115525 Mon Mar 15 14:10:31 -0800 2004 17 7 Chicago Area 0 630302 In the context of brief comments on places to which one can go in the Printers Row neighbourhood to eat and to drink, I have mentioned Kasey’s Tavern (701 S. Dearborn) on a couple of occasions. I am very fond of the place for a number of reasons: it’s an old and cozy bar (tin ceiling, brick walls), clean but not prissy (well, the bog could really use an upgrade), the staff are all good eggs, and the beer selection is outstanding. I make no bones about it, I am of partisan spirit in this regard and look upon Kasey’s as my ‘stamcafé’. That said, I think it worth noting that Kasey’s is now one of the surely very few bars (and the only one I know of) this side of the English Channel that has De Koninck on tap. De Koninck, from the city of Antwerp, is an ale, vaguely similar to English ales of the Bass sort but rather more similar to some other Belgian ales (none of which are to my knowledge readily available in this country but available to varying degrees in the Netherlands and northern France as well as Belgium) such as Vieux Temps, Horse Ale (geft me mor 'n ‘Paardje’), and Palm (waar Brabant trots op is). Making the addition of De Koninck to Kasey’s draught beer selection an especially happy event is the fact that the distributor has also supplied the bar with the appropriate glasses – in this case, the distinctive ‘bolleke’. For those who love Belgian beer, Kasey’s also has on tap (with appropriate glassware) Stella Artois (if only they had Jupiler: mannen weten waarom), Hoegaarden (the original witbier, more subtly spiced and earthier than its American imitators such as Blue Moon) and in bottle both Duvel (accent on the first syllable, please; it’s Flemish, not French) and Lindemans Lambic framboise. They’re also considering some further additions to their inventory. I have heard often and much of Hopleaf on the far north side as a bar which is said to offer many Belgian beers but I’ve never been there; I’m curious to know more about their current offerings and would happily make the trek up there (as long as someone else is driving). But a real tavern is a local institution and Kasey’s is a great one to have here in the South Loop. In fairness too, I should mention that Hackney’s (northeast corner of Polk and Dearborn), though more a restaurant than a tavern, has a large, comfortable bar, very pleasant staff and an excellent selection of beers on tap, including German, Austrian and Belgian offerings (as well as great Buffalo burgers). Op uw gezondheid / à votre santé! A Mon Mar 15 14:10:31 -0800 2004 0 Antonius 1 630307 Now if they only served it with a bowl of steamed mussels and garlic toast points. Is Hoegaarden the superior "white beer" in your opinion? Mon Mar 15 14:37:27 -0800 2004 630302 0 Rich4 2 630310 How 'bout some frits to go with those mussels? About Hoegaarden, yes, I really think it's the best. There are now several other Belgian makers, such as Blanche de Bruges, Wittekerke (made by Bavik,in East Flanders, I believe), one from Limburg whose name I can't recall, and they're all very good. The Wittekerke seems to have a more pronounced wheat flavour than Hoegaarden, if memory serves me well. The American versions I know are also pretty good (and I must confess I'm generally not very fond of American beers, including most micros). Celis, brewed in Texas, was originally owned by a brewmaster from Hoegaarden and was excellent but I think they were bought up by Miller or Budweiser and I haven't seen any in a long time. Blue Moon is a good beer and I could imagine some people preferring it to Hoegaarden. To me, the spice element is much brighter and the earthy wheat element somewhat too masked; rather than being a hot weather, refreshing beer (in Belgium, that could mean partly cloudy and 75 degrees), Blue Moon seems almost Christmassy because of the strong spicing (though it is refreshing enough!). But the original Hoegaarden is really beautifully balanced and, though I don't drink it all the time, sometimes it really hits the spot. By the way, the town of Hoegaarden is quite pretty; in farming counrty in eastern Vlaams Brabant, it lies just north of the language border. A very beautiful (in a muted way) part of Belgium. Mon Mar 15 15:04:42 -0800 2004 630307 0 Antonius 2 630392 I homebrew and I've done this style a few times along with a little research before coming up with a recipe. Hoegaarden is now made by some huge european brewing conglomerate who also makes Stella and licensed breweries make it outside belgium with who knows what malt. This change in ownership is recent, within the last 3-5 years if I remember correct. Blue moon is by coors, 'nuff said. An excellent wit is one by the Canadian brewery Unibroue, maybe called Blanche de Chambly. There are a couple belgian regional wits I've had at hopleaf that were better than Hoegaarden. Tue Mar 16 13:50:30 -0800 2004 630307 0 Scott 3 630400 On various grounds, I am not thrilled with the idea that a few corporations keep buying up small breweries, either here in North America or in Europe. But I would also say that I’m no expert on how Interbrew manages its subsidiaries; they make claims about respecting traditions and, without any naive faith in such profit driven entities, I think they make some effort in that regard. Indeed, given the nature of a major element of their market, the degree to which they can get away with lowering quality while selling under very well known names and labels is rather more limited in Belgium than it has been for the Behemoths of Brew here in the States. It strikes me as incorrect to propagate the idea that all Interbrew products are bad simply because they’re Interbrew products. I’ve been drinking Hoegaarden for some 25 years and a difference between the Hoegaarden currently produced and the Hoegaarden produced back in 1980 may well exist, but it is not sufficient to lead me to feel cheated when I drink it these days. It remains, in my humble opinion, the best balanced of commercial witbiers. Of course, that even better ones, produced by small breweries, exist is a good thing, but such breweries’ products inevitably have more limited distribution. Hoegaarden, which is to my knowledge the first major producer of the style, remains a very tasty and refreshing drink, and for me better than any of the North American imitations which I have hitherto tried (though I remember Celis, when it first came out, as being really, really good). But I’m willing – nay, eager -- to keep trying new ones. Tue Mar 16 14:41:55 -0800 2004 630392 0 Antonius 3 630475 Well, it is a huge company, but it also happens to be a direct descendant of the 500 year-old Artois (which merged with the other big Belgian, Jupiler, in the 80's). I like Stella, but it probably hasn't been a "micro-brew" for a coupla hundred years. Before the recent big push here, most every pub and bar in Europe had a Stella tap. So maybe they can preserve the quality of the brands they purchase. I hope so. Wed Mar 17 11:35:50 -0800 2004 630392 0 JeffB 1 630317 The Map Room on Damen and Armitage has like a dozen Belgian Ales currently on tap, including DeKonnick. Here is their beer list http://www.maproom.com/beer.htm Mon Mar 15 17:10:28 -0800 2004 630302 0 beer geek 1 630322 If you're interested in Belgian Beers I would HIGHLY recommend going to the Map Room and making the trip to the Hopleaf Cafe. You will find a large selection at both establishments and will be able to get beyond just the usual suspects of Dekonick, Stella Artois and Hoegaarden - to great beers like St. Bernardus Abt 12, Karmeliet Triple and Westmalle. The Hopleaf definitely has the more extensive selection of the two bars with about 40 belgian beers in bottles and another 8 on tap. Both bars have a very friendly crowd and knowledgable bartenders. Enjoy! Mon Mar 15 18:52:21 -0800 2004 630302 0 DeeDee 2 630331 Actually, De Koninck and Hoegaarden are only relatively recently more widely available in the States. For years, the importing process has been at best spotty, with beers coming and going in various markets (for example, a Belgian ale -in my opinion- similar but superior to De Koninck, Palm, made a brief appearance in the early to mid-90's only to disappear again both from Chicago and Jersey). Westmalle etc. are wonderful (I have fond memories of serving them up in one café in Brabant and drinking them in considerable quantities throughout Belgium over, lo, these many years), but one can only hope that the attention span of people who follow beer trends and fads lasts long enough for the flow of Belgian beer to remain constant. Mon Mar 15 20:44:00 -0800 2004 630322 0 Antonius 1 630323 Also, DeKoninck is very widely available on tap in the better beer bars in major cities throughout the U.S. When you are traveling be sure to check out Monk's Cafe (Philadelphia), Mugs Ale House (Brooklyn, NY), the Gingerman (New York, NY), Spuyten Duyvil (Brooklyn, NY), Toronado's (San Francisco)Cadieux Cafe (Detroit, MI) and the Sharp Edge (Pittsburgh, PA). Mon Mar 15 18:56:46 -0800 2004 630302 0 DeeDee 2 630332 Feestelijk bedankt. Mon Mar 15 20:48:15 -0800 2004 630323 0 Antonius 3 630346 What does this mean? Tue Mar 16 08:59:34 -0800 2004 630332 0 DeeDee 1 630336 Just to follow up on the Belgian Ale post... I spoke with the national distributor of Wesvleteren a year or so ago... the company is down in Palm Beach Gardens... the first Chicago bar he spoke of was the Hop Leaf... Personally I'm at least as impressed with the "seriousness" of the ale drinkers at the Map Room. Also, as for the original posters intent to visit the Hop Leaf, try the Clark Street 22 Bus line that stops right in front of the place, OR A CAB... you won't want to be out driving after you visit this den of excess ! A convenient way to do it is take the red/brown line to belmont then catch the nearby 22 there. Anyway, my question to Belg Ale fanatics... how many of these do you drink in an evening ?? I'm speaking specifically about heavy Trappist ales here... I find that ONE Wesvleteren is plenty... very filling, almost like drinking a port or an Amarone. I love the taste but one maybe two goblets is sufficient. I like to have it pretty much towards the "nightcap" round for the evening. Mon Mar 15 23:52:52 -0800 2004 630302 0 Chicago Mike 2 630351 Many thanks for the info on getting to Hop Leaf! I’m surprised to hear they have West-Vleteren, which always was hard to get even in Belgium (one had to go to the monastery in Southwest Flanders and buy it there). I hope the monks aren’t taking short-cuts on the brewing and ageing process to increase the production – all the various grades of West-Vleteren are really great and broadly (not universally) viewed as the best. By the way, does Hopleaf have Westmalle Dubbel on tap? Out of the bottle, it’s okay but the flavours are kind of dull; but streaming out of a well-maintained line, it’s spectacular. Your way of drinking such mighty brews is, I think, the wise way. I lived in Belgium a long time, worked in a café for a bit and spent a lot more time in cafés as a customer. There is, of course, plenty of individual variation but in my experience few people sit for an evening pounding down the strong stuff, be it the real Trappist ales or Trappist-style ales or others strong brews such as Duvel (and its many imitators) or Kwak. But café life in Belgium is rather different than bar life here. The café for many is like the living room; rather than sitting at home and watching t.v., a lot of people go to a café to read, listen to music, play chess or cards, or just talk. Slowly sipping a few of the strong beers over the course of an evening is hardly uncommon. But also very common, for reasons of sobriety and money, is to drink the basic, rather weak ‘pintjes’ (Stella, Jupiler, Wieze, Primus, Cristal Alken, Roman etc. etc.) and maybe, with a slight buzz but taste buds still intact, have a nice strong and tasty ale to close out the night. Guzzling lots of Westmalle Tripel or Duvel probably would strike most Belgian drinkers as pretty silly, if not repulsive. Beers like Palm, Rodenbach etc. fall sort of in between; some of my friends and I would happily sit drinking Palm all night rather than ‘pintjes’, but the strength of those beers, though higher (I believe) than that of Belgian pils, is not up to ‘tripel’ or diabolic strength. (N.B. Lots of Belgians who spend an evening ‘op café’ actually drink coffee, or tea or soup or soda or mineral water, or take breaks from alcohol over the course of the evening. Wine, porto and the occasional borreltje (shot of jenever) are also not neglected. When I lived there, hard stuff was illegal in cafés; now I suppose some are drinking mai tais and Long Island ice teas...) Along these lines, I’d add that in my experience, no one drank the fancy and strong beers with meals (I’ve seen advertised here elaborate multi-course meals featuring pairings of courses to different Belgian or imitation Belgian style beers). Maybe they do this in Belgium now too and I wouldn’t want to say that I think there’s anything inherently wrong about doing that. I just note that Belgians, as much as they love beer, also love wine, and for drinkers, wine is the generally preferred accompaniment to a meal. On the other hand, with certain supremely Belgian dishes, such as steak and frites or mussels and frites, lots of people like to drink pils (refreshing, neutral, gentle on the central nervous system). A P.S. Correction to my original posting: Bavik is from West Flanders; Roman and Wieze are from East Flanders (though maybe they’re all owned by Interbrew now). Tue Mar 16 09:59:49 -0800 2004 630336 0 Antonius 3 630433 Beers from Trappist breweries Westvleteren, Westmalle, Rochefort, Achel, Chimay and Orval can regularly be found at larger liqour stores such as Binny's and Sam's Wine. And as other posters have indicated, both the Hopleaf and Map Room are great bars for finding harder to find Belgian (and other) beers. Tim Tue Mar 16 20:33:45 -0800 2004 630351 0 Pancake 3 630442 Antonius: The Map Room actually has a "Beer University" or "Beer Club" or something to that effect. The members meet regularly and of course drink and compare tasting impressions... My overall opinion is that while both the Hop Leaf and Map Room have incredible lineups of beer both in the bottle and (especially) on tap, the Map Room is at this point "ground zero" for Chicago's most serious beer connisseurs... Again, public transport or taxi is highly recommended as it's unlikely you'll leave either place even close to sober :) Note: a quick check of Map Room's current draft list includes NO LESS THAN ELEVEN BELGIANS !! But as impressive as that is, also note: Dogfish 90 minute IPA, North Coast Red Seal, and Alpha King IPAs! (these are taps, not bottles!) Link: http://www.maproom.com/beer.htm Tue Mar 16 22:30:41 -0800 2004 630351 0 Chicago Mike 4 630473 Chicago Mike: Thanks again for the useful info (incl. the link). Without doubt, both places look like they fill well an important role in the Chicago bar/beer scene. By the way, the Tribune's food section this day has a review of Hopleaf's food. The review is generally positive but given the limited format of that column, the amount of info presented is modest. I'll be curious to see how Belgian their food offerings are, since Belgium is a country with a great cuisine, otherwise little or not represented in the city (this I gather from occasional postings by others to the CH Chicago board). If I run into you at the Map Room, the first round is on me. If I may, I'd just like to go back to the original point of my posting for a moment: the main point was that in the South Loop there are now a couple of places to drink in (Kasey's and Hackney's) that have really excellent basic beers on tap, i.e., one is no longer limited to the usual Miller, Bud, Heineken, Goose Island and Sam Adams (none of which I myself especially like) which are the staples of taverns throughout Chicagoland. Since I have cause to visit bars in a couple of other neighbourhoods where the offerings are very limited, I remain thrilled about the availability, near where I live in Printers Row, of such swell stuff on tap as Pilsner Urquell, Stiegl, Hofbräuhaus, as well as Guinness and Bass and the aforementioned Belgian beers. The notion put forth by one of the other contributors to this thread that one needs “to get beyond the usual suspects of De Koninck, Stella Artois and Hoegaarden” (hardly all that usual in neighbourhood taverns in Chicago or elsewhere in these United States) to the special strong and/or rather costly beers seems at best advice for the completely uninitiate or else gravely misguided: for most habitual drinkers of Belgian beer, pintjes (Stella, Jupiler etc.) and to a lesser degree lighter ales or white beers are the things one drinks most often; on account of various factors (cost, sobriety, calories, belly-fill, intensity of flavour, need to quench thirst, availablilty, etc.), the Trappists and other strong specialty beers remain, to varying degrees and in varying senses, for most folks exactly that: special, be it as nightcap or accompaniment to a Saturday afternoon tartine au fromage blanc/boterham met platte kaas or main fare for a holiday drinking splurge. You and I seem to feel some of these restraints, but for those to whom such factors do not apply, praise be to Woden. Thanks again and happy Saint Patrick’s Day! (Please excuse the religious promiscuity.) Sláinte! A Wed Mar 17 11:13:12 -0800 2004 630442 0 Antonius 5 630485 As for bars closer to Printer's row that have what might be called a "spectacular" lineup of microbrews, etc.... checkout: 1)Clark Street Ale House - easily accessible by 22, 36, 156, or red line. Clark St. just south of Chicago Ave. 2)Jak's in Greektown. These will tend more to very high quality U.S. micro brews / craft brews, etc. Wed Mar 17 12:05:01 -0800 2004 630473 0 Chicago Mike