Beer, Cocktails and Pizza....

Friday was a new day but much else remained the same; our first stop was a beer tour at Goose Island Brewery.

We decided to walk the 3 miles to the brewery, knowing we would have to get an Uber back to the downtown area for our next tour. It was a beautiful day in Chicago so the walk was quite refreshing and probably sobered us up from the night before.

On the way to the brewery, we stopped by Starbucks to grab a coffee and let me write/post some of my blog. We went to Goose Island Brewery early as we thought we might try and sample a few before starting the tour; I’m sure everyone had the same idea. The brewery is situated in, what is known as, the Chicago Beer District; there are a number of breweries in the area (6 I think!). I had a pint of Natural Villain and Iain had a Next Coast IPA. We had almost finished the first pint when we were told we could buy another and take it on the tour with us; think I might need to tell a few whisky distilleries about this trick! We were taken into the first part of the factory where we were promptly given a sample to try, learn a bit about the brewery and ask as many questions as possible. It turns out, the owner of the brewery got his inspiration from English Ales and decided upon his return to the states, that he would set up a brewery and make a craft beer. He even asked his son if he wanted to drop out of writing school to pursue this dream. The Americans were a bit slow to pick up on the craft beer revolution but after a few struggles here and there, the rest is history!

We had another 2 samples, a sour beer and a barrel aged beer, before returning to the gift shop and spending a fortune; great marketing!

The tour had overran by about 20 minutes, so we called an Uber and headed back downtown for an introduction to Chicago during Prohibition. A group of twenty met at Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse on the corner of West Kinzie Street. We were told to order a drink and meet in the basement. Long before this became a steakhouse, it was home to the notorious enforcer of the Al Capone gang, Frank Nitti. He lived in an apartment on the fourth floor where he had a clear view of the courthouse. Relics from his life of crime were uncovered in 1998 when an electrician drilled a hole in the wall of the basement which revealed a hidden room. This allowed Nitti and his associates to come and go as they pleased, without needing to go out on the streets of Chicago. I had a Harry's Mary cocktail before we headed out to the minibus and our next stop on the west side of town.

The second stop was Club Lucky, a typical speakeasy of the time. When I think of prohibition, I think of dark cellars, secret knocks and hiding from the police; this was certainly not the case. It turns out that you could not be prosecuted for drinking alcohol, you could only be done for serving and selling it! Therefore, all the bars were in broad daylight, and if you were smart enough, you paid off the police who would warn you if a raid was going to happen. Again, this bar had a secret basement for storing alcohol, and this was passed through a hole in the wall into the reception hall. I had a Strawberry-like Martini, very tasty!

The third stop was one of my favourites as I got a champagne cocktail., minus the brandy It was called Marge's Still and was a speakeasy where they made gin in a bathtub upstairs. Iain was told to try a Chicago Handshake; a shot of Malort and a pint of beer. I thought I better try the shot for good measure, it tasted a bit salty and not particularly nice.

Our fourth and final stop was pointed out on our tour yesterday; it’s a bar called Exchequer Restaurant & Pub and was famous for being one of Al Capone's brothels and bars. It’s a very atmospheric place, and was known as the 226 club back then. By this point, Capone was head of the Italians and had lots of power in Chicago. We had one more cocktail for the road, before heading off in the direction of pizza.

There was still one more pizza joint to try, Lou Malnatis. This is the other son of Rudy Malnati Sr., and he is famous for a buttery crust deep dish, again with homemade tomato and mozzarella. We wandered to the first restaurant but it was over a 75 minute wait for a table, people were queuing outside in the rain! We decided to go to a bar across the road and wait for it to calm down a bit, but that never happened. I was determined to try this pizza, as it had been recommended numerous times, so we walked another half mile to one of the other restaurants. This time the wait was only 20 minutes, so we decided to bide our time at the bar.

Our server was Angela, and she was a very bubbly Italian. We ordered the sausage deep dish again which was amazing. We had learned from our previous mistake though, no starters required and definitely a small between two. It doesn’t sound like much, but we had two huge pieces each; we were stuffed, again!

The weather was terrible so we walked as quickly as possible back to the hotel, before collapsing in another food coma. One day we will learn...