Haymarket, Chicago, IL

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Homercidal

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Went to Chicago this weekend for Spring Break with the kids. Had a good time at a couple of Museums. AND I got to spend a few minutes at the Haymarket Brewing Company!

I managed to be allowed on 1 brewpub on this trip, and I chose the Maymarket due to it's proximity to the hotel and the recommendations by members here, not to mention they have Vegan offerings, which helped my oldest who is going meatless for Lent.

We arrive and it's a 45 minute wait for a table. Wife is not happy. It's not as family oriented as I may have led her to believe... And the Wings were on the tube, playing the Blackhawks, and already down 3-0 in the 1st...

We finally get a seat and long story short, after trading food, we all get something to eat. I thought the food was pretty good, but the bean burger my daughter ordered didn't taste good to her. My wife's burger with pulled pork was VERY good.

On to the beer. I ordered a small glass of wit and a small glass of Saison. The wit was decent, but tasted sort of like a Hefe to me. I saw they put ginger in and maybe that was what I tasted. The Saison was very good. I was really looking forward to the IIPA, though, so I cruised through it pretty quick. The IIPA was very good. Served in a tulip glass and pretty much hit the style very well. The aroma was light, but I think that's me. I seem to be less able to smell hops aroma lately. Luckily this did not also happen to the taste! The only complaint is that it is claimed to be 10% and I did not sense that in the taste or in the affect.

I really liked the place and the atmosphere. It was a bit crowded and buys, but what woudl you expect on a Friday night in the city?? Next time I might choose to try a pizza. The people next to us had one and it looked so good.
 
I checked out Haymarket about a month ago. The only reason I walked in the door was because I had heard it was run by the old brewer from Rock Bottom.

I wasn't impressed with the beer, but the food was great. I also had a long wait, but that's to be expected in that area of Chicago.
 
I wish I'd had time to sample even more. I didn't want to push it having to get up and tour museums the next day, and the wife was already not exactly enthusiastic about taking the kids to a "bar".
 
I stopped in there a few weeks ago. I met and talked to Pete Crowley, the owner/brewmaster. I had a great conversation with him, after I told him that I was a home brewer. He gave me a couple of samples of things that I hadn't tried yet, and even gave me a sample of something that he had just tapped (like, 20 minutes before!), and wasn't putting on sale until the next day.
I was impressed by the fact that someone as busy as he must have been took a good half-hour to talk to someone like me.
 
Yeah, we went in on a friday night, and the brewer was hauling a Co2 tank up to be refilled and I asked how things were going and what was good, and after a bit he came back up and stopped by our table and chatted for a few more minutes.

It's the little things like that that can make a good impression. I let him know that I chose his place due to the advice of people on here.
 
It seems that Haymarket can yield varying responses from beer drinkers. For me, I think they're incredibly thoughtful brewers. The reason that I say that is because they really get a completely different flavor presentation than other breweries. Instead of big nose/flavor hops, they have delicate and subdued hop flavors. While the hops are subdued and delicate, they have great detail, clarity and separation from each other. An aspect, that I believe helps, is an incredibly clean tasting beer. You certainly get grains within the beer, but they are presented clean, clear, polite as well.

One other experience had given me this same impression of great detail, clarity (flavor) and nuanced complexity. That was Dark Matter Coffee, specifically at the Osmium Bar. I do buy their coffee and most are quite good...but getting their coffee at their Osmium location...I was struck at how well they did.

Drinking Haymarket beer was like listening to a real nice tube amp system in a nicely treated room. Truly high resolution sound, clarity, detail, soundstage...even at low volumes.

I'd love to hear any possible brewing techniques that may help me explore brewing this type of beer.


Anyways...Love Haymarket. Plus there's some other nice places around there. A few charcuterie places, Au Cheval, City Winery (for concerts), etc, etc.
 
It seems that Haymarket can yield varying responses from beer drinkers. For me, I think they're incredibly thoughtful brewers. The reason that I say that is because they really get a completely different flavor presentation than other breweries. Instead of big nose/flavor hops, they have delicate and subdued hop flavors. While the hops are subdued and delicate, they have great detail, clarity and separation from each other. An aspect, that I believe helps, is an incredibly clean tasting beer. You certainly get grains within the beer, but they are presented clean, clear, polite as well.

One other experience had given me this same impression of great detail, clarity (flavor) and nuanced complexity. That was Dark Matter Coffee, specifically at the Osmium Bar. I do buy their coffee and most are quite good...but getting their coffee at their Osmium location...I was struck at how well they did.

Drinking Haymarket beer was like listening to a real nice tube amp system in a nicely treated room. Truly high resolution sound, clarity, detail, soundstage...even at low volumes.

I'd love to hear any possible brewing techniques that may help me explore brewing this type of beer.


Anyways...Love Haymarket. Plus there's some other nice places around there. A few charcuterie places, Au Cheval, City Winery (for concerts), etc, etc.


Email them and ask! They are really great people. They hosted a tour for our club a little over a year ago. They gave us the royal treatment, showed us everything, spent hours tasting our beers and gave us great feedback. To top it all off they picked up the entire food and beverage tab for the group.

Pete is a great guy. I'm sure he'd be willing to provide some tips. He's won numerous awards along the way and he's been one of those great guys that loves to give back to the community.
 
Email them and ask! They are really great people. They hosted a tour for our club a little over a year ago. They gave us the royal treatment, showed us everything, spent hours tasting our beers and gave us great feedback. To top it all off they picked up the entire food and beverage tab for the group.

Pete is a great guy. I'm sure he'd be willing to provide some tips. He's won numerous awards along the way and he's been one of those great guys that loves to give back to the community.

Thanks for the tip. I sent one along to them...it would be great if they did respond.

The odd thing is, I've drank at a decent amount of Chicago, and elsewhere, breweries and haven't quite tasted the same flavor presentation in beer...until recently. I was at a local tap bar and they had a Solemn Oath ipa on tap. While I am familiar with a lot of Solemn Oath beers, I took one taste of this ipa and I remarked that it tasted similar to a Haymarket beer profile...but with a slight Solemn Oat yeast. The tender remarked that Solemn Oath recently did a collaboration with Haymarket recently. While the beer I drank wasn't the collab beer, it tasted like Haymarket had some influence on them.

Thanks again for the suggestion.

Dan
 
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