I know a lot of bloggers are prepping themselves for Thanksgiving next week…sharing recipes and planning menus. Since I will be traveling for the holidays, I won’t be cooking or baking. Which means, instead of grocery shopping today, I got to spend my afternoon on a local brew tour. Now I know when folks think of Chicago, breweries don’t come to mind. But we happen to have a few local gems in the city and burbs. I had never heard of Half Acre before last month, but within a week a few different people mentioned it to me. So when friends of ours suggested the Half Acre tour for today, the BOY and I were in!
Only 60 people are allowed in and no reservations taken…which means we needed to get downtown early to wait in line with all the other Chicagoans. Initially, the sun was out, but it got a little Chicago-ish (windy and cold).
We got to catch up with our friends in line and made some new friends.
A little after 1:00, we found out that we made the cut. I had no idea what to expect from a brewery tour, but I was thrilled to find out that we got three ‘samples’ in our new glasses. We traded in bottle tops for beer and got to try all three flavors.
The tour was given by the Half Acre founder who quit his job in advertising to start making beer. The whole factory is low key and laid back with funky posters and music playing. We learned about the start of the company (including the name and logo) as well as how to make beer, something I can’t say I ever really thought much about before today.
And had some fun along the way!
After all that beer, we were starving and ready for some food. We headed across the street to The Bad Apple for burgers (and a little more beer).
The food was fantastic. I had a veggie burger with orange marmalade AND my fries had truffle salt. DELISH! The whole tour was a super fun experience and well worth the wait…another great way to spend a Saturday in Chicago!
