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With a little more than a month before they were to shutter the windows and drop last call, Goose Island Beer Company has reached a deal with its landlord on a new lease, allowing the brewpub that started it all to stay open well past its proposed December 21 closing. Goose Island founder John Hall, in a press release, summed it up simply: "I could not be happier."
Goose Island Clybourn to Remain Open
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http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/rnr/1651849242.html
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Great to hear
Speaking as someone who won't be back in Chicago until December 28, I can honestly say that this is the best news in the history of all time.
I am pleased.
Yay, the self promotion is over. Neither the landlord nor the tenant wanted change - Goose Island just wanted the free publicity, and it worked. Thank you to the Berghoff for setting the news standard.
It was as if a great many trixies and chads cried out at once, and were suddenly silenced.
This is obviously an effect of the bad economy. Occasionly there are positive things that result from it. There is no way that original reason why it would have been neccessary to close, the area's gentrification causing a higher rent to price them out, is going to be an issue in this environment.
That area around the brewpub is quickly becoming a no-fly zone on weekends unfortunately. Although the struggling economy could leave all of that new construction in the lurch.
I hear the "brewpub" and the landlords actually feel bad about causing so much anguish to its button down sports jersey wearing clientel that it is providing turbo baby stroller parking right along side of their abundent SUV space
I haven't been to Goose Island in a few years, and I avoid North and Clybourn at all costs ... but I'm still hoping the self-appointed discerning ones will tell me which bars are cool and which deserve the same old tired generalizations that could have been tossed off ten years ago.
I'm with Pengln... since I won't be back until after 1/1/09, I'm glad to hear it. As bad as North/Clybourn is, Wrigleyville can be worse.
The Goose Island in Lincoln Park is really not as bad as everyone is making it out to be. And even as the cynics here describe it, which would you rather have? Another f'ing condo? Another f'ing useless store? A bigger Restoration Hardware? Get over yourselves. The people you're describe, the chads and the trixies, don't hang out at Goose Island. The people you're describing are probably looking for a dance floor and the Goose Islands don't do that. Shut up and be happy that a Chicago institution, producing some damn fine Chicago-made beer, is still going to be around for you to enjoy. Spook...I'm fairly certain you're the guy who's not from Chicago originally and seems to hate a lot of things about this fine city, always bitches about them, and yet still lives here. What's your problem?
Mikes ly1 and thoms, thank you for saying exactly what I was thinking.
Candidate Mikely1,
Thank you for your note. Please rest assured that If you are selected to present yourself before the selection Committee, you will (If approved) receive a list of the most chillest spots to see, be seen, and drink with the In Crowd in. I trust that If invited to present yourself before the Committee you will dress appropriately.
Mike Thoms
To answer your question of "why I'm still here", consider your Spook a younger more handsome version of Prince Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov who put down the Polish insurgents, masterly fought a campaign against Turkey, and in the Crimea took took bullet in the eye that caused it to sag in a grotesque way. You see, while Prince Kutuzov was exiled by Alexander to a country estate where he relieved the boredom that beset him (like a pack of wild hounds), and his rheumatic pains with drink and what ever sexual solace the rural retreat could provide, (his "appetites" by the way were as "notorious" as the late Biggie Smalls), I too have been exiled but only to this drab provincial town
with more modest accommodations that I must pay for out of pocket!
But like Prince Kutuzov who received the order to take command of the Russian Army and join forces with the Austrians against France, I too hope to one day be released to find glory and live out real dreams of grandeur.
So...you're the prince and the Polish Immigrants are...the chads and trixies? Which makes Crimea...I've lost myself. Anywho, you don't know what you're talking about.
Having said that, Mike popped his collar, checked his facebook on his iphone and with a wink declared "Come on, let's hug it out, bitches".
And you sir, you are the wind beneath my wings.
Whatever guy...at what point did Goose Island become a Chad/Trixie hangout? I mean Barleycorn is still open right? Is Goose drawing your ire because suddenly the beer isn't obscure enough for you? is the bar itself not dark enough or out of the way enough for you to hang out at? Is it the parking lot? nothing drives the hipsters away like a bar with a parking lot, I guess I see your point there. I mean bars in the suburbs have parking lots! Again, get over yourself. A true Chicagoan, by birth or by choice, should be happy with this news regardless of if they actually like the beer. And again I have to ask, what would you prefer replace Goose Island? What's your angle here, other than the bar is apparently where all the chads and trixies go.
I thought this for awhile now. Who, in this economy, would ever take over that space?
I'm glad cooler heads prevailed.
And spook probably can't hack it in new york and finds L.A to beneath him so he's stuck here until he can move to Warsaw.
1: I don't drink beer, liquor is quicker.
2: When I did, it was Guinness stout.
3: The goose island beer I have had, is piss-water.
4: The brewery itself was filled with bloated suburbanites sucking up fried foods by day and LP clones and drones by night.
5: If a bar has more televisions than bartenders, go drink at home.
yea, i find it all kind of comical. if the landlord had shuttered the doors and put up an urban outfitters instead the same crybabies here would be making a fuss all the same. these cynics are really the lowest form of life I've encountered...just too cool for school. hey, go move to inner city detroit instead, sounds like more your speed. it will certainly contain the "realness" you seem to be searching for, and you won't have to worry about running into a microbrewery for miles around.
Albany, from your televisions comment, I don't think you've ever been to the Goose Island Clybourn location. Maybe you're thinking of Wrigleyville?
Goose Island brews a lot of beers that don't make it into the 6-packs at your Dominick's, but are on tap at the Clybourn location and are very good.
Also, "I only drink Guinness" translates roughly to "I know fuck-all about beer but want to present a cooler-than-thou image." Much like Chad and Trixie. I'm sure Guinness is on tap at all those Lincoln Park "Irish Pubs" and that the lines are never cleaned, it's poured improperly, tastes like ass, and sells like crazy 'cause those morons don't know any better.
I know I can get a good beer at Goose Island and I'm glad they'll be around a while longer.
I like the Hex Nut Brown Ale. It is a beer that Chads, Trixies, minor Russian royalty, sport-shirt-wearing-yahoos, Saab drivers, hipsters, people who think they are hipsters but really aren't anything, acerbic know-it-all Chicagoist commenters, and Spook can all get behind. I am glad it will continue to be served on those awful days when I am forced to be near the North/Clybourn traffic clusterfuck. Thanks you, and God Bless Amurka.
Okay, everyone needs to calm down and drink a beer already.
@jimthebeerguy (right in the handle)
I come from a long line of proper Irish drunks, I knew how to pour a proper pint, in a proper pint glass, when I was still in grade school. You can't get a really decent pour in the states because the water and filtration in Ireland is markedly different. I don't put on airs about Guinness sir.
Like I said, beers not for me, and even Guinness is just bloating. I take my whiskey neat.
I've been to that location more than once. Family and job-related. I like my bars quiet and dark. The only place worse than Goose Island was the US Beer Company. Which should be bombed from space.
Does Goose Island do growlers? That used to be a favorite hobby of mine back when I'd go to Lake Placid brewery for beer.
If Goose Island brewed some kind of beer that tastes as bad as PBR or High Life and sold it for $2, would some of you stop complaining?
The Goose Island on Clybourn has great beer, taps a new brew every week, had decent food, and the wait staff is hard-working. What else could you want? Oh, I forgot, less collared shirts.
Worth reposting:
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31621
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5h2pao
Rest assured: those who came before you think they were cooler than you. Those who come after you will think they came first. Rinse and repeat. Multiply generalizations, snark and pretension by ten in an urban environment.
Listen, I love tight fitting, tapered leg black jeans, ironic t-shirts as much and beer brewed by trappist monks as much as the next guy. And I love drinking a beer I've never heard of in a bar that no one can find. But to single out Goose Island as some sort of stronghold for douchey guys with popped collars and golddigging Jetta drivers with purse dogs is ridiculous. Of all the terrible, awful, should be holes-in-the-ground bars in Chicago, you focus in on Goose Island? Sure the brewpub is nothing special, and if they didn't crank out some really damn good beer it would be just like every other bar & grill in Schaumburg. But it's been there 20 years and they've consistently brewed great beer and it's something Chicago is now becoming known for so it's good that it's staying open.
@JD84: Both Goose Island brewpubs sell growlers (one was even "BotW" in January).
I'm working on a post of local brewpubs and liquor stores that sell growlers. Stay tuned.
@Albany: Dude. That Guinness crack didn't go over at all, did it?
Jimbo, I always took you for a Hooter's kinda guy, you know, those buddies of yours, heading out for a night on the town.
Then again maybe Goose Island is where you take your dates( from Hegewisch) to impress them with
"decent food" and watered down beer with fake pint glasses before heading over to Excalibur. ;-)
You just described Chili's. Try the potato skins, they're AWESOME!
@Chuck:
My uncle paid a ridiculous amount of money back in the 80's to have Guinness shipped over from the motherland for the various wakes and weddings. The razor line between black and white you get from a barman in Cavan or Galway? No comparison.
Chili's brews their own beer? Is that what this is about? Goose Island looks like a suburban bar so it automatically sucks? You're a moron.
There are some great suburban bars. Lots of places to watch television, eat hot wings and talk about that bitch of a boss. Good friends, good eats, ranch dressing on the side. Come on down to Chili's tonight Mike!
I kinda resent Albanyparkerour attempting to out funny me! Attempt I said!
p.s any beer drinker worth thier barley knows you can't get decent Guinness in Chicago. Heck I only drink extra stout out the bottle( inceasingly harder to come by) when I want a Guinness or I get on a plane to The NYC and head to Molly's on 3rd Ave. btw...Try the house shrimp with tabasco sauce and tell em Spook sent ye!
"Lots of places to watch television, eat hot wings and talk about that bitch of a boss."
Wait, is this supposed to be a bad thing?
Wait, are you blind, vegan and unemployed?
"any beer drinker worth thier barley knows you can't get decent Guinness in Chicago"
Emmit's pours a near perfect pint.
reading through these comments just gave me a headache. i'll take a bourbon county stout please!
from the motherland
Ah, are we going to go on this wannabe-psuedo-Irish rant, with the logic that because your last name begins with an "O'" or a "Mc" you know more about beer and "real liquor".
People need to chill out. It's just beer...
@JD84:
Oh my, someone is jealous.
My name begins with neither, it's an ugly, unpronounceable Gaelic one that every teacher and telemarketer has butchered my whole life.
Irish whiskey is a pure good thing. I don't claim secret knowledge or special powers. But if you're going to drink murky water you can get crystal light for a lot cheaper.
I go to bars to talk to people, drink and hear music. I can watch tv at home, eat at a restaurant and bitch on the internet.
But bourbon is whisky, perfected.
As for perfect pints of Guinness in Chicago, I miss Gunther Murphy's. They poured the best pint in the city, and one of the best in the country this side of Galway bay.
You can try your hand and find a very good one at Cork & Kerry in Beverly, where many of the residents emphasize the "Irish" in "Irish American" to an extreme degree.
"I go to bars to talk to people, drink and hear music. I can watch tv at home, eat at a restaurant and bitch on the internet."
Is your whole life this compartmentalized? From what I remember about you, you don't care for sports, so I guess that's why you don't like watching TV in bars, but eating food while drinking at bars is FUN, and you can talk to people too while doing it. BTW, bitching about one's boss is a subset of "talking to people."
Chuck: I too miss Gunther Murphy's, and not just for the Guinness. The staff were all friendly and whenever we played in the back room we weren't stiffed for money or drinks, which is more than I can say for a certain similar venue up the street...
Bourbon is fine, but having been introduced to the carnal pleasures of ,
Chuck, you ever hear of a place called "Grand Hill"? It was a no name/no sign place, on the northwest side. Closed up in the nineties some time. The owner was a family friend. Kind of place that served the perfect steak and had a tiny bar filled with kindly old Irish men occasionally breaking out in a song. They poured pints of Guinness that had a slash like a razor and went down cool, but not cold. I had my first pint there at 16.
I was going to say the please of pot-still whiskey. Just wonderful stuff.
Spook, let's be serious, I take my dates to Duffy's - those seasoned waffle fries do the trick every time.
I work up the street from Goose Island and make a stop a few times a month. Other than the clientele being overwhelmingly Caucasian there isn’t a particular subset (hipsters, preppies, etc.) that seem to hang here. Fairly good beer, food, and wait staff, and there’s a parking lot or street parking if you know where to look and can walk a block. I’m happy to see it stay open and I’ll be having a birthday celebration here at the end of the month. I hope Spook comes so that I can gain some knowledge.