Cleetus Friedman Brings His Beer Collaborations To Fountainhead

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Sep 5, 2013 8:40PM

Photo credit: Anthony Todd/Chicagoist

There was a time years ago when chefs brewing beer was a novelty. Nowadays it’s so commonplace we wonder how some chefs manage to make time for cooking.

Exhibit A: Cleetus Friedman has been brewing beers in collaboration with Midwestern breweries for a couple years now and has become so proficient at it he could easily turn in his chef’s smock for whatever brewers roll out of bed wearing to make beer. Freidman has made some of the more popular rare beers in Chicago in recent memory, including Marsha Mallow’s Malted Milk Stout with New Holland Brewing and Terminator X with Greenbush Brewing.

Friedman, now helming the kitchen at The Fountainhead, is bringing back the collaborative beers with a vengeance in September. Starting Tuesday Sept. 10, he and Haymarket Brewing’s Pete Crowley will celebrate the release of “Rosemary's Red Devil,” a Belgian red ale with rosemary, Demerara sugar and burnt orange peel. That’s followed by Sept. 12 with the release of “27 Blocks,” a collaboration with Lake Effect Brewing Company. This is a fresh-hopped pale ale with grapefruit juice and charred grapefruit peel using hops from Hop Head Farms in Michigan. Lake Effect’s Clint Bautz will join Freidman for this release.

On Tuesday, Sept. 17, Friedman and Dark Horse Brewing’s Aaron Morse and Brian Wiggs will debut “Scary Jesus Rockstar,” an apricot and chamomile pale ale, and “Flat Sammich,” a malt liquor with roasted rye.

Each release party begins at 7 p.m.

The Fountainhead is located at 1970 W. Montrose Ave.