Eat, Drink, and Have Fun in Chicago | A Craft Brewery Tour in the 'City of Drunkards'

According to the latest statistics released by the Brewers Association, the Greater Chicago area has 167 breweries, ranking first in the United States, far surpassing any other city. 'Unlike cities like Portland and Seattle, Chicago has a wide variety of beers,' said Danielle D'Alessandro, executive director of the Illinois Craft Brewers Association, calling Chicago a 'diverse beer city.' She noted that Chicago's top ranking highlights the strong performance of its brewing industry. It is the Chicago craft beer community, local crops, fresh water from Lake Michigan, and the support of beer enthusiasts across Illinois that together contribute to the state's outstanding performance in the brewing industry.

Now, as more people become familiar with craft beer culture, high-quality craft beer is more popular in the United States than ever before, and even experiences related to beer have gained high popularity. Therefore, for beer lovers, it is no longer uncommon to plan a visit to a brewery during their vacation. If you are a beer enthusiast, the following five breweries offer you the chance to start a romantic beer tour. justhavefun_chicago

Dovetail Brewery

If you are a fan of traditional beers, Dovetail Brewery is for you. Dovetail Brewery does not follow the traditional American way of naming their products but instead takes a purist route, naming them after the style or key ingredient, such as Dovetail Lager, Dovetail Hefeweizen, or Dovetail Kolsch.

Here, for only $15, you can delve into the brewing techniques of the past—participate in hop blending and malt tasting, tour equipment from the world's oldest brewery dating back 108 years, and enjoy nearly a liter of free beer. The tour takes about 90 minutes.

Marz Community Brewing

In complete contrast to Dovetail is Marz, founded in 2013, a unique American-origin brewery. Marz is known for its American white wheat beers like Jungle Boogie and Ruby Red Tears.

To provide a place to showcase unique beers not sold in other Chicago stores, it turned a converted warehouse into a bar, offering beautifully packaged, delicious food and drinks. Marz Bar is the perfect spot for a first date or a gathering with colleagues and friends.

The bar has twenty-four beer taps, ranging from ChugLife, a sparkling lager, to Dillinerweiss, a Berliner Weisse with dill and red pepper flakes.

Their menu leans towards light fare; we recommend the Wagyu Pastrami and the Eggplant Marinara sandwich. Recently, Marz released a new milk stout for the Mardi Gras festival, aimed at evoking Chicago's love for paczkis. Subsequently, these beers, kombucha, soda, and coffee will also be introduced at the bar.

Additionally, brewery founder Ed Marszewski co-founded a packaged goods store called Maria's, a community bar, and its food business. Art has always been important to Ed Marszewski; he founded Lumpen magazine and radio station. The brewery also rotates art seasonally and sells prints.

Goose Island Brewery

In 1988, after ending his European trip, John Hall decided to open Goose Island Brewery and Brewpub in Chicago, a classic beer-brewing city, because it offered easy access to one of the world's largest freshwater systems. Due to the brewery's popularity in Chicago, in 1995, Hall opened a larger brewery and a bottling plant. In 1992, Goose Island introduced their first Bourbon County Stout to commemorate the anniversary of their 1,000th batch of beer, making them one of the first breweries in the Midwest to experiment with barrel-aged beers.

The Bourbon County Stout was initially disqualified from the Great American Beer Festival for not fitting any existing style category, sparking a beer revolution.

About 20 years later, barrel-aged beers now have their own competition category at GABF and even their own festival, called the Wood and Barrel-Aged Beer Festival.

Today, Goose Island remains one of Chicago's most productive breweries, available in all 50 U.S. states and the United Kingdom.

Revolution Brewing

If you've watched 'Drunk History,' you might recognize Revolution Brewing. After all, the fictional characters played by Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson work at this brewery. As Josh Deth, father of Revolution Brewing's founder, put it, his goal from the start was to create an independent brewery with the scale and capability to compete with the city's largest breweries, without sacrificing the perfectionism of small-batch craft beer. Josh, a Bostonian, arrived in Chicago in 1996. He rose from cellar manager at Goose Island to head brewer at its Clybourn brewery. In 2000, Josh officially began his solo brewing journey.

Revolution Brewing, located in Logan Square, Chicago, is now the largest independent brewery in Illinois. Beer lovers from around the world can experience their brewpub and taproom, where they produce dozens of beer styles: IPAs, porters, pilsners, Belgian-style, pale ales, and barrel-aged beers, satisfying all kinds of beer cravings.

Led by head brewer Jim Cibak, Revolution Brewing combines quality with an relentless pursuit of freshness. Their continuous attention to detail starts from the malt harvest all the way to the moment you open a can. This creates one of the most impressive beer menus in Chicago's bar scene or anywhere in the United States, and Revolution Brewing has been included in the Brewer's Association's top 50 craft breweries list.

If you want to taste original Chicago-style beer, you can visit Revolution Brewery's nearly 90,000-square-foot facility on Kedzie Avenue for a tour.

There, they produce beer and fill kegs and cans for distribution. During this 30-minute tour, you can explore the state's largest craft brewery while tasting nearly fifty fresh Revolution beers, sample various batches at innovation tasting stations, and get a free souvenir koozie.

Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery

Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery is Chicago's first meadery and the only mead producer on the Northern Illinois Wine Trail. As a mead producer, wildflower meadow, and winery, for twenty years, Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery has used locally sourced ingredients to make alcoholic beverages, such as keeping their own bees to collect the honey needed for mead, then fermenting it with yeast.

Its representative said, 'Every bottle we produce creates a ripple effect of positive change, because for every bottle produced, our bees need to pollinate about 2 million flowers. These seeds in turn produce 20 to 40 million seeds that will become new flowers. The positive impact of plants on the environment is well known.'

At the same time, they also purify and use water from Lake Michigan to produce wine. So when you buy wine from them, you have effectively planted millions of new flower seeds and invested in the local community.

Here, guests can sample various drinks and foods produced by the meadery on the patio or in the tasting room. There are also specialized instructors who personally teach you how to make beer, cider, wine, and mead.