Lagunitas Knows How to Throw a Party!

Last Thursday, Nancy and I went to a fantastic party thrown by Lagunitas Brewing. Lagunitas is opening a brewery in Chicago, near 16th and Rockwell on the near southside.

The party was thrown in giant warehouses owned by Cinespace Chicago Film Studios (the largest film stage space outside of Hollywood, we're told, and where Chicago Fire is filmed), there had to be over five hundred guests, entertaining performers and servers from Red Moon Theater (see the photo below), food trucks, and of course, Lagunitas beer.



The tap room in the new brewery will be glass walled, in the middle of the brewery and elevated. Most cool, it will be open this March and you will be able to watch the build-out of the brewery as it continues on into the autumn. Sounds like a field trip!

If you want to read more, go to my blog at http://www.singingboysbrewing.com/The-Blog.html It was the best party I've been to in a long time.

That is cool. How'd you score the invite?

TyTanium said:

That is cool. How'd you score the invite?

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A friend who owns a bar and sells Lagunita. In fact, I had a Lagunita's Day Tripper at his place the other day - an IPA session beer, very interesting.

That's cool!

I love their beers. The IPA, Hop Stoopid, and Little Sumpin' Sumpin' are fantastic and all super hoppy...just the way I like it!

KayaBrew said:

That's cool!

I love their beers. The IPA, Hop Stoopid, and Little Sumpin' Sumpin' are fantastic and all super hoppy...just the way I like it!

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We did a beer and food pairing party last spring and included Hop Stoopid with the IPAs - it is an outstanding beer.

At the sneak-peek party for the new brewery, they were serving IPA, Little Sumpin' and Pils. I had never tried the Pils before, so that was my first beer at the party. It was nice, had an overall brightness to it, good grainy pilsner aroma and flavor and a nice bracing bitterness. I don't know if Lagunitas makes other lagers, but this was enjoyable. Then I moved onto Little Sumpin'

Just had a Brown Shugga ale from Lagunitas, that will put some hair on you chest. I've liked all of their beers so far, definitly going to have to get up to their brewery in Chicago.

Pappers_ said:

We did a beer and food pairing party last spring and included Hop Stoopid with the IPAs - it is an outstanding beer.

At the sneak-peek party for the new brewery, they were serving IPA, Little Sumpin' and Pils. I had never tried the Pils before, so that was my first beer at the party. It was nice, had an overall brightness to it, good grainy pilsner aroma and flavor and a nice bracing bitterness. I don't know if Lagunitas makes other lagers, but this was enjoyable. Then I moved onto Little Sumpin'

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Their Pils is great, Little Sumpin and Brown Shugga are both fantastic. I used to really love their IPA, but after finding myself leaning towards to more dry style typical here on the west coast, I find their high mash residual sweetness a bit much lately.

They've got a great taproom at their Petaluma location 30min south of me too!

Jukas said:

Their Pils is great, Little Sumpin and Brown Shugga are both fantastic. I used to really love their IPA, but after finding myself leaning towards to more dry style typical here on the west coast, I find their high mash residual sweetness a bit much lately.

They've got a great taproom at their Petaluma location 30min south of me too!

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Sounds like their plans for the taproom in Chicago are pretty good - can't wait to visit it during the brewery build-out.

I need to try their Brown Shugga - what style is it?

Pappers_ said:

Sounds like their plans for the taproom in Chicago are pretty good - can't wait to visit it during the brewery build-out.

I need to try their Brown Shugga - what style is it?

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I'd probably peg it in the strong ale style... It's roasty and malty and almost 10% ABV. I think thy said it was originally the product of a failed barley wine attempt that they had added a boatload of born sugar to. It's a season fall release and is a great holiday sipper.

Jukas said:

I'd probably peg it in the strong ale style... It's roasty and malty and almost 10% ABV. I think thy said it was originally the product of a failed barley wine attempt that they had added a boatload of born sugar to. It's a season fall release and is a great holiday sipper.

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They were making their barley wine and didn't have corn sugar so they bought up all the brown sugar in the area, hence the name Brown Shugga. I wouldn't say it's particularly roasty. It's definitely sweet and has some malt backbone but the alcohol is pretty hot to me.