I’m pretty proud of our track record with brewer interviews here at OA. We interviewed Gabriel Magliaro just before Half Acre opened in 2009 and then did a great interview with the Pipeworks guys in 2010 when they started their kickstart campaign. Both of those companies have brought something truly unique and uplifting to Chicago’s beer scene, be it through recipe, attitude, or unique turns on how to think about what a brewery should be. Which is why I wanted to make a point to land an interview with Dryhop’s Owner and General Manager Greg Shuff.

I’ve shared more than a couple beers with Greg over the past few months turning over his ideas and watching Dryhop evolve from it’s initial concept into what is soon to be a truly unique brewpub experience in the heart of Lakeview. More than a true and passionate love for craft beer, Greg’s knowledge base and passion extends well beyond beer to see the larger picture of the beer drinking experience and, I promise you, he’s raising the bar more than a little on what to expect from your neighborhood brewery.

I’ve tried Dryhop’s beer and it’s fantastic. But Dryhop’s experience is going to be much more holistic than just good beer. His space is well considered and should be awesome. Their growler packaging – a medium of beer delivery that is typically flawed at best – will be the best in the city providing growler beer that can stay fresh, literally, for months. And their food, their food is going to knock it out of the park. Everybody loves hotwings and french fries, right? But that’s been done. So how about the marrying of French market fare and amazing, fresh, craft beer? If that doesn’t make your knees pickle a little bit then you’ve probably had your taste buds removed by Mennonites who thought they were circumcising you.

There’s two opportunities during Craft Beer Week to try Dryhop’s beers, Monday at the Northdown Cafe & Taproom for what should prove to be a great event and Tuesday at Fountainhead’s now infamous Cask Night. I’ll see you at both of those.

Without further ado, I’m stoked to introduce you to Dryhop’s Greg Shuff:

Tell me about Dryhop.
Dryhop is Chicago’s first gastro-brewery. We’re all about doing whatever it takes to connect with our neighbors though creative ales and inspired food.

What size system are you running on?
We have a ten-barrel brewhouse, six ten-barrel fermenters, and six ten-barrel serving tanks.

What’s your expected yearly output?
We plan on brewing about 800 barrels over the first 12 months. Theoretically, the system can manage about 1,500 barrels/year before we’re totally maxed out.

How are you going to differentiate yourself from other brewpubs in Chicago?
I try to avoid using the word “brewpub” at all. I love brewpubs, don’t get me wrong, but they come with a very specific set of expectations.

There are a number of things that make Dryhop totally unique.

The first point obviously has to be the beer. Our Wheat IPA is to die for. And Brant (our Head Brewer) is prepared to kick out over 60 one-offs and seasonal beers in the first year – including our single hop series. You’re really going to love the creative beers in the lineup.

The second point is our kitchen. We have a world class Chef; Pete Repak formally of Charlie Trotters. Working with Pete, we’ve grown the menu out of the tasting room concept. Thinking about how great it is to sample small amounts of a variety of different beers, why not do the same things with our menu? 80% of the menu we’re doing tapas style. How about a small plate of Wild Tuna, lightly poached Quail Eggs, Watermelon, and warm Yuzu Vinaigrette with our Cream Ale? Hell yes. We’re all about pairing food to beer as oppose to matching the beers to the menu. After all, we’re brewers first.

Third is the space it’s self. We really want it to feel like you’re in a brewery enjoying beers and food from the brewer’s table. For instance, all the serving tanks are stacked behind the tap handles and there is a 15-foot tasting bar up front used only for filling growlers (which, by the way, we fill in counter presser fillers – i.e. no oxygen ever touches our beer and the growler shelf life becomes months as appose to days).

What does your beer program look like right now?
We have 6 house beer and 3-4 guest beers on draft at all times. We make an awesome Wheat IPA and a Cream Ale, so we’re keeping those two on at all times. The other four house taps are all about seasonals and one-offs.

What’s your background? What’s your brewer’s background?
For me, it all started when a professor told me to “write a paper about anything that turns you on about sustainability.” So I started writing about breweries, how brewers can use their resources more efficiently, and how beer drinkers can do their part by simply buying beers from their neighbors.

In 2010 I opened the Last Bay Beer Company, a one-barrel nano brewery in the last bay of a garage down in Indianapolis. Making the world’s best beers has always been my number one goal (and should always be the number one goal of any professional brewer). So when I peaked out on the one-barrel system, I new that the next tool I really needed in my arsenal was a better education. So I closed shop and went to Siebel and Doemens Academe in Munich in the middle of 2011.

Now I’m here in Chicago opening Dryhop Brewers.

Brant Dubovick is a GREAT brewer. Brant is the former Head Brewer at Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, PA – a very unique and beautiful brewpub built inside of a Roman Catholic Church. Before Church, Brant brewed at Lancaster Brewing Company where he started his professional career in 2004.

Brant and I met through probrewer.com where we started discussing how great it is to personally connect with people through a brewery’s tasting room. We discovered that we both have the same passion for introducing people to great beers in a face to face environment, so it was only natural that we team up for this project.

How did you come to choose Lakeview as your location?
Lakeview is awesome, I love living and working here. My apartment is only one block south of the brewery. Besides the soft spot I have for Lakeview, the neighborhood is experiencing a kind of renaissance. A lot of “experiential” one-off businesses, both preexisting and newly opened, litter our corridor. By extension of that, we feel that Dryhop complements and grows the unique personality of this community.

So much is happening in Chicago right now with beer with so many new breweries opening, how is this going to work to Dryhop’s advantage? How is this going to pose challenges, if at all?
As they say, a rising tide lifts all ships. The biggest advantage of new and growing breweries is the increased awareness of better beer. We all know that inside the craft beer community there is very little brand loyalty, which is great. So the more brewers that are out there converting the macro beer drinkers into craft customers the larger Dryhop’s customer base becomes. For us, there is no downside to the Chicago craft beer boom. We’re just really excited to be a part of it.

I saw an earlier post from Dryhop saying that it was going to function as an “Alternating Proprietorship”. Are you still going that route? If not, why?
The Alternating Proprietorship idea was an earlier business model named Last Bay. Last Bay’s plan was to open Growler Filling Stations supplied only with beers brewed by us. In order to brew those beers we would partner with existing breweries that have excess capacity and we would come in during off hours to brew our beer on their systems.

I still think that it’s a wonderful idea, but execution proved to be just this side of impossible, especially in Chicago. First, no one local has excess capacity. Second, in the state of Illinois you can only sell growlers from the site of production. We had some elaborate schemes in mind to deal with the second challenge, but in the end it proved not to be worth it. So now we’re about to open a Gastro-Brewery. I couldn’t be happier about the change in direction.

What is Dryhop going to do to expand people’s understanding and appreciation of beer? How are you going to make the beer world a little more interesting?
For one, we’re building an expositions brewery in urban Chicago. We’re bringing the craft brewery experience to our neighbor’s back yard. Every step in the beer making process in on full display either behind the bar or next to the tables, our food menu expands the understanding of beer and food pairings by linking the small plate food fare to the beer list, you can try any beer we have for free (I hate paying for samples), we’ll give tours to anyone who asks, and you can expect us to host a number of beer and food focused events around the neighborhood all year. There isn’t a lot we aren’t doing to expand the appreciation of better beer.

From the perspective of the already initiated beer geek, you’re going to find our pairings and growlers the best in Chicago. We’re smashing together the ideas of the gastropub with the ideas of the brewery tasting room. The result is craft beer being placed on the highest pedestal possible without getting all fussy about it.

Do you have any plans to expand beyond the tasting room/brewpub concept? Why or why not?
No. If I live my life right, you’ll never see a Dryhop beer on a shelf in Binny’s. Dryhop is all about expanding the world’s front porch. We started the business out of the idea of a tasting room – where customers personally interacted with brewers, where you can casually sample all the wares, where the community comes to build and grow relationships… We’re excited about sharing our passion, and we don’t believe that we can effectively do that from a cold case.

That said, there’s a Binny’s down the street and I love it. I’m not knocking small packaging; it’s just not our thing.

Any plans for more locations?
We would love to share Dryhop with as many people as possible. That said our hands are really full opening Dryhop v1.0. For now, 100% of our attention is going into making the best beer possible and improving the quality of life for our Lakeview and Chicago neighbors.

What challenges have you run up against so far in creating Dryhop that you did not foresee and how did you handle them?
I have no love for the legal processes that govern our industry. For us, the biggest challenge has been the city liquor license process. Luckily, we’ve been able to get the support of our neighborhood, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Aldermen. Building those relationships has been great and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But I’d be lying if I said that I’m not anxious to be built out and open.

When you’re not drinking your beer, what do you like to drink?
This is probably the hardest question here… I find myself trying all sorts of beers all the time. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to enjoy Russian River’s Supplication. Not surprising, it was one of the best Wild Ales I’ve ever had. Coming down from the crazy world of sours, I really enjoy super dry Pale Ales and IPAs brewed with Pacific Northwest hops, and I’ll always have a man-crush on hefeweizens. So if you’re looking for a Christmas present, any of the above would be great.

Other than your events coming up this week, what events are you looking forward to during Chicago Craft Beer Week?
On May 24th, Sun King is going to be doing a tap takeover at Haymarket. I’m from Indianapolis and besides the fact that they make really great beer; I’m really excited to see one of my home town breweries doing so well so quickly. That event is my top out-of-house priority.

And as you commented, we’re doing a “meet the brewer” on Monday at Northdown Café and Taproom that I’m really excited about (our very first beer tasting!) and we’re part of Tuesday’s Local Cask Night at Fountainhead on Tuesday.

Here’s an easy one, I like to ask everybody this…. What’s your favorite beer moment that you’ve had in your life?
My favorite beer moment has to be the moment that I discovered sour beers and all of their glory. A couple of years ago I was on a golf course in St. Louis with the Schlafly brewers and they had the wisdom to pack in a few large format bottles. One of the bottles was part of New Belgium’s Lips of Faith Series. After a failed punch shot from behind a tree, they handed the bottle to me saying “all good beers are session beers, here try this one.” The combination of being knee deep in pine needles, chasing a little white ball back and forth across a never ending field, hanging out with fun people, and drinking La Folie strait from the bottle was like a lightning bolt to the senses. Sour beers were heaven.

Since then my tastes have evolved exponentially, but I wouldn’t trade a sour beer in the woods for anything.

Cheers.

Times are hard right now for first world fat heads. I joked recently that back in ye olde middle ’90s, when I was living on a steady diet of TVP and LSD, reading Terrance McKenna’s “Invisible Landscape” for the first time, and sitting around with my friends, like a puddle of stoned poodles, running on at the lip about 2012 and Time Wave Zero, I don’t think any of us were high enough to predict that the great 2012 rending of the personal and cultural veil would mostly involve the apocalypsis of personal income and career choices. No, none of our senses of humor were that dark or twisted. Leave it to the grand, sprawling magnet to come up with the sickest of jokes.

But, whatever. Money pains and dashed hopes of metaphysical meglomania are really just the belly gripes of the post-modern honky and should be penned in proper perspective. My personal Robert Bly, Rick Steves, nailed it in this Salon interview when he basically offered the seemingly non-Rick Steves advice of “get over it”. Ah so.

And if you need a nail to seal that super-sized casket of sagastic advice, why not investigate this little hot air balloon for your black heart: the Uganda Skate Union.

If you can manage to scroll through these photos without spilling your grande machiatto on your Old Navy cargos and bitching about how this will make you late for work again, well then, sir, you really don’t have a heart or any real aspirations.

Or, maybe, you just don’t have a job. Either is possible, I suppose.

I know I admitted to my first full-fledged mancrush on Damon Zex a few weeks ago, but I may be developing another on Brian Strumke from Stillwater Artisanal Ales. I tried his Folklore on Friday for the first time and it immediately turned me into a quivering puddle of little girlness, pigtails and all. I’ve since covered my walls with all the pull-out posters of Strumke that I could find in Teen Beat magazine and have been carving his name into my desk and my arm here at work. These feelings I am having are new and strange, but I think I like them.

I’ve said it in hushed corners before, but I think Stillwater is as close to an Americanized take on Fantome as we have right now. Clearly there are some real differences, but what Strumke is doing with yeasts and herbs is starting, more and more it seems, to be coming to the same conclusions as that maniac in the Ardennes.

Anyway, I’ll have a chance to bat my pretty eyelashes at Strumke tomorrow at the Bottom Lounge. Wait until I tell him we have the same first name! OMG!!!!!!

Please come to a meeting at St. Paul’s Church on North Avenue to support the Near Northwest Arts Council (NNWAC) on March 12th at 7pm. The NNWAC is being pushed out of their building by a super shady “religious” organization with a long track record of activities typically associated with cults. And no, not the sweet kind of cult where you get to have acid orgies and learn to see gods in the finer creases of your asshole, either. No, this is the ill kind of cult where family’s become alienated, bank accounts become depleted, and people’s highest aspirations toward sublimity get corrupted to the base and criminal ends of the few degraded leaders.

The Near Northwest Arts Council has been in Wicker Park for 23 years, way longer than you, I promise. They’ve sponsored innumerable events that have made our community richer – plays, rock shows, fundraisers, film festivals and even a dear friend’s wedding. I can promise that the NNWAC has done more and will continue to do more vital work for that community than any knuckle dragging cult ever will.

Please come to this meeting and join members of the Wicker Park Community, including Alderman Joe Moreno and Channel 5 newswoman Mary Ann Ahern who has run several exposes on the Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission cult and their criminal activities over the years.

The Love Holy Trinity Blessed Mission? Let’s put our dicks in their nose!

Here’s some more info.

This past Sunday West Lakeview Liquors hosted Jérôme Rebetez from BFM to tap and pour a wood cask of his 2010 Abbaye de St. bon Chien. As always WLV played the expert host, not only pouring the bon Chien, but also a Terrapin collaboration barley “ryne”, as well as BFMs entire bottle portfolio. There was the obligatory selection of delicious cheeses and cured meats, too.

If you don’t know, St. bon Chien is one of the great outliers in the world of sour beers. BeerAdvocate calls it a biere de garde, I’ve heard it compared to a geuze, but really it’s neither of these. The malt base is most likely where BA derives their style designation. There’s a deep orange color to the beer with only light hop notes and that leave room for some carmelly notes most likely derived from some dark sugars to shine through. But the majority of the flavor is derived from the barreling process, combining three different barrel types to the beer and then blending to achieve their final result. Jerome mentioned on Sunday that there’s no addition of wild yeasts or bacteria to the beers, only the aging in the barrels which, apparently, are loaded with bugs the multitudes of which would make Noah envious.

The complexity of bon Chien is unrivaled, even amongst styles known for their complexity. And you could write a master’s thesis on the differences between each years personality. The 2010 was tart with a strong, spicy acidity to it, while the 2007 they were pouring was hung in deep berry and plumbs. Even with American craft beers it’s too easy to forget that beer is a living organism that is changing, developing, degrading and unfolding in time. Even as Americans come to appreciate the expanses of possibility available in beer our underlying programming by the McDonaldization of flavor keeps American producers anxious about truly indulging in the craft and chaos of the living beer. This is decidedly not the case with our friends on the other side of the spittoon.

If there is any one lesson I wish American brewers would learn and employ it is to recognize, trust and explore the dynamic arc of a beers existence. We can see the first puritan pokes at this with the barrel aging trend right now. But, where some are truly relaxing into the vulnerabilities inherent in this pursuit, too many others are just trying to get their imperial stout portfolio effort to keep pace with the rest of the herd. This is fine, and it produces many enjoyable results, but I’m excited for when these breweries finally feel comfortable to take their shirts off in the pool.

That said, there are notable exceptions. Jolly Pumpkin is probably the most exciting when it comes to American brewers exploring the vitality of yeasts. By actually spontaneously fermenting, following seasonal fluxuations in their brew schedule, and noticably and wantonly producing different results under the same recipes, Ron Jeffries’ operation is doing the dark lord’s work for the American palette.

While I’m not always crazy about the results, Stillwater is another producer that is always fun to try. He doesn’t seem to be playing with yeast development as much, but, with his adoption of the rather oblique title of artisanal ales, he has found a medium to really draw outside the seemingly boring lines of American styling. I’ve heard many people bitch about it, but for the same reasons folks are complaining, I find Existenst Brian Strumke’s most interesting and encouraging effort to date. It’s confusing, it’s unsettling, it’s not what you expect at all. And isn’t that what art should be? It should rewire your expectations to bring you to new places, if it doesn’t do that, it’s not art.

There’s others too, probably many I’m not yet aware of and I can’t wait to find them.

But let’s be clear, I don’t think that burdening your beer with a bunch of strange-ass adjuncts makes it art. That kind of thumb-fisting makes it naive and green, like too many American efforts. A lot of these beers that spasm with adjuncts remind me of the shit painting and music production and films that are direct heirs of the Surrealist’s and Beats influence of spontenaity and the schizophrenics of subjectivity. While a demon box in the hand of an expert, this kind of open-verse nonsense becomes oppressive in a young voice. Sometimes limitation is the best avenue to towards expression. Sometimes – yes, Virginia – sometimes less is more.

Case in point – Goose Island’s Matilda. Say what you want about Goose Island, but a properly matured bottle (which I’m finding about 10 months is good) of Matilda is about fucking perfect. The wooly coarseness of the brett drawing chords in your tastebuds to gently settle the peach back bone in? Come on, it’s unmatched in America beers. But, to be sure, you can taste the puckered rectum of the Goose in this beer. There is no doubt about that and there is no open-verse in the cinder brick walls of the Goose Island brewery. The Matilda is no work of art, this is science, to be sure. But, Goose Island’s Matilda is where science has become art and they deserve all the recognition they get for it.

In the masterful addition of brett to a beer world, Green Flash’s Rayon Vert is no slouch either. I had the opportunity to try that the other day and was thrilled by how nicely the brett played along with Green Flash’s hop assertion. It reminded me of an infected bottle of Emmit’s pale ale I had not too long ago. Boy was I disappointed when my attempts to find another 6-pack of that failed, realizing my last experience was a fluke of QA issues and not their stable of flavors. Please Emmit, start adding brett to your Victory.

So, yeah, American breweries have a long and compelling path before them until they can truly play ball with the great European brewers. But, why shouldn’t we? Those maniacs over seas have several hundred years of a jump on us. And, let’s be fair here, right now everyone is looking to America for developments in beer. But that won’t last. Once we strike a flare under international interests in beer again, pallettes that know and palletes that are learning will get sick of the fireworks and demand more depth from their beer.

We’re starting to see it now, I count myself amongst those that are learning and ready. And I’m consistantly finding that outside our four American walls. And the reason I’m finding it and finding new and exciting ways to stumble down this slippery slope, past the rabbit hole and into the devil’s playground of great fucking beer is because of the passionate work of so many brewers and also, just as importantly, the proprieters of stores like West Lakeview Liquors, who through owner Kristina Bozic, is making Chicago a better place to enjoy great beer and, in turn, the world a better place to live in. And this world could certainly stand a little improvement on it’s living conditions. So thanks!

There’s two events on February 24th that I’m willing to publicly wet my pants over. I’m not entirely sure that that is necessary, but I like to give this whole ritual-of-self-abuse-thing 110%.

First off you’ve got SmallBar Fullerton with their 2 year anniversary party hosting an evening of sour beers. Their tap list includes some Cantillon Fou Foune (that means ‘pussy’ for all you youngsters out there), Dogfish Head’s Noble Rot, and a cask of Jolly Pumpkin. Finally, I’ll have a reason to go to that creepy-ass Fullerton location.

But then, in an act that reminds me the universe is often benevolent, but always petty in it’s indulgences, the Bavarian Lodge is hosting BFM’s Jerome Rebetez whose bringing with him La Douze, BFM’s gose styled beer, on cask as well as a couple of other treats.

I’m not sure if Jerome will let you photograph his tits that night or not, but based on his picture on this flyer, I’d say your chances are on the upside of the 75 percentile.

Ok, there you go America. Line up and take a number, February 24th is bound to be a Patriotic display of excess and flavor. I foresee a train ride in my future.

Eliminate all human sorrows. Activate joy, stat.

This is a totally simple and tasty recipe for a liver pate that I snagged out of Cook’s Illustrated. It calls for chicken liver, but I made this with goose liver’s from Gephardt’s last time. For our annual Christmas party this weekend I’m making it from beef liver. I’ve not used beef liver before and I’m a little worried it’s not going to be as tasty as goose liver, but fortunately, if it does bomb terribly, we’ll have some fresh lobster and filet mignon to deliver us from that evil. Viva la indulgence.

8 tbl butter
3 large shallots, sliced
1 tbl fresh thyme
1 lb chicken liver
3/4 cup dry vermouth
2 tsp brandy

Saute the shallots, thyme and a pinch of salt in the butter until brown. Add your liver and cook just until pink in the middle. Take the liver out, add the vermouth and cook down to a syrup. Put all of this into a food processor along with the brandy, a couple pinch’s of the pate blend from the Ruhlman and Polcyn book Charcuterie and salt and pepper to taste. Get it smooth and soft. Put it in a container and push saran wrap down against the pate to keep any oxygen off it. Put a lid on the container and let it sit for a couple days so all the flavors can blend. Serve it with some butter drenched toasted bread slices.

EDIT: I tried it this morning and it’s pretty good. Not as smooth as the goose liver – there’s a bit more of that chalky liver flavor than I would prefer – though that may have more to do with me cooking it a bit longer than I should have and not so much with the beast from which it was ripped from.

A co-worker just hit me up with the news that Alan Lake is going to be the new chef at Chief O’Neil’s.

About two days ago, Lake told me he took the full-time chef position at O’Neill’s. What cinched the deal for him, he said, was his experience at the famous Shelbourne in Ireland, where he earned the kitchen honorific Underpants O’Malley (I have no idea what that means, but it sounds Irish and a little naughty).

“My goal is to elevate the food at O’Neill’s,” Lake told me last night, and he has plans to cure his own corned beef and take the native simplicity of the cuisine and see what he can do by sourcing locally and applying to this traditionally simple food the skills of an accomplished fine dining chef.

As Achatz had his way with Thai street food, Lake wants to see how far he can push Irish pub grub toward a kind of haute Hibernian.

Hopefully this means they’ll be adding some decent beers to their draft list as well!!