Kyle Nabilcy
At Evanston's Temperance Beer Company.
I never attended UW-Madison (go Titans), but as a devoted Madison resident, I have a strong allegiance to the red and white. It was therefore with some consternation that, during a walk during a recent visit to Evanston, Illinois, I had to admit the Northwestern campus was not without its charms. And it wasn’t just because of the sub-two mile distance between the campus and the Temperance Beer Co. taproom, though that didn’t hurt.
Evanston is about a third the size of Madison and more or less equal in population to Appleton, Wisconsin, which is the city I lived in before coming to Madison. I think it’s Evanston’s proximity to Chicago, however, that makes it feel like a markedly larger city than Appleton. From the tip of the man-made peninsula near Northwestern’s School of Music, the Chicago skyline is faintly visible 12 miles down the Lake Michigan shore.
I was in Illinois with my wife for a post-birthday mini-vacation to Chicago, and we took advantage of being south of the border to visit family living in Evanston. It’s a stop that was pertinent to our interests on a number of levels, as Evanston has a healthy little ecosystem of breweries, plus one highly regarded distillery and some really enjoyable restaurants and non-consumable amenities to round out the experience.
Our Evanston experience actually started before we even left Chicago, with a New England-style IPA tap takeover at Forbidden Root, on the last night of Chicago Craft Beer Week. Sketchbook Brewing, an Evanston brewery that opened in late 2014, was pouring its Insufficient Clearance New England IPA for the event. It was hazy and soft, with an aroma of fresh oranges that was right down Main Street for the style.
Kyle Nabilcy
The Sketchbook taproom is a slender storefront on Chicago Avenue in Evanston.
The Sketchbook taproom is a slender storefront on Chicago Avenue in Evanston, with just shy of 20 tap lines to keep all palates satisfied. Everyone loves passionfruit these days, including yours truly, and what I believe is a passion-fruited and extra-hopped version of Sketchbook’s Nimbus wheat ale delivered a big punch of fruit flavor in a well-made base beer.
Just around the corner, onto Main Street in fact, is a nice little Mexican restaurant called La Principal. In addition to amply stuffed tacos and a steamy bowl of pozole, La Principal pours a special version of Sketchbook’s Twice Lucky English pale ale infused with the restaurant’s red mole. It doesn’t add much in the way of flavor, but fills out the beer’s body and deemphasizes the bitterness. It makes for a pleasant pairing with the food menu.
Kyle Nabilcy
Overstuffed tacos from La Principal.
Other than the occasional food cart in the parking lot and a big bowl of popcorn, there’s not much to eat at Temperance Beer Company’s taproom, but when there are beers available both on tap and packaged for off-site enjoyment, all is forgiven. Temperance also has a great swag shop, with glassware, hats, shirts, and more.
I’ve enjoyed some of Temperance’s more hefty offerings — the variations on its Might Meets Right imperial stout, for example — at Great Tastes of the Midwest past. On the lighter end, coming in at the end of Craft Beer Week, we still had a shot at the grapefruit-infused version of Escapist IPA. Of course, I couldn’t say no to a short pour of the Vanilla Might Meets Right, too. A couple bottles of the Double Rye version came home with me.
We did some additional bottle shopping at the Wine Goddess, which — as you might expect — specializes in wine but offers a small, well-curated selection of interesting beers. Spirits too, like Evanston’s own Few Spirits, which has done a number of barrel collaborations with Wisconsin brewers and offers tours of the distillery. A fun dinner at Found, a restaurant serving mostly shareable plates, didn’t involve any beer but I was happy to see Ale Asylum and Lakefront atop the bottles and cans list.
Evanston delivered a fun weekend on par with a city easily twice its size. I’m not endorsing its university’s colors, mascot, teams or really anything except its very pretty campus, but for eating, drinking, and socializing, this Big Ten town earns your attention.
