Chicago is best known for its sports teams, deep dish pizza, and crooked politicians. A trip to Prairie State this weekend afforded Hapa’s a chance to experience two of these Windy City institutions. Here at Hapa’s we leave the bribing and blackmailing to the mobsters and yes-men, so we kicked off the weekend with a classic deep dish pizza from Lou Malnati’s and trip to the United Center to see the first place Bulls beat the Grizzlies.
Pre-game warm up on the court
At the game, we caught wind of a new brew pub near the arena. Never the type to pass up the chance to try some new beer and talk a little shop, we headed over to Haymarket Pub & Brewery. It wasn’t long before we had a three beer tasting flight in front of us that consisted of an American IPA, a Double IPA, and an American Pale Ale. The beers were all quite good with varying levels of bitterness and all shared notes of different citrus including orange and grapefruit.
Left to right: Peace Frog American IPA, Anarchy Double IPA, Ti Jean American Pale Ale
After the tasting we had the chance to talk a little shop with the assistant brew master who had just finished adding hops to a fresh brew. We chatted about Haymarket’s brewing rig and brew process. The brew pub uses a steam heated hot liquor tank, mash tun, and boil kettle. A giant heat exchanger cools the wort before the beer is pumped into the fermenters. The young beer is then moved to the serving tanks where the brew is cooled and carbonated with CO2.
Left to right: hot liquor tank, boil kettle, assistant brew master, mash tun
