Chicagoist's Beer of the Week: Ale Syndicate's Richie Imperial Porter
By Jason Baldacci in Food on Mar 22, 2013 9:30PM
About a month ago, we wrote about a new brewery called Ale Syndicate that's opening soon and we said that we should start seeing their beers around town as early as March. Well, it's been March for a few weeks now, and as promised, we've seen Ale Syndicate on tap at a few of our favorite watering holes.
Richie is Ale Syndicate's Imperial Porter and it packs a bit of a punch. There's a big note of cocoa nib that dominates right up front, with more subtle hints of blueberry and coffee that come through on subsequent sips. The hops in this beer are very subdued, but there is a dusting of citrus and spice that comes across if you look for it. One of our favorite things about this beer though, is the texture. At 8 percent alcohol content, it's full-bodied and roasty, but also almost chewy. All of the dark malts come together very nicely and impart an essence of leather and tobacco (this is a good thing) that help make Richie incredibly smooth, pleasantly bitter, and very well rounded.
As the beer drinking public has probably noticed, Ale Syndicate is only one of many new breweries that are starting up here in Chicago, as opening a brewery in Chicago seems to be a trend that isn't slowing down any time in the near future. What do all of these new breweries mean for us beer drinkers? More options is the obvious answer, but it's also a precursor to a shifting beer landscape in our fair city.
Chicago became a great beer town by having a handful of local guys doing good things, and by having some of the best breweries in America sending their beer here for distribution. There's a lot of great beer here already, which means that the newcomers who plan to thrive will need to have their standards set pretty high to begin with. The big question to ask though, is that if the number of local breweries continues to grow at the current rate it has been, just how much beer can we drink? Will Chicago have a beer culture similar to those of Boulder County, Colorado and Portland, Oregon, where local beers completely dominate the scene? Or will our local breweries here start sending their beer out of state to continue growing at the rate they'd prefer? Are we smack dab in the middle of a beer bubble, per se? Personally, we think it'll most likely be a healthy mix of many different factors, but either way, it's a pretty exciting time for craft beer drinkers. All we can really do at this point is enjoy a few pints, and demand the best product our local breweries can put out.
Ale Syndicate has a list of bars and restaurants on their website who have carried the Richie Imperial Porter already, which you can find here.