The Daily Parker

Welcome to stop #117 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Pilot Project Brewing, 2140 N Milwaukee Ave., Chicago
Train line: CTA Blue Line, California
Time from Chicago: 14 minutes
Distance from station: 500 m

Pilot Project has an unusual business model. They partner with fledgling breweries, work with them on their beer recipes and styles, help them with marketing and distribution, then gently fling them from the nest once they're established and can fly on their own. And they're pretty good at it.

After a 6-km meander through Logan Square to work up an appetite, my Brews & Choos buddy and I sat down at the Pilot Project bar and had an extended conversation with bartender Rebecca about the beers and their stories. Including our flights and sip-sized tastes of a couple other beers, we tried a lot of them. We also had a ginormous pretzel (seriously, it'll feed four people), and a pitcher of water.

My flight had Funkytown 1984 pale lager (5%, complex for a lager, long finish, not too sweet), Pilot Project's own Mountains Calling hazy IPA (6.3%, kind of malty for a hazy, really drinkable, beer buddy said "Ooo! I like that a lot"), their Tree Talker West Coast Pale (5.3%, very west coast, very hoppy, not my favorite), and their Brushfire Imperial stout (8%, lots of chocolate, coffee, and vanilla).

My friend had the Two Falls Hazy (6.5%, lovely apricot and apple notes, good balance), Azadi Brewing's Manali Hazy IPA (6.8%, balanced, not strongly fruity, good), and Azadi's Doorsa basmati rice lager (4.6%, effervescent, very light, interesting flavor).

She also tried a thing called Donna's Pickle Beer (4.4%), about which we had a mild difference of taste. I gagged, swished some water, and grabbed a hunk of pretzel. She said she "would absolutely love this after a hot run in the summer" and wants to run to the brewery with a bunch of other athletes as soon as it gets warm again.

We will absolutely go back, but only one of us will drink beer brewed with pickle juice.

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? One, avoidable
Serves food? Pub menu
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

My Brews & Choos buddy and I trudged 15 kilometers yesterday to visit two previously-unreviewed breweries and two old favorites. Correction: I visited two old favorites and two new ones, she visited one old favorite and three she hadn't visited before.

My Garmin device doesn't have a resume-later feature, but hers does, so she captured the entire route (in miles):

We had bog-normal November weather for Chicago: cloudy and 5°C. We also had a slice of Jimmy's Pizza and a modest amount of good beer. Altogether, a good day.

Brews & Choos Reviews will post this afternoon and tomorrow.

The weather doesn't seem that great for a planned 15-kilometer walk through Logan Square and Avondale to visit a couple of stragglers on the Brews & Choos Project. We've got 4°C under a low overcast, but only light winds and no precipitation forecast until Monday night. My Brews & Choos buddy drew up a route starting from the east end of the 606 Trail and winding up (possibly) at Jimmy's Pizza Cafe.

Also, I've joined BlueSky, because it's like Xitter without the xit. The Times explains how you, too, can join. (Cassie also has an account, of course.)

My 4-minute train to Clybourn leaves in 45 minutes, so I want to save a few things for later reading:

• Josh Marshall says: "There’s plenty of time for theorizing and message testing. But the first thing to do is to oppose. Less arguing, more doing."
• After Pro Publica reported on the deaths of two women due to Georgia's religiously-motivated anti-abortion laws, Georgia disbanded its Maternal Mortality Committee, embarrassing not only the Republican-led government in the state but also every ostrich at the Atlanta Zoo.
• Blue Man Group has announced it will close its Chicago run on January 5th after 30 years at the Briar Street Theater.
• The Chicago Tribune, once more reminding me why I need to just give up my subscription, raised a hue and cry that "Lake Michigan water levels drop to lowest in years" without providing the context that the lake level is just 40 millimeters below its long-term average. Oh the humanity!
• Molly White spends 30 minutes explaining how crypto charlatans spent unbelievable sums to get their favored stooges elected, and largely succeeded.

Finally, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day this morning has a diptych of the Earth, one side from Saturn and the other side from Mercury. What makes it even more interesting is that both photos were taken 19 July 2013, making it the first time the Earth was photographed simultaneously from two other worlds in the solar system.

The Brews & Choos Project had a net shift of zero in the last two weeks. I am pretty bummed about the loss, but intrigued by the gain.

The loss: Long-time Evanston microbrewery Temperance closed up shop on October 27th. I am sad:

Evanston didn’t have a brewery before Temperance Beer Co. arrived at the end of 2013. The suburb’s first brewery was a historic moment, and the taproom quickly became one of the city’s finest with hits like Might Meets Right and Gatecrasher IPA. Temperance represented the rising popularity of the craft beer movement when home brewers crowded taprooms and stood in long lines for the latest release.

But times have changed. On Tuesday afternoon, Temperance founder Josh Gilbert announced the brewery would close on Sunday, October 27. All brewery tours had been canceled with refunds on their way. In a newsletter blast and Instagram post, Gilbert calls the craft beer world “barely recognizable” compared to a decade ago. “It’s difficult to even imagine that kind of excitement for a new brewery launch these days,” he writes.

The gain: Suncatcher Brewing opened by the Milwaukee District Western Avenue station yesterday. I am glad:

After a two-year building renovation, finalizing city licensing and hiring staff, Suncatcher Brewing is now open at 2849 W. Chicago Ave., making it Humboldt Park’s only brewery and taproom after Ørkenoy closed earlier this year.

On the Suncatcher menu are six draft beers with 4-to-7 percent alcohol: a stout, a brown and blonde ale, an IPA, a Michigan pale ale, a fall bier — each matched with a song to complement their pairing. At least three other beers are coming soon.

In addition to focusing on lower alcohol content, the Suncatcher beers are also made with hops, barley and malts grown a few hours away in Michigan and Indiana.

“We’re trying to highlight local materials while keeping the alcohol level low,” Matt Gallagher said.

The new brewery is on the map. I'm already planning a Brews & Choos dip into Pilsen once the choral calendar lightens up in December. Suncatcher would fit in with a visit to Fulton Market (Guinness, Cruz Blanca) and the new Goose Island location at the Salt Shed.

Welcome to an extra stop on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Off the Rails Brewing, 111 S. Murphy Ave., Sunnyvale, Calif.
Train line: Caltrain, Sunnyvale
Time from SF Terminal: 62 minutes
Time from Chicago: about 4½ hours by air
Distance from station: 300 m

Sunnyvale, Calif., has blocked off the north end of Murphy Ave. to traffic, turning the entire block into a pedestrian zone lined with restaurants and a good-enough-for-the-suburbs brewery where you can have good-enough beers. Despite the amazing weather when I visited on Friday—it's hard to beat 23°C and sunny in November—I just couldn't get excited about the place.

I had a flight of 4 120-mL pours that left me feeling "eh." The Kölsch (5%) had a decent, malty flavor, a little sweet for my palate, with banana and apple notes. The Lazy Hazy IPA (7.2%) did not taste like a 7% beer, and also didn't taste like it had a lot of hops, but the banana, apricot, and honey notes were pleasant enough, though again too sweet for me. The YOLO Fruity IPA (6.2%) was actually less fruity than the hazy, though it had a good balance and was drinkable. Again, though, not a memorable beer. But the Otis Imperial Stout (9.2%) was my favorite of the four, with just enough bitterness to match the coffee and chocolate flavors.

Bottom line: Off the Rails has a convenient location right by the Caltrain station in a part of Silicon Valley that doesn't have a lot of Brews & Choos-eligible breweries. So, sure, why not? But I wouldn't make a special trip.

The Thai place next door, though, smelled amazing.

Beer garden? Street pedestrian zone and smaller back patio
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? Unavoidable inside
Serves food? Full menu
Would hang out with a book? Maybe
Would hang out with friends? Maybe
Would go back? Maybe

Welcome to an extra stop on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Southern Pacific Brewing, 620 Treat Ave., San Francisco
Train line: BART, 16th St/Mission
Time from Embarcadero: 7 minutes
Time from Chicago: about 4½ hours by air
Distance from station: 1 km

This small brewery with a huge taproom is hidden in an industrial section of the Mission District. It's a quick walk from the BART through the Pilsen of San Francisco down a side street and an alley. Talking with some of the people there, it gets busy after work and on weekends, with lots of office parties and football games on the huge projection screen opposite the bar. (Fortunately they keep all their other TVs in the lofted party space and not by the bar or on the patio.)

I tried three of their beers, none of which had a clever name or unconventional hop profile. They didn't have any of their American Pale Ale on draft, and they don't do flights. They do have 150 mL (5 oz) pours, so I started with that size hazy IPA, a lovely, well-balanced beer with orange, banana, and apricot flavors. (I went back for a full pint of this after the small pours.) Next, their West Coast IPA (5.8%, 55 IBU) had a big-hop, crisp flavor with a little astringency that I didn't like at first. I finished with their Stout (9%), a huge, chocolate, chicory, coffee brew that I liked a lot.

I wound up staying so I could finish the book I was reading, and watched several after-work parties come and go. I also had a Caesar salad, which was not bad. If I lived in the Mission, I'd probably go to this brewery a lot.

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Outside only
Televisions? Avoidable
Serves food? Full menu
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

This morning, Winnemac Park, Chicago:

I'm still getting through everything I ignored for the past three days. Stay tuned for a couple of Brews & Choos reviews from San Francisco, and on Tuesday, some thoughts on the election.

I'm visiting family in the Bay Area today, staying in California for about 38 hours. I leave tomorrow morning early, so I'm back at the charming Dylan Hotel in Millbrae, right by the BART and CalTrain. If you held a gun to my head (or put $10 million in my bank account) and forced me to move to Silicon Valley, I might choose here. It's 40 minutes to my family in San Jose and 25 minutes to downtown San Francisco, for starters. And the Brews & Choos Project works just as well around the Bay as it does in Chicago—with another SF brewery review coming Sunday or Monday.

And I will actually spend time in both places today, taking the just-launched all-electric CalTrain between them.

Tomorrow my flight leaves so early I will have to take a cab to the airport, because the BART doesn't start running until after my plane boards. But as the airport is only 3 km away, I expect that won't cause any problems.

Finally, I'm still cogitating about the election, and getting closer to some coherent thoughts. Harris ran a great campaign with a losing message; we need to think about that. We also need to prepare for at least two years of kakistocracy, perhaps longer. But I'll write more about that when I get back to Chicago.

Today, though, it'll be 22°C and sunny from the Embarcadero to the garlic fields of Gilroy. No time to stay inside a hotel room and blog.

Revolution Brewpub, which opened its Logan Square brewpub in 2010 and featured in the (really bad) film Drinking Buddies, announced it will close on December 14th:

Almost 15 years ago, we threw open the doors of our Milwaukee Avenue brewpub and launched Revolution Brewing to the world. The brewpub is where the first Revolution beers were served and where we first brewed beers like Anti-Hero IPA which would change the shape of craft beer in Chicagoland. Today that chapter of our story starts to wind down as we announce that we are permanently closing the doors of the Logan Square brewpub, with our last day of service on December 14th.

You could count the number of other breweries in the city on one hand back in the day. Our experience definitely inspired others to take their shot and now there are close to a hundred different places brewing beer in the city.⁠

Our Kedzie Avenue production brewery and tap room opened just two years after the pub and that’s where our business thrives now and where we will remain fully operational and open to the public.

Sad news, but totally understandable. Since I started the Brews & Choos Project in February 2020, fully 24 breweries have closed, most of them because of the after-effects of the pandemic. I'm sad to lose Revolution on Milwaukee, but glad they'll stay open on Kedzie.

Just a few more notes about last Saturday's 43-kilometer walk to Lake Bluff. First, some photos, including the obligatory Baháʼí Temple photo from about 14 km in:

And the Green Bay Trail in Glencoe, Ill., around 27 km:

The walk felt much easier than previous years, so I ran the numbers to find out why. For starters, this year I took longer (6:32:38) to get to 42.2 km than in 2020 (6:20:32) or 2021 (6:17:41)—but last year I took even longer (6:41:36), so that's only part of it. This year was the coolest, peaking at 22.8°C compared with last year's and 2020's 26.1°C and 2021's 24.4°C, which also helped.

But the most interesting data point turned out to be my heart rate. Here's the comparison of the four completions (remember, I didn't finish in 2022):

Huh. This year I spent the least time in the threshold zone, and over 20% of the time warming up, while in previous years I pushed myself a lot harder. I did that on purpose; I really didn't want to exhaust myself as I had in every previous year. I just wanted to enjoy the walk with my Brews & Choos buddy. Data: in all previous years I completely bottomed out my Garmin Body Battery score; this year I had 20 points left.

So, a couple of takeaways. First, most importantly, do the walk in October and not September. My birthday weekend almost always feels like summer even though it's officially autumn; mid-October, we've got cool weather. Second, if I manage my sleep, diet, and energy levels well enough, I can start next year's walk feeling great, and (third) if I manage my heart rate, I can end it feeling great, too.

But maybe it's OK to push a little harder. Could I have cut 15 minutes off my 42.2-km time by moving in the threshold zone earlier? Probably. Should I have left 20 points on the field? Probably not.

Before then, however, we're planning a Brews & Choos-ish like we did last November. Look for that in the coming weeks.