The second annual AleFest Chicago, held the Saturday before last at Soldier Field, was a who’s who of area brewers: Goose Island, Two Brothers, Flossmoor Station, Piece, Rock Bottom, Mickey Finn’s, and America’s Brewing Company, makers of the beer sold at Walter Payton’s Roundhouse, were all in attendance, with offerings ranging from good to outstanding. The dark horse, though, was Metropolitan Brewing, a tiny operation drawing its pours out of a double-decker Craftsman toolbox retrofitted with a tap.
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Technically this craft brewery doesn’t exist yet. The owners, husband and wife Doug and Tracy Hurst, are still building their facility in Ravenswood and don’t expect to have any beers on the market until the end of November. But they’ve already developed two flagship lagers, Dynamo Copper and Flywheel Bright, plus a summer Kölsch-style brew, Kränkshaft; they’re also in the process of creating three more seasonal lagers. And in the meantime they’ll be at the Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison on August 9 and the Oak Park Micro Brew and Food Review on August 23.
“The craft beer industry tends to be a lovefest because people are so into it, so into what they do, so into drinking each other’s beers,” says Tracy. She and Doug seem pretty into it, anyway. Their Web site, metrobrewing.com, features not only a description of their beers, background on the company, and info on past and upcoming events but also a blog about their daily progress, documenting events like having 300 pounds of hops delivered to their apartment. “We’ve never seen the UPS guy so pissed,” Tracy writes.
