Todd Hubler
Sure, California’s nice. Oregon too, and the New England region, and even Austin. You can take a lot of beercations in this country, trips to areas that feature a heavy concentration of excellent beer. But living here in the middle, those typically require a plane ticket, or else a lot of time off for driving.
This is why I love the quick getaways that the Midwest beer scene affords. For not a lot of time and not a lot of money, you can experience a lot of beer (and other culture, okay, why not) that’s only one or two states over.
For the last few years, I’ve had at least one weekend a summer dedicated to just such a trip with a core group of friends. It all started when Surly released a beer called Bandwagon and made it exclusive to Target Field. Three guys prone to rash decision-making, who didn’t know each other all that well, but who all loved beer, hopped in a car and drove to Minneapolis to take in a Twins game, drink some beer and eat some food.
That started what became known as Beersball, and the now-four of us have made multiple excursions to Minneapolis, as well as to St. Louis, and though two have moved out of state, we’re still batting around potential weekends for a Chicago Beersball outing. It’s a tradition unlike any other, built upon easy accessibility within the Midwest.
Naturally, I’ve gone on even more weekend beercations with my equally beer-lovin’ wife, the most recent of which was to Chicago for Off Color Brewing’s Barrel Aged DinoS’mores release a couple of weeks ago. This was almost an impromptu trip, with the release only crossing my radar when Off Color tweeted about it a mere four days prior.
The conversation went something like this, almost immediately after I read the tweet:
“You wanna go get some DinoS’mores this Saturday?”
“I could do that.”
We arrived in Chicago midday on Saturday, with the confidence that the brewer’s estimate of “plenty to go around” would hold. There was a long line, but it was moving fairly fast. Off Color is in a heavily Latino neighborhood, which already makes it unlike any Madison brewery. A guy rolled up on a bicycle-powered shaved ice cart to pitch to the line crowd; he got a few buyers. The afternoon was clear and warm, the bell rang on the shaved ice cart. It was magical. And we got our beer.
Since we were in town, we popped in at the Goose Island taproom on Fulton and shared a 2012 Night Stalker, a dry-hopped imperial stout that the taproom’s been keeping around for in-house consumption. From there, we contemplated a stop at Revolution Brewing, but decided a bite to eat would be better.
Allow me to take this time to advocate for the cheeseburger at Small Cheval, for it is a wondrous thing. Two patties, a load of cheese, some onions, some pickles — cheeseburgers and fries are literally all the food this mini-kitchen does, since the lines for the burger at the original Au Cheval restaurant were becoming unwieldy. If you like Lucille’s tavern burger or Forequarter’s late-night weekend cheeseburger, you’ll want to order a Small Cheval burger to compare.
We did have a beer at Small Cheval, we’re not savages. A pint of Half Acre’s crisp Vallejo IPA cut through the decadent richness of the burger and reinvigorated us for a little bottle shopping before we left Chicagoland.
Bottle shopping is another mainstay of the out-of-state weekend beercation routine that simply cannot be left out, despite my intent to really not do much more beer-buying than at Off Color. We found some good stuff we hadn’t seen at home, hunted unsuccessfully for the Like Minds bretted IPA called Archimedes, which had recently gotten some positive press, and finally made our triumphant return home in time to feed the dogs.
If you’re anything like me, you travel by your gut, which is to say you go to places based on where you want to eat or drink. I have Google maps filled with pins for breweries, doughnut shops and barbecue. In Madison, obviously, I don’t need a map. It’s home. But with so little effort needed to put yourself in a whole different realm of beer and cheeseburgers, why wouldn’t you do it from time to time?
