Sources within the Rahm Emanuel administration report that the mayor met with directors of Anheuser-Busch InBev NV in late May while they were in Chicago to pitch them on expanding the company's Goose Island Beer Co. operations here. Real estate sources say, further, that the city is pressing the beer giant to take over a long-vacant site across the Chicago River from Goose Island.

The local alderman, Walter Burnett Jr. of the 27th Ward, confirms that he's had his own conversations with AB executives. “I talked to Anheuser-Busch three months ago and told them the site would be a good place to put a new brewery,” Mr. Burnett said. “But we never got on to specifics.”

For its part, AB won't confirm any immediate interest in a move. “It's true that Mayor Emanuel was here to meet with our board,” said Ken Stout, consumer experience director at Goose Island. “But there was no discussion about real estate at the time. It's very possible that at some point we'll need more capacity in Chicago, yet there are no dates or details on that right now.
“Any talk about a new brewery has been just casual conversation, nothing more,” he added.
The 17.5-acre property, at 900 N. Odgen Ave., has been vacant since Chicago Paperboard Corp. closed in 2000. Most recently an automobile dealer, Fletcher Jones Management Group Inc., had pursued the land, but city officials have held out hope of finding an industrial user instead.

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/ ... e-property

Just noticed this week that there's a 312 Pale Ale now that comes in a green-labeled bottle, along with the 312 "Urban Wheat" ale that comes in the yellow-labeled bottle. This is annoying the everliving crap out of me--and I feel like it will cause confusion--as "312" is the long-established name of the American wheat ale, not some Goose Island series/sub-brand.

I've tried the 312 Pale ale, and it's pretty good - nice citrusy hop aroma, good flavor, maybe a bit high on the carbonation. I had it from a 16 oz can, covered with a detailed map of Chicago, and with copy that reads "We are from the city that invented the skyscraper ..." Then, when you read the fine print, you see "brewed in Baldwinsville NY and Ft Collins CO."Ahh, those crazy Budweiser people.

nr706 wrote:I've tried the 312 Pale ale, and it's pretty good - nice citrusy hop aroma, good flavor, maybe a bit high on the carbonation. I had it from a 16 oz can, covered with a detailed map of Chicago, and with copy that reads "We are from the city that invented the skyscraper ..." Then, when you read the fine print, you see "brewed in Baldwinsville NY and Ft Collins CO."Ahh, those crazy Budweiser people.

Yeah, I bought a 12-pack with 312 original, 312 pale ale, and one of their IPAs -- I think Endless IPA -- and the beer itself was decent. Goose Island is one of my favorite breweries, but I've never found the bottled stuff to really stand up to the beers at the Clybourn location, which may just be my favorite place to drink in the city, and that's saying a lot given all the places to choose from, and I go through a lot of beer. They just have a great selection of styles, including styles you just don't see a lot, like the <4% abvs like English Mild and Standard Ordinary Bitter, plus the occasional sahti, and other lesser known styles. I just hate potentially having to now disambiguate when I want a 312. It's just a bit of Old Man Binko grumpiness, but it does annoy me, like how on a monthly basis my local Pete's Market moves the location of random stuff around in their stores.

I'm under the impression that, eventually, there will be a larger line-up of '312 Urban .... beers' that are all distributed nationally.

This is pure marketing from big beer. Based on my observations in other parts of the country, the kids associate the telephone handset tap handle and "three-twelve" with an acceptable beer. Not sure these 312 drinkers know or care what GI is or that the "duck head" handles are related to the phone handles. Good bit of advertising with the phone handle and the "urban" schtick, it seems.

Darren72 wrote:I'm under the impression that, eventually, there will be a larger line-up of '312 Urban .... beers' that are all distributed nationally.

That does seem to be the case. When I first heard the news, I just assumed A-B was making area code editions of various beers from breweries they own around the country. (I was thinking of this news article) I didn't realize that meant they would have a whole area code sub-brand, or whatever. I understand the marketing aspect behind it, but it still annoys the crap outta me.

Five years after selling Goose Island's production brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev in a deal that launched an era of consolidation in the craft beer industry, brewery founder John Hall is selling the brewpub where Goose was founded to the same global beer behemoth.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/dining/ct ... story.html

Here's hopeing that bud does'nt screw up the 312.Does anyone out there truly believe that Bud makes a decent beer?

I've never been a big fan of 312, and I think it's ironic that it's not made in the 312 area code, but in general I don't think ABInbev has screwed up Goose too much so far. BCS continues to be solid, as do Sophie and Matilda, among others.

Opinions obviously differ, but I thought shifting BCS from 4-packs to single bottles with a worse price-to-oz. ratio was pretty lame. And coincidence or not, this is the first year BCS had to deal with infected bottles, though to be fair they were extremely cooperative in helping out aggrieved customers. I've also liked how BCS (specifically, since it's GI's gold standard) seems to be popping up on tap and at sporting events/airports/other beer deserts more than in the past, so if that can be chalked up to the people with the purse strings, more power to them, I guess.

People tend to forget that it took a while for the Goose Island brewpub to concoct a drinkable lager. As for the current status, this past week's grocery ads shows that somebody is making an effort to make Goose's bottled product close in price to imported beers (I saw a Jewel ad where it was offering a 6-pack for $7.99 if you bought the 12-pack for $14.99.).
Brewers at ABiB breweries know their stuff. They do get to strut it on occasions; typically afternoons in Denver, CO. during the week of the Great American Beer Festival. ABiB rents out a bar for so-many hours to let you taste the experimental brews it has done.
Anybody can brew a quality beer. In ABiB's instance, it does not know how to advertise it.

I used to stop, have lunch and a hand pumped beverage at Goose Island when ever I made the trip to the now defunct Sam’s.
But with the demise of Sam’s, I now shop at Binny’s in Highland Park.
But Goose Island Brewery has not been stagnant!
The Bourbon Barrel aged Stout has been a hit and there are now many variants and releases.
I had seen the advert for the next run of Bourbon Barrel and called my local Woodman’s to find out of they had gotten any.
Well it turns out that they now have a release time at 1pm that day.
So, since I did need to make a Woodman’s run, I showed up at 12:48 pm to a line with 30 people!
Not only Bourbon Barrel but now flavored variants and flights were to be offered.
5 people at a time allowed into a dedicated register.
Well by the time I got to the register, flights were gone and was ‘allowed’ 2 regular and 4 flavored. Purchased what I could and went shopping. 30 minutes later on my way out of the store, line gone and I was now allowed another 4 bottles of the regular, as that’s all they had left.
Go home, chill one regular and sip the next day.
Not unpleasant, very sweet and 14.7%!
Consumed the bottle over the next two days, one sip at a time.
Marketing akin to Pappy’s, a product that takes the barrel aged beer to a new level and great I suppose for collectors. Apparently there is another even more sought after variant, that was not available for purchase.
My advice, purchase one bottle and try.
-Richard

I'm not sure how these types of drinks are bottled. Wondering how you keep the carbonation over 2 days. Do they come in such a way that you can reseal? Or do you have something to do that?

Very little carbonation.
Essentially flat to start out with and not much change over 24 hrs.

GI in the past have used Pappy 23 barrels to make a variant called Rare.
IIRC, they have made Rare twice but I'm not positive if the second time was with Pappy 23 barrels. The first release was GREAT for a couple of years and then at 5 years old the essence of Pappy was long gone.

mhill95149 wrote:GI in the past have used Pappy 23 barrels to make a variant called Rare.
IIRC, they have made Rare twice but I'm not positive if the second time was with Pappy 23 barrels. The first release was GREAT for a couple of years and then at 5 years old the essence of Pappy was long gone.

The 2nd go-around of Rare in 2015 (?) was aged for 2 years in 30+ year Heaven Hill barrels, I believe.