Catch The Sun
A quick trip to Chicago and a new way to enjoy Guinness in Brooklyn
I’ll be honest, February was not kind to me.
Apart from my misfortune overseas, I fractured a rib within mere hours of the month starting, coped with illness, and had an extremely stressful few weeks of work dealing with a sudden change in my day job. Everything happening in the world during February didn’t help either, right down to the last day. I was so ready for the month to be over.
March is turning out to be marginally better so far — my rib is healing, my lost phone and credit card have been replaced, and I’m starting to dig out of work. And I’m trying to find the spark in beer that I lost for a good part of last month. So I flew out to Chicago last Saturday for a whirlwind trip to visit a few new-to-me breweries and some old favorites.
Among the favorites that I returned to: Dovetail Brewery, a spot specializing in traditional European brewing techniques that is hands-down my favorite spot in the Windy City. I savored their year-round Helles and truly enjoyed their smoked Vienna Lager. My stop at Off Color Brewing’s Mousetrap was another great return visit, and probably one of the rare taprooms where I’ve had a malt liquor in the form of their Beer For Dealing With Your Family. I also returned to Piece, who makes excellent New Haven-style pizza and has been churning out award-winning beers for nearly 25 years (Piece’s former head brewer, Keil Weimer, just took the reins at Brooklyn’s Strong Rope Brewery last fall). As soon as I got home, some Chicago beer news dropped from two breweries I ran out of time to revisit: Half Acre and Maplewood are merging.
There was quite a bit of doom and gloom as I talked to beer folks around Chicago last weekend, particularly given the fact that Chicagoland breweries are dropping like flies lately. But I managed to find some glimmers of hope: Dovetail’s taproom was packed on Saturday afternoon, tiny Lake Effect Brewing, whose taproom just opened last summer, was doing steady business and pouring an excellent adjunct-free Imperial Stout. And the barely year-old Suncatcher Brewing absolutely delighted me (more on them later).
Yes, You Can Get a Side-Poured Guinness in Brooklyn
St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, so it seems like an appropriate time to bring this up: Queue Beer, the Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn beer bar that has been serving up side-poured Miller High Life for the past two years, recently introduced their next innovation (or abuse, depending on how curmudgeonly you are) of the Lukr tap: Side-Poured Guinness. It seemed almost inevitable given the expansion of popularity of Lukr faucets across the modern beer world, but it’s another interesting experimentation from a bar that celebrates the blending of traditional and non-traditional.
For those not in the know, Lukr faucets are beer taps that originated in Czechia and are known for having a ball valve that gives bartenders a unique ability to control beer flow in a way that traditional beer taps can’t. The Guinness pour at Queue is still a traditional two-part pour, but the folks at Queue claim the precise control of flow results in a faster, softer cascade and a “meringue-like head.” They claim the resulting beer is smoother and better highlights the roasted barley’s coffee-like bitterness and chocolate notes. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder here, but those not stuck on tradition may find intrigue in this unique take on a centuries-old beer.
Queue’s Side-Poured Guinness is a dedicated tap at the bar, so whether you’re headed there on St. Patrick’s Day or on a night not famous for amateur drinking, you’ll find it on tap there for $10.
Upcoming Beer Events of Note
Brooklyn: Fame and Friends at Queue Beer, Saturday 3/14 from 1-6pm, free entry
Jersey City: 2026 Jersey City Brewsology at Liberty Science Center, Saturday 3/14 from 7-11pm, tickets start at $65
Brooklyn: Kolsch Service at Eckhart Beer Co., Saturday 3/14 from 6-10pm, free entry
Manhattan: Blind Tiger Ale House 30th Anniversary Party, Sunday 3/15 all day, free entry
Brooklyn: Orval Day 2026 at Fourth Avenue Pub, Saturday 3/21 at 1pm, free entry
Brooklyn: Welcome to Spring Beer Festival at Time Out Market DUMBO, Saturday 3/21 from 2-6pm, tickets $15
Long Island: DAS BOCK! New York's Original Lager Festival at Plattduetsche Park, Saturday 5/16 from noon-5pm, tickets start at $55
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 3,950
Total breweries visited in 2026: 27
Total breweries visited in Illinois: 94
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #3948, Suncatcher Brewing, Chicago, Illinois (Visited 7-Mar-2026)
I’m sure I’ve told a story like this before. I always like to ask friends in the beer industry if they know of any new or noteworthy breweries or beer bars in a city I’ve visited plenty of times before. Sometimes, I don’t even have to ask — they’ll see through social media that I’m in a city and immediately offer their opinion, as one friend of mine did on Saturday: “have you been to Suncatcher yet? It’s perfect.”
I don’t necessarily use that sort of language, but Suncatcher is pretty damn great. The beers are simple, straightforward, and no-nonsense: beer flavored beer. Delicate beers, too, like their American Pale Ale with Cascade and Centennial hops, a Pilsner with traditional European hops, and a 3.8% ABV Brown Ale with a complex malt bill and Michigan-grown Nugget hops that was easily the highlight of my entire weekend in Chicago (the hop choice in the Brown is not surprising — there’s a focus on regional ingredients in their beers).
The taproom, in a low-slung building by a train yard on West Chicago Avenue, is far more welcoming than its industrial surroundings let on, and the small bar comfortably sat a bunch of beer nerds who were jamming on their easy-drinking options. It was just a bit too windy to drink outside, but their sun-drenched beer garden is ideal for those sunny spring days when everyone in Chicago emerges from hibernation. I was a day off experiencing that myself, but I’ll be back to bask in the glory of their low-ABV beers again soon.
The Doom and Gloom Tracker
At least 2 breweries I’ve visited closed or announced their closure in the past week:
Brewery #97, Defiant Brewing, Pearl River, New York [Visited 12-May-2012]
Brewery #2131, Dirty Couch Brewing, Seattle, Washington [Visited 5-Apr-2021]
The Weekly Reader
One of New York State’s oldest craft breweries is changing hands [Will Cleveland, Cleveland Prost]
A conversation about milk tubes and lagers [John Holl, Think Beer, Drink Beer Podcast]
The sad auction of a vanishing brewery [Phil Cook, Beer Diary]
Some weird shit has happened in beer over the years [Jeff Alworth, Beervana]
One Last Thing
I can’t write this week without mentioning news from Chile of the incredibly tragic passing of Ben Wood. Longtime New York City beer drinkers might remember Ben from his days as a beer sales rep, particularly during his time with Ballast Point in the early 2010s. Ben had moved to Chile 13 years ago and started a bottle shop, then went on to open bars, work to launch breweries, and become a fixture of the nation’s craft beer scene. Anytime I would meet a beer nerd from Chile in my travels, they always knew who Ben was. Heck, some of them even worked for him. Ben was ambitious, passionate about beer, and always a fun guy to hang out with, and it’s truly shocking to hear of his passing.
Ben, I’ll raise a Sculpin in your memory soon.
Cheers,
Chris
Suncatcher is GD delightful place for a beer or four. 👍