One of Chicago's Oldest Brewpubs is Closed (Temporarily, We Hope)
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One of the oldest breweries in the Chicagoland area is currently closed following a fire that broke out in their kitchen last Wednesday night. Stockholm’s Restaurant & Brewery in downtown Geneva has been around and making beer in their front window since 2002; they described it as a temporary closure, so hopefully they’ll be back up and running soon.
We mentioned their Facebook post about the fire in Friday’s email and they’ve since then launched a GoFundMe to help take care of their staff while payroll insurance gets going; you can find more on that here. (I’m happy to report that it’s already hit its goal.) Additional news coverage came via CBS News, Patch.com the Daily Herald and the Aurora Beacon-News.
Another brewery closure that I recently noticed — but didn’t see any news coverage on — is the apparent shuttering of Rock Bottom Yorktown in Lombard. Google has it listed as Permanently Closed, the corporate site doesn’t list it as a location any more (Orland Park and Warrenville are still kicking, at least!) and its last social update was well over a year ago.
I spotted this while scanning through our map and list pages over the weekend (because that’s how I party) and I’m kinda surprised I missed it until now … assuming there was ever something to miss. At least some dude on YouTube went and walked around the vacant building about ten months ago, but that’s as much news as I’ve ever seen. Maybe we were all still reeling from the shutter of the River North location.
For those of you who remember Uncommon Ground on Devon (and their beers from Greenstar Brewing) which closed in 2022, Block Club covered the demolition of that building this week.
Work is underway on the forthcoming Tangled Roots brewery location in Countryside.
It’s pretty much fully paywalled but still cool to see the Wall Street Journal name Dovetail Brewing one of the country’s best brewery tours. (We’ve been telling you it was kickass since 2017.)
Craft Brewing Business praised the Lodi Tap House for their Christmas in July Advent Calendar as their Marketing Idea of the Week. I’m gonna guess a lot of bottle shops have this penciled in for 2025 and if they don’t, they should.
WRTV profiles Indy’s Mashcraft Brewing as they celebrate their tenth year in business.
More details on the beers available at the State Fair this year are being released; the Pig Lebowski beer doesn’t look as bad as I feared.
It’s unclear whether or not the new HiFi Brew Lounge in Des Moines is in fact a brewery, but they just opened in the former Fox Brewing space and someone’s making beers for them, so … probably?
In Dubuque, the Stone Cliff Winery and Star Brewery is up for sale as the owners have decided to retire. The owner will take over a pretty awesome looking historic brewery building.
The Ore to Shore mountain bike race in the UP is celebrating its 25th anniversary, so Ore Dock is brewing up a special IPA for the party.
It’s almost fully paywalled (because Crain’s) but apparently the owners of Jolly Pumpkin are looking to expand it nationwide?
Lupulin Brewing announced plans to close their Sioux Falls taproom at the end of October.
In the college town of St. Peter, Paddlefish Brewery is now open with the state’s youngest ownership team.
There are 63 specialty beverages available at this year’s State Fair, including a “Chocobananas Wheat Ale” from Freehouse, a s’more slushie and a mustard beer, apparently.
No real news in the Show Me State to speak of this week, save for Tasting Table naming St. Louis one of the top 15 US Cities for beer lovers, but somehow Pensacola is #2 so we should all be questioning their methodology.
Premium Subscribers saw a cool new label from Urban Artifact last week; now they’re in the news because they’re suing the state of Pennsylvania claiming the state “uses unfair barriers to restrict sales from companies that aren't located in the commonwealth.”
Darkroom Brewing is hosting a … rose wine tasting? Okay.
The truck drivers that haul Great Lakes Brewing Company beer around have joined the Teamsters Union.
The Bay View Bash returns to Milwaukee in late September and Third Space is making a special Bash Beer for the gathering.
Isthmus paid a visit to the new Lone Girl Brewing taproom on Madison’s east side.
CraftBeer.com has an interesting “investigation” into why so many craft brewery taprooms all have the same damn chairs and stools.
One more piece of bad news from the world of chain restaurants: World of Beer just filed for bankruptcy. Their Naperville location shuttered a while ago, and it looks like they had just one Midwest location left (in Columbus Ohio).
Most-clicked link in last week’s email: Gear Patrol’s reporting on this year’s Bourbon County lineup by heralding the return of one of the most hyped beers of all time: BCBS Vanilla Rye.
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