. I can only hope Siebel finds a suitable location even if the pub decides not to reopen.

I had a few great beers while there. Replicale was the summer seasonal. It was based on a Belgian farmhouse style ale, but with a little hoppier kick. The Summer Bitter was my favorite, similar to a popular British ale called Summer Lightning. The Go0se’s version weighed in at just under 5% abv and was a slightly more bitter than what I recall in the British version. If your plans include Chicago over the next few months, you may want to visit Goose Island before it’s gone… (more…)

I have always held a fondness for British beer and English pub culture. While today’s Brits are often known worldwide as rowdy, drunken and often violent soccer “hooligans,” the historical reality is that the English have been some of the most civilized drinkers in the history of the world. In the last 50 years or so, England has been evolving (or devolving, depending on your perspective) into a largely commercially driven, lager swilling and very mediocre-beer drinking country. From my point of view, this “devolution” has been a contributing cause for the soiled reputation the English beer drinker earns today; it’s not unlike our own over-indulgent and irresponsible behavior that is all too common with the typical American macro-lager drinker.

Why am I picking on macro-lagers and macro lager drinkers? Well, it’s simple. The large macro lager brewers are all about volume selling. They want you to be able to “chain drink” one can after another without tasting it or filling your tummy. This sounds O.K. on the surface: Heck! Why not give the people what they want, right? The problem is that although they have lightened the beer’s taste and body, they leave all of the alcohol in the package. This means that you can guzzle away at great volumes with little consequence to your tummy; but your brain, well that’s another matter, it gets wasted. This all happens in a country where unlike most of beer drinking Europe, there is little to no public transportation to get your tummy and brain home…

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We mountaineers have come a long way in terms of craft beer that is brewed in state. Though we still have a long way to go to rank up there with neighboring states like Pennsylvania or Ohio, we can be proud of the small stable of West Virginia craft breweries that are turning out respectable beer.

One Charleston pub-owner has made it really easy to sample some of the best beers that the state offers. Kay Dillon at O’Kays on Leon Sullivan Way offers “West Virginia Beer Flights” on the menu. Patrons can choose a four-sample flight for $4 or a six sample flight for $5! The samples are three ounces, which is just the right amount for tasting. This makes it really easy to taste each beer and decide which one deserves your further attention when you order up a pint. (more…)