The Golden Goose

Or the brewery that launched a thousand others

A quick note: turns out a side project tends to get, well, sidelined when the main projects (aka our “real jobs”) get rowdy. Sorry for the radio silence! New in-person events will be announced soon.

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There’s a new Pope. Did you hear? He’s from Chicago¹. Because are an insufferable people who love our city to the point of religious zealotry, we collectively lost our minds over the announcement. While my social feeds were full of my neighbors going completely apeshit, occasionally a post would sneak through from beyond the City of the Big Shoulders, like this one shared by Snaxshot:

Snaxshot shared some bangers following the papal announcement, but naturally this one from Jon Drake was a favorite of mine.

I reposted that slide to my Instagram stories and my inbox filled up with my local beer buddies saying what a terrible choice that was, but their ire was mostly directed at the choice of IPA (and that horrifying goose thumb), not at the selection of Goose Island Brewery.²

Goose Island got its start in Chicago in 1988³ as a brewpub on the near-northwest side (RIP Clybourn). For a deep dive into the history of Goose Island, I cannot recommend enough that you head to your nearest book store or library and pick up a copy of Josh Noel’s Barrel-Aged Stout and Selling Out. Not only is it a great overview of how Goose went from a brewpub to a massively well known global brand, it also shines a light on the brewery’s influence, following some of the branches that grew from Goose Island.

Goose was a natural inclusion for our exploration of “The Class of 88.” Among the many breweries that opened in 1988, few have had as wild a ride as the (alleged) inventors of barrel-aged stout.

What a year for American beer

There may be a bit of local bias at play, but I firmly believe Chicago beer wouldn’t be anywhere near the powerhouse market that it is without Goose Island. And I know that my career—and my appreciation for beer and the culture around it—wouldn’t be what it is without Goose Island.