Goose Island Beer Company- Three of the best hours of my life!

I had a once in a lifetime chance yesterday to get a private tour of Goose Island Brewery, not the brewpub, but the actual massive commercial brewery located on Fulton Ave in Chicago. My friend Dave P. met their head brewmaster, Brett Porter, at a beer festival out in Portland a few weeks back and Brett was gracious enough to offer Dave (and some friends) a private tour. So on 2:00 pm on a Wednesday afternoon a group of five teachers: Dave, Doug, Greg, Shanna and Myself, headed into the great unknown.

I have done quiet a few brew tours before. Most brew tours are lead by a brewery employee, last only about 45 minutes and contain large groups of people. So getting a private tour with a Brewmaster is a treat that not many people get to experience. Little did we know we were heading for something well beyond a tour; we were heading for an experience.

 

Brett Porter is about the most amiable man I have ever met. He immediately took us to the brew house which was amazingly clean and hot as hell.  He handed us some taster glasses and to our glee and amazement pointed toward a set of 6 tap handles and said, “help yourselves!” I felt like kid in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Brett told us hilarious stories including a tale of some particularly disgusting homemade apple wine, a wild after-hours party thrown at his first brewery job in Scottland and a case of mistaken identity with his last name, Porter, and the porter he used to brew at Deschutes. He also told us fascinating tales of his path to becoming a brewer and how he almost took a job at Brew Dog in Scotland, a brewer made famous for stuffing a high-gravity ale into a taxidermied squirrel. He even gave us insider information about the clandestine price fixing entity known only as the “Canadian Wheat Board.” Brett has a passion for beer that comes across so genuinely and enthusiastically poignant that you could easily listen to him talk for hours, which we gladly did in fact.

 

We were able to spend some time in the lab and discuss how the brewery maintains quality control and tests factors like IBU’s, oxygen head space in bottles, impurities and ABV. It was fascinating stuff, especially for Shanna who is a chemistry teacher. we also got to hear a couple theories behind a as-of-yet unsolved drop in the IBU’s of this year’s Autumn Ale. We were able to catch a glimpse of the bottle line (think Laverne and Shirley) and even get a peek at the experimental area where a new brew was in the fermenter for one of Rick Bayless’ restaurants.

After a refill, I chose 4878, a kickass experimental brew not yet for sale that is sweet and spicy and brewed with coriander, citrus and green tea, we headed across the street for the coolest part of the tour: the cask aging rooms. Brent really lights up when he talks about Goose Island’s innovation in the world of barrel aged beers. No other brewery ages more beer than Goose Island and once the doors opened my jaw dropped. There were hundreds of barrels of Bourbon County Stout and a top secret project that we were sworn to secrecy on. I thought this was the coolest thing ever, until he took us next door.

Adjacent to the first barrel aged room is a place I could only describe as beer nirvana. This room is PACKED full of experimental and often one-of-a-kind barrels. I just hovered and pined over a year and a half old oak cask of Matilda aging with raspberries. Brett told us about the aging process, the effect of temperature variations and the often unpredictable nature of the aging process in general. He headed back for a refill and to discuss the brewing process at the commercial level.

Standing thirty feet in the air next to a bottling tank that holds 154,000 gallons of beer is an experience to behold. By this time we were all feeling pretty relaxed and the issue of the Anheuser-Busch purchase finally came up. He told us that is just business but he is actually proud to work for AB. He said that AB has not tried to exert one ounce of creative control and has actually encouraged increases in safety and record keeping. He said as head brewmaster he felt dispelling the misconceptions about the purchase was one of his missions. As someone who was very quick to cry foul at the purchase I was really intrigued and surprised at the reality of what the AB purchase meant.

 

The Goose Island Tour was an amazing two and a half hour beer adventure. I had a great time with cool friends and an awesome time with the Goose Island staff. Brett Porter is simply one of the nicest guys around. He did an awesome thing to take time from his busy schedule. I know I for one was blown away at how ingrained into the fabric of Chicago Goose Island truly is. I must say everyone is entitled to their opinions about the implications of the AB purchase, however; let me tell you that the people making beer at Goose Island are everything that craft beer is about. Sometimes it is ok to set aside politics and just enjoy some damn good beer!

Cheers,

Wes