Chicagoist's Beer Of The Week: Half Acre's Lead Feather

By Jason Baldacci in Food on Mar 13, 2015 8:30PM

This week we're taking a look at a new, year-round offering from one of the darlings of our local brewing scene.

Lead Feather is being billed by the folks at Half Acre as a Black Ale. We're glad they chose a vague description, since this beer isn't really a porter (although early rumblings and artwork from the brewery referred to it as such) and it's certainly not a Black IPA. Lead Feather is just a solid, flavorful dark beer that doesn't knock you over the head with any one thing. Obviously it pours as dark as can be in the glass, with frothy, mocha-colored foam on top and a nice aroma of roasted coffee, cacao beans and earthy hops. On the palate it's a little punchy out of the gate, with a quick pop of roasty bitterness, but it levels out quickly to reveal a crisp, easy-going malt profile overall. The earthy hops we picked up on the nose lend nice hints of pine and lemongrass. And we'd be disappointed in ourselves if we failed to mention the underlying note of bittersweet chocolate that rides through the whole thing from start to finish. At 6% alcohol content, we're just going to assume we'll be drinking heaps of this stuff no matter what the weather is like outside.

Half Acre has been growing at a very speedy rate ever since they rolled out their first beers in 2007. Over the last year they've been working on a new facility that will allow them to keep up with the demand for their product. They put out a blog post this week that hints at the new facility being at least partially operational, since they warned us that they'll no longer be able to sell cans of beer at the Lincoln Avenue brewery store, their license only allows them to sell beer that was packaged on the premises, since they're no longer canning at that location. While they didn't come out and say it, we have to assume that if they're not canning on Lincoln Avenue, they're canning somewhere else.

Lead Feather is available on draft in a bunch of places around town and will be available in cans soon. Check beermenus.com to see where you can crush a pint this weekend.