Wood in Chicago

All rather wobbly after a night at the Map Room we were careful on Mark’s balcony. Falling twenty five stories at this late hour would not be good. The great glowing city of Chicago stretched out below us and hummed softly in the night. We slowly and calmly metabolized fine pints of beer and crusty, foreign Neapolitan Pizza, talking softly of the day to come. The Illinois Craft Brewers Guild Fifth Annual Festival of Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer waited quietly uptown. Stout and barley wine mingled with bourbon, sour ales acidified by nurse logs of oak, their resident microfloras working slowly to convert sweet wort to tart ale. We took in the rarefied city air and imagined the life of beer.

On Friday, my friends in fermentation Yaniv and Phil came by the house sharply at noon in Yaniv’s surprisingly clean Honda Civic. The faint smell of racquetball socks hung in the air and made me think of lambic. We throttled through the recently shorn cornfields of northwestern Indiana then east on 80 to Munster. It’s terribly difficult to go to Chicago without stopping at Three Floyd’s. So stop we did.

The benefits of gaining an hour between time zones was apparent when we saddled up to a bank of empty bar stools and ordered frothy quaffs of Indiana’s most famous brewery. Well, my first beer was actually a half liter of Schlenkerla’s Helles, all the way from Bamburg Germany. But can you blame me? Like pale wood paneling in a glass, this beer shows substantial carbonation which pricks at your tongue and accentuates the dry, almost acidic crispness. Exhaling through my nose after each swallow a whisper of smoke was apparent. We ordered a plate of mussels. The firm, sweet, garlicky meat was an energetic pairing for this fine lager.

For my second glass I enjoyed Three Floyd’s Moloko Milk Stout. A decent sized beer at 5.7% abv, its nighttime darkness flowed from the tap and into my glass leaving an ominous cap of frothy brown foam floating precariously above the rim. The persistent sweetness of this beer was a welcome change after the dry Helles. The complexity of stout was also evident. Chewing on garnet and amber and caramel with the distinct prickliness of roasted malts in the background I drank deeply from this chocolate concoction. Then I moved on to the Young Sportsman’s Witbier, yet another unexpectedly restrained Three Floyd’s brew (though when Three Floyd’s wins a medal at the Great American Beer Festival for a Helles, all bets are off). The Young Sportsman was sporting indeed with a hefty spice character and an athletic, drinkable body.

I also purchased a bottle of Three Floyd’s just-released Broodoo Harvest Ale and sampled it this very evening. The Broodoo is made with fresh, just-harvested “wet hops” and it shows in the nose. Sticky, resinous citrus concentrate wells up and opens the pores and invigorates the mind. A healthy tonic taken twice a day! I can see the plump, sticky green hops plop plop plopping into the kettle, their yellow resins extruded into the wort. The palate is full of pine sap and grapefruit syrup. Not terribly bitter, but bitter enough. The sweet, cotton candy malts do their part and the finish is slightly metallic and tight. A beautiful beer with a strange label.

We rendezvous with friends in the city and make our way to the Map Room. Chicago is going smoke-free in January. Thank god. The bar is packed to the gills at 11pm with an eclectic clientele brought together by their love of fine beer. The night was a blur but I do distinctly remember chocolate milk shake stout, hot rotten banana tripel, Heavy Handed on cask, my old friend Beamish, and a beefy Schlenkerla Marzen. We walked south from there to North Avenue with pizza and more beer the fare on our minds. We arrived at Piece to find an expansive, open room with long, high tables full of revelers and a loud, bluesy band from Louisville on the stage. We ordered three pizzas, one with mash potatoes and meatballs. Somewhat surprisingly, it was quite good. The globs of potato had taken on a thin oven crust which gave way with the slightest of pressure yielding a rich, creamy softness. Pints of Piece’s own Worryin’ Ale, a fairly hefty English beer with a fruity fermentation character and sturdy, herbal hops, went well with the dense potato pizza. Their stout was more of a porter and left something to be desired.

Saturday morning came all too soon but I hefted myself into the shower nonetheless. Tracy (survivor of the infamous Navy Pier Segway Gang attacks of 2006) and we made our way through the crystal clear cool autumn air to Goose Island in Wrigleyville where we met Phil and Yaniv. Not surprisingly, they were near the front of the line for admittance to the festival. Tracy was unable to procure a ticket so she left us to our woody work alone.

We were shuttled like cattle six at a time into a sunken room with large, square pillars in the middle. Soft cushioned booths ran along the right side and on the left, slightly raised above the floor, tables of jockey boxes and their dutiful attendants served the masses their beer. Two televisions suspended from a pillar showed the Northwestern game but nobody was watching. They were all lined up in front of the jockey boxes, drinking woody beer and chatting with smiles miles wide waiting for another sample.

I tasted my favorite beer of the fest right out of the gate. Surly Brewing Company from Brooklyn Center Minnesota brought five barrel aged beers and their Darkness Imperial Stout was hands down the best. Bourbony sweet vanilla met my nose slowly but with a forceful oomph that foreshadowed things to come. At one hundred miles an hour the Darkness swallowed my tongue in a wake of liquid dark chocolate and pointy, roasted malt. The finish was tight and winey with whiskey. This beer was simply very well put together. Everything had its place. She threw me down and sternly held up flash cards one by one as if she were a fed up school mistress and I was a truculent young lad in need of a lecture. This is a barrel aged Imperial Stout. This is bourbon. This is chocolate. This is roasted malts. Three smart smacks on the ass with a yard stick. “Now go to your room.”

“But I want mooooore.”

“Go to your room!”

Slightly dazed I made my way through the fairly sparse crowd to the far side of the room where a pair of open double doors led to a concrete ramp that turned sharply to the left and descended slowly into a cold, cacophonous warehouse lined on three sides with a sea of jockey boxes. The room was packed solid with people all receiving their lashings like good little school children. I squirmed my way to the dark lagers and traded a green ticket for a Goose Island Dopplebock aged for six months in bourbon barrels. The heat up front was ineffectually tempered by caramel. I think there was more bourbon in that beer than beer.

How about some Jolly Pumpkin? I like Jolly Pumpkin. The Noel de Calabaza smelled like coffee and dirt. It tasted sharp and bristly and pungent and sharp and bristly and sharp. And sharp. Three Floyd’s Behemoth Barleywine aged with cherries in wood was a real palate thrasher. My gums and cheeks and tongue puckered up and I started to fear for my taste buds.

What’s this? Another door? The rabbit hole? I wandered through it and outside into a large tent filled with tables and in the near left corner several shiny taps and a gravity cask. I fought through the crowd and planted myself in front of the so- called “wild beers” and called for New Belgium’s Le Terroir. Je veux le terroir maintenant, putain. The beer glowed a radioactive orange and smelled like battery acid. My hand trembled as I raised the glass to my lips and imbibed a healthy portion. My life flashed before my eyes and my tongue stood erect six inches beyond my lips and the entire inside of my mouth was exfoliated in a searing white fire of rage. Oui. Un digestif.

I fought my way through the small sea of tables and out into the smoking area where I exhaled a significant cloud of smoke. Through a side door I cycled into the first room again. So it’s that kind of party, eh? I’m gonna stick my...“Dude! Did you try Glacier’s Imperial Stout?”

“Why no Yaniv, I have not had the chance to try Alaska’s finest just yet. Point me in the right direction my good man.” Not much like Alaska, this beer was hot. Hot with booze but not too hot. Thick, sweet molasses gave way to a dry woody finish. On to Flossmor Stations Killer Wood, another big stout. Sweet dark chocolate up front tapered off to a pleasingly tart back end. New Holland’s Sour Ale showed a pleasing balsamic vinegar character and finished quite clean with something mysterious, dry hopping perhaps?

Surly’s Furious IPA aged in new oak was less wholesome than their stout. Big and hoppy and brashy like torn paper and sawdust. O’Dell’s Dopplebock was hot, and doppley, but mostly hot. Prairie Rock’s The Whole Nine Yards Scotch Ale aged in Woodford Reserve barrels showed some vanilla and hefty malts. Their Old MAK Daddy Barleywine was aged in Woodford Reserve barrels as well. It smelled strongly like fresh cut red delicious apple meat and tasted like it too. But they were on fire and electrified my tongue. Rock Bottom’s Clare’s Thirsty Ale was aged in bourbon barrels with a healthy dose of raspberries. Raspberry bourbon compote drizzled over sweetened grapefruit with a dash of vanilla and some jet fuel.

My mouth was destroyed. Cheeks blasted open, hanging limp from my jowls, tongue swollen to unlikely proportions. My teeth were stained stout brown and I felt a kinship with every wooden object in the bar. I sampled New Belgium’s La Folie hoping for the palate tightening effects of their Terroir but it was too late. The damage had been done. Nothing but static. Firestone Walker’s Quercus alba hit my tongue like snow on the TV, glimmers of flavor like glimmers of pornography on scrambled skinamax.

Fat red wedge bombs of Giordanos deep dish pizza landed in our stomachs and practically put us to sleep. But we rallied. Barely. Got a cab back uptown and found a booth at the Hop Leaf where Tracy, Mark, and two of Tracy’s friends watched us slowly devolve into puddles of strong beer on the floor. It was a good weekend.