Off Color Brewing Now Open For Business
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Jun 20, 2013 8:50PM
Off Color Brewing, the highly anticipated new brewery from former Goose Island brewer John Laffler and former Two Brothers brewer Dave Bleitner, is now up and running, with their two year-round beers making their way towards draft accounts across the city.
Off Color celebrated their release of their beers at their Hermosa brewhouse Monday which was refreshing for the lack of pretense surrounding it. Most brewhouse events feature employees pouring the beers and offering extensive taste profiles. Off Color threw a good old-fashioned kegger, complete with bags of chips in various states of consumption on tables. (There may have even been a keg stand, although I didn't stay long enough to see.)
Now on to the beers. which we heartily recommend you search out. Troublesome is a gose, a rare German beer style that is becoming a go-to for many up-and-coming craft breweries. Troublesome isn't a straight Gose as it is a blend of a Gose with a wheat ale. A Gose is a kissing cousin to a Berliner Weiss, with a tart flavor on the palate that is tailor made for bullshitting in a backyard around a keg in the middle of July. It's a complex beer, but with a clean flavor and finish
Off Color's other year-round selection, Scurry, is a kottbusser that flips a long middle finger at Reinheitsgebot, the German Beer Purity Law. Think of a kottbusser as an alt brewed with a sweetener like honey or molasses—the former is used here. Scurry is a simpler brew than Troublesome, very malt forward with honey prominent on the nose and palate.
Laffler and Bleitner also had on hand some remaining Tonnerre Neige, their collaborative beer with Three Floyds that is a cross between an Belgian-style golden ale and Imperial saison, and Beer Geek Mus, a Russian Imperial stout teeming with the flavor of a heavy dark beer but at 3.5 percent alcohol by volume.