Goose Island Brewpub

Last night, Alex and I ate dinner (kind of) at one of Goose Island's two brewpubs. We ate at the one on 1800 N. Clybourn. Mostly, we drank beer, as that was kind of the point in going.

Goose Island is a Chicago microbrewery. They bottle some of their beers--I'm a pretty big fan of their 312, which they describe as "urban wheat ale"--while others they only serve at their brewpubs. We'd been told by none other than Richard Berg that what they serve at the brewpubs is much better than what they bottle, so we pretty much had to go.

I started off with their India Pale Ale, continuing a trend I began in Portland of drinking I.P.A.s at brewpubs. I liked theirs a lot, but my beer vocabulary hasn't really expanded enough to say why, other than that it was fruity yet spicy and not too bitter. Alex got the Red ale, which turned out to be a dollar off. Sweet.

Continuing the discount trend, we ordered nachos. From 4-6 pm, Goose Island has half-price appetizers, and I guess we got the nachos in right under the wire, because on the bill, they were half the price. We wanted the nachos because they came with a beer-cheese sauce. I couldn't really taste the beer, but it was a delicious cheese sauce. It was a little richer and not as salty--just generally less junk-foody--than most.

Then we had a beer flight! Goose Island, being creative, allows you to order 4 5-oz. beers for $6. They come in these cute little glasses with instructions on the side about how to taste beer. The beers are placed on a place mat, with circles for where the glasses go, with their names written in underneath, and then lots more instructions on how to taste and describe beers. Apparently, you can sort beers into seasons, as well as into wheat, spicy, and some other categories I don't remember. (I'm never going to be a serious beer drinker at this rate.) We drank a winter wheat ale, a hefeweizen, something with the words midwest and bitter in it, and a porter of some sort. They were all good, but I think I liked the wheat ales the best.

After that, we were so full of beer and nachos that we didn't get any more food, which is why I say we kind of ate dinner there. But nachos hardly count, even though they were yummy. Hopefully this is a legitimate blog post anyway.