2607 West 17th St, Chicago, IL 60608   phone: (773)522-1308   website: Lagunitas.com/Taprooms/Chicago
Hours: Wed - Sunday, Noon - 9PM

Ok you guys ready for a fun one!! Touring the Lagunitas Brewing Company was more of an event than a tour stop! But since tour stops are what we do here, we'll just call this one a really great tour stop!! Lagunitas is located off of West 17th Street in Chicago so after a little map reading we realized the Metra BNSF train would get us close if we got off at Western Ave. and we'd walk or Uber from there. We chose a Saturday and as I mentioned earlier our first wives joined us (Kat & Lynda) so the plan was in place. We caught the 2:33 pm out of Naperville set to stop at Western Ave at 3:24 pm so what a great time for a little commuter train Happy Hour!! Beforehand I bought a variety craft beer 6-pack in cans and Brad brought some Moscow Mules ......that's what I'm talking about!!!

The train ride was a lot of fun by itself. I'm not sure if you're supposed to drink on the train but when you're our age and you're not disturbing anyone.......except for the 7 year old with his parent across from us. He keep looking at his parent with the look on his face, why didn't you bring my skippy along like those guys!! So anyhow by the time we got off the train at Western Ave we definitely had our brewery tour game faces on. Now for some reason, old man winter blew in and it was 10 degrees with flurries as we exited the train. Since we weren't real familiar with the area.....like never been here before......I started up a conversation with a commuter who looked like he lived in the area and he pointed us in the right direction. Well we thought we could walk so we started out and got 3-4 blocks in and we literally could have been in the middle of the Arctic. The wind and snow blowing in our faces made the brew tour hike somewhat challenging through what looked like was an abandoned, apocalyptic industrial area. It was a little crazy because we kept taking lefts to the point where I kind of expected to end up back at the train station. But with the last left we took, the Lagunitas Brewing Company looked like a mirage in the distances.......was it real????? You bet your frozen butt it was, and it was loud and proud!

The building just kept going on and on and we later found out that there is 300,000 square ft of pure craft beer brewing genius there! We saw a flashing neon sign quite a ways down the side of the enormous building and thought, that's got to be the way in!! Worked our way down there to the neon beacon where there were 2 or 3 Uber cars letting folks off and there it was......the entrance!!!! The minute we walked in, on the floor was a projection of their iconic bulldog logo which I thought was pretty cool.

Also we had the greeter checking ID's so make sure you're 21 year old. He told us to head down the hall to a couple more guys where we'll probably wait a little bit based on how crowded the Tap Room upstairs was. We didn't have to wait but on the way out we saw people waiting there and they all had beer in their hands so if you do have to wait you'll be sipping brews!!! Now the walk down the long hall to the stairs leading up to the Tap Room is all black lite with funky wunky painting and murals.....kind of took me back to the 70's!!

We finally made it up to the Tap Room area and we first passed a really nice Lagunitas store and then some nice leather couches and chairs for overflow and then you enter the actual Tap Room. Family sitting, you got to love it, this place was packed. We made our way to a table, got comfy and immediately a waitress was on us asking what we wanted. Now this was the first tour our wives joined us so they had no idea what they wanted but something light and the server said "I got you covered." I ordered the Lagunitas IPA (6.2%, 51.5 IBU) a well rounded, highly drinkable IPA with a bit of caramel malt barley which provides that richness that mellows out the twang of the hops which I love and Brad was true to from and ordered Lagunitas Sucks (8%, 63.21 IBU) a medley of barley, rye, wheat and oats which gives it that big aroma and resinous flavor. The server returned with the IPA and the Sucks on the tray along with 7-8 sample glasses for Kat & Lynda......this was a free flight on steroids!! We all drank and sampled all the brews and ladies setting in for a pint of the Pils (6.0%, 35 IBU) brewed with loads of imported Saaz hops and a bottom fermenting yeast strain that leaves it light and crisp and easy to slam and slam Kat & Lynda did!!! We ordered up some Brisket Nachos to share which were very tasty and another round of beers and the ladies were starting to experience the true essence of what the Brad & Clyde's Hoppin Brewery Tour was all about!! Between the family seating, fab brews, tasty food, live background music and just the energy in the room this is a truly a fun, got to do it experience!

And we weren't done yet........we had a 5:00 tour set up!!! Now with all this beer we were drinking, nature was calling loud and clear so off I went to the little boys room....and you've got to love a place that has a beer holder right next to the urinal!!

Our tour guide Kevin, with brew in hand said he was previously a restaurant manager for 8 years and had been at Lagunitas for 3 and it was by far the best gig he could ever dream of and absolutely loved it!!! Kevin was a lot of fun and he knew his stuff. Like I said earlier the place is humungous and the 90 stainless steel fermentation towers line up like toy soldiers ready for combat. Each one holds 800 barrels of beer and just the sheer numbers of the beer this place puts out had the tour crowd somewhat numb but of course a few brews compounded the affect!! "I know", said Kevin, "soak it all in folks, soak it all in"! We went from the production area to the bottling area and Kevin said the automated bottling process puts out 500 bottles per minute......oh my!!!

One funny story he shared was how they named their best selling beer in the Chicago area which is the Little Sumpin' Sumpin' Ale (7.5%, 65 IBU) a way smooth and silky with a nice wheatly-esque-ishness featuring a strong hop finish that is great for the IPA fans but so smooth that the Hefeweizen fans dig it too. Well they had this great new beer but without a name! So they had a marketing meeting with all the studs, drinking the beer, throwing around ideas but nothing was sticking. Now throughout this tour there were small references to smoking pot, weed, grass, 420, Ganga, dope, herb, joint, blunt, cannabis, Mary Jane, buds, stinkweed, nuggets, hay, gangster, skunk, blaze, boo, broccoli or burnie.........hopefully you get the picture!!! So anyhow everyone was getting tired and they still didn't have a name for this fabulous new beer so they were thinking to call it a day and try again tomorrow. One of the bigger studs said no we're finishing this today so knowing it could be a late one, one of the guys said okay I'm going outside to smoke a little Sumpin' Sumpin'.........the rest is history!!!! We left the tour looking at an area in the warehouse where 30 more fermentation towers are going to go in the near future for a total of 120 so it looks like Lagunitas will be in the Chicago area for a while.

The place even had a magic show that was very impressive!!!

Well the four of us had consumed enough beer and we had just enough time to hike back to the train station taking all rights this time and catching the 6:46 pm back to Naperville with a 2 hour stop in Hinsdale for dinner. It was really a fun day and the highlight was obviously the Lagunitas Brewing Company!! Let me just tell you that you've got to tour this place!! F-U-N, fun!!! Visit their website because every now and then the Tap Room is closed and they normally have tours at the top of the hour. You must be 21 years old, drink responsibly and don't drink and drive!!!

Until next time and remember......

Go get'cha one!!!!