Off Color Brewing Preview Shows Promise
By Chuck Sudo in Food on Mar 18, 2013 8:50PM
Off Color Brewing's John Laffler holds a Tonnerre Niege. (Photo Credit: Chuck Sudo/Chicagoist)
Laffler announced he was leaving Goose Island Beer Co. last November, one of many high-profile departures from the company in recent months, to start Off Color Brewing with former Two Brothers brewer Dave Bleitner. Since then the duo has worked furiously to build out their brewhouse near Armitage and Pulaski, laying piping, building the brew works (a 20-barrel system with a bottling/canning line is in place), sorting through the maze of tax and business paperwork (Laffler said they filed their state brewing application and secured River North as their distributor) and waiting for their fermentation tanks to arrive.
What Laffler and Bleitner haven’t done, at least for an extended length, is brew beer. Barring any obstacles, Off Color should be mashing in by the end of April. In the meantime, they’ve brewed off-site with a little help from their friends and offered a sneak preview last week at Black Rock in Roscoe Village. If the four beers brewed in preparation for the pop-up bar are an indication, Laffler and Bleitner will quickly establish Off Color among the more forward thinking breweries in Chicago.
Off Color presented guests with "Tonnerre Neige," a collaboration with Three Floyds that’s a cross between a Belgian-style golden ale and Imperial saison; a “half bock” brewed in collaboration with Haymarket Pub & Brewery; and two beers with Metropolitan Brewing — a pink pilsner and a smoked bock. Let’s start with the two Metropolitan collaborations first, as Off Color batted .500 with those.
The pink pilsner, brewed with purple heirloom rice, suffered from funkiness courtesy of dilactids on the nose that carried over to the palate and prevented the full flavor from coming through. Of the four beers, this one had the longest lasting bitterness on the finish and not in a good way. We did love the color, and would love to revisit this once Laffler and Bleitner have their own brew works online. The other Metropolitan collaboration was a revelation. For the smoked bock, Off Color and Metropolitan used maple to smoke 30 percent of the beer’s malt bill, which resulted in an amazing aroma that was like smelling a fresh house fire drenched by rain. But the sweetness of the malt cut through all the smoke and covered our palate like a syrupy, caramel glaze. If Laffler and Bleitner decided to make this a winter seasonal, this would jump to the favorites of beer geeks across Chicago.
The Haymarket collaboration — the half bock — originated from Laffler’s desire to make a session beer with some flavor. In this, he succeeded with what was our favorite beer of the four. Bright and clear on the pour this beer had a thick head that took its time to dissipate and did a great job highlighting some bright candy sweetness from the malt on the palate. It we were to see this on a tap list somewhere, we could drink this all night.
We could drink this half bock all day. (Photo credit: Chuck Sudo/Chicagoist)
The immediate favorite of the guests last Monday was easily the “Tonnerre Neige,” which translates to “Thunder Snow” in French. Off Color and Three Floyds used golden ale and saison yeast strains, imparting fruitiness to the palate, bready esters on the nose and a craggy, fast dissipating head. It will keep you warm on a day like this and the sweetness and alcohol content almost assure this to be a cold weather favorite.
Overall it was a promising sneak peek at what Laffler and Bleitner have in store once Off Color starts sending its beers out to market. The two are committed to placing their own twists to obscure German beer styles like gose and kottbusser. If the four beers we tasted last week are an indication, Off Color Brewing will find an audience for both hardcore beer geeks and casual drinkers looking for something besides Blue Moon.