Chicago, The Loop, part 1

I never remember how close Chicago is. When it is only three hours to the heart of the Windy City, it is a real shame that we haven’t drank there (at least for New York City, we have a 1000 mile excuse!). To somewhat remedy this situation, we had a free weekend, though kids were in tow, to explore the Chicago Loop a bit and chart out a second, more adult, adventure in the future. 

Now the Loop is more known for its architecture than its cocktails, most notably the Willis (Sears) Tower, so we made sure to book a suitable hotel with a decent watering hole. We got a good deal off-season on the Palmer House, a historic hotel that has hosted the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Charles Dickens, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain, and U.S. Grant. After a shopping trip and a jaunt around Millennium Park’s Cloud Gate and massive playground, the family was hungry and thirsty. A short walk led us to the venerable Exchequer, a pizza and ribs joint which has been a mainstay in the Loop since 1969. We were there for Chicago deep dish pizza- Exchequer’s The Mob pizza in particular, featuring a variety of meat and garlic. 

Now, for those of you not in the know, good Chicago deep dish takes time. Time means beer. So Cindy ordered up a Guinness, and I went to the taps with Exchequer’s ‘own’ Amber Lager. I put the ‘own’ in quotes, because Exchequer Amber is actually brewed in Wisconsin at Stevens Point Brewery, so, yeah, I drove three hours south to get a beer that’s made two hours north of the FWL. Ha!

The Exchequer Amber graced a pint glass well; deep amber, light carbonation, with a creamy half inch of white loose head. It is a clean, very lightly hopped, toffee-malted draught, something that I’d say would be a good intro beer for the novice craft beer drinker. That said, it goes great with pizza, which is it what it was made for.

My second tasting was Great Lakes Brewing’s Eliot Ness Amber, whose namesake was the nemesis of Exchequer’s most notable patron, Al Capone. The Eliot Ness came dark copper in its glass with a finger’s worth of cream-colored head. It has a yeasty aroma with a tinge of green apple. The taste is consistent with its aroma, deeply bready, a slightly grapefruit sour edge, with a bite of noble hops on the backside. Very drinkable in the Chicago cool spring air. 

After our pizza, the day was over. Time for the kids to hit the hay and us to hit the hotel bar...

Lake Louie’s Winter’s Mistress Baltic Porter

This winter Tom Porter’s Lake Louie Brewery offered a boilermaker set, Bulleit bourbon with four bottles of Winter’s Mistress baltic porter. Now, those that know me know that I hate to be a virgin to any liquid, hard or soft, and since I never had a baltic porter, I thought that Tom’s draught would be a good introduction. Plus, it came with my college bourbon, so I wasn’t risking much.

I opened a bottle of Winter’s Mistress and poured into two short 1960s jelly jar glasses for Cindy and I to try. The pour was viscous and smooth, hued of the darkest brown possible. As I raised the glass to my lips, I got a neophyte surprise- a waft of dark fruits like black currants and raspberries, sarsaparilla, anise and caramelized sugars. From the aroma, I was a bit apprehensive, since fruity beers are definitely not my favorite tipple.

I shouldn’t have been worried; the beer is not the artificial-flavored malt beverage nastiness of the domestic Frankenfruitbeer cocktail. Instead it’s flavor is malty upfront, with an immediate trailer of raspberries and currants that lingers on the palate. Its sweetness is pronounced, but even throughout. The bitterness and burnt character of other porters is nonexistent (as is customary of this beer style).

Tom is definitely on to something in selling Winter’s Mistress in a boilermaker set. And even though the Mistress is sold with Bulleit, we mixed it with our very own hand-mixed four-grain bourbon (no, you aren’t getting the recipe, don’t ask). The boilermaker procedure is varied. Some people chase whiskey with their beer. Some alternate the two drinks. Some drop the whiskey right into their beer. There seems to be no wrong way to do it, which works for us laid-back Lounge Lizards.

Cindy and I decided to drink using the alternating method in order to keep our Mistress cold and to lengthen the experience. And an exceptional experience it is for you Lounge Lizards with a sweet tooth. When a mouthful of four-grain is chased with the porter, the short burst of dark fruit is replaced with a wall of dark chocolate and toffee with long whispers of black raspberries and port.

If you want Winter’s Mistress, you better get to Woodman’s pronto before the winter ends. And if you’d like the classic boilermaker proportions, here you go:

Boilermaker

1 shot of whiskey
1 glass of beer

Method varies. Classic American is to shoot the whiskey, chase it with a beer. British-style is to drop the shot into the beer and drink. The former requires speed, the latter creates a warm beer, so if you want to lengthen the experience, alternate swallows of each or chill your whiskey prior to mixing it into your beer. Salut.