This Week's Beer Events and Socials: Cheers and Farewell to Tonality
Also: Cringing at April Fools posts
Another week, another brewery has sadly announced its closure. This week it’s Tonality Brewing, who will shutter their space on April 13th, less than a year and a half after opening in November 2023. To their major credit, they’re really trying hard to find new jobs for their employees.
In addition, I’ve finally been able to confirm via a message from the restaurant that Evanston’s Peckish Pig no longer makes their own beer. (Thanks to everyone who emailed us about this a while back!) Since they’ve stopped brewing and their menus page doesn’t even have a beer list, we’ve taken them off the map entirely.
And here’s something we all missed a few months ago: Karetas Brewing, the very small nomad brand that had a couple of FoBAB wins over the years, announced in December that they were packing up shop and moving to Texas. So … they’re off the map as well.
As always, we love it when you check our work. If you see something on the map that doesn’t look right, let us know!
Reminder: Only Premium Subscribers are being sent Wednesday label updates via email. Lite Subscribers can click here to see the first label from a mysterious Chicagoland brewery … plus a “witty” bonus label!
This Friday / Starting Friday:
Artifact Events hosts New Beers Eve at their space on North Ravenswood.
Spring Grove’s Pratt Brewing - one of the only breweries around without a taproom - is pouring a few samples this evening if you want to try their beers.
If you didn’t get enough of their beer at The Beer Temple last week, you can head south for a Fruit Tree Grafting Workshop at Scratch Brewing. (There’s one next week too.)
Steep Ravine Brewing hosts a Grand Rebranding Weekend in Highland Park starting tonight.
Saturday, April 5:
Soundgrowler Brewing hosts another one of their Plant Markets starting today at noon.
In Springfield, Obed & Isaac’s will be hosting their annual Finally Firkin Springfest.
Ann Arbor’s Hearsay Brewing is hosting a Hops & Hash gathering during this year’s Hash Bash.
Burning Bush turns 5 today and is hosting a Spring Fest anniversary party all day today.
Sunday, April 6:
Hop District Brewing hosts a beer dinner with Happier Now Cafe and Market.
Next Week:
April 7: Starting today and running through the rest of the month is Links & Drinks, hosted by a dozen breweries (including Bubblehouse, Soundgrowler, Brother Chimp and Sturdy Shelter) who all created a mini-golf hole at their brewery. Play every hole you’ll be entered into a raffle drawing for a bunch of cool stuff. Fun idea!
April 10: Meals On Wheels Chicago hosts their Chi On Tap gathering at the Theater on the Lake.
April 12: Happy 9th Anniversary to Arrowhead Ales.
April 12: Celebrate Phase 3’s sixth birthday with a special barrel-aged brewery tour led by founder Shaun Berns.
April 12: Roaring Table hosts their very first Kolsch service night.
The event portion of our Friday emails remains free and unrestricted, because we want to give you a reason (or three) to visit a local brewery or beer event every week.
As April 1st marked GDB’s 15th birthday (!) and the 11th year of me sending these emails each week, I’ve decided that as an added value and show of gratitude, our Social Updates section are now exclusively for Premium Subscribers.
We’re so very grateful to our Premium Subscribers for all your ongoing support. We really couldn’t still be doing this without y’all.
We’re not going to show you all the April Fools posts we saw - there’s no way to keep up with all of those - but every year there’s one or two of those posts that are so reasonable (or maybe just not all that funny) that they seem real. This year that honor goes to …