Goose Island - Insights From Inside (sorta)

So my friends didn't tell me, but they booked a private tour with one of the brewers with Goose Island (Brewpub) for my bachelor party. It was amazing, the guy was so cool, instead of the usual 1ish hour tour, we had a long, detailed tour (where we were able to nerd out about water chemistry and aging), and an extended private tasting. He was so cool, he even had dinner with us.

The coolest part of the whole thing was that during the tasting, he actually wanted real feedback from the homebrewers in the group, and we could tell he really valued what we were saying. There were some tests though, he made sure we were able to identify some of the styles before he told us we were right.

Basically, with the whole "being bought by InBev/AB" thing, it doesn't matter to him or the brewpubs so long as he can still get yeast from the production brewery.... which he can. Mostly because the brewpubs weren't involved in the sale to IB/AB. Also, it seemed that most of the recipes used by the production brewery beers come/came from the brewers at the brewpubs.

I'll answer any questions I can, but really, the message here is that the dudes that make the beer at the brewpubs are kick butt, and you should know it.

Sounds like it was a hell of a tour. I've been through a few breweries but you get the abbreviated tour; this is this and the tour is over. Then onto purchasing the beer they make. You got more. Hopefully you can put it to good use in your hobby.