This past weekend, I got to visit the Windy City - Chicago. The main purpose of this trip was to eat and drink my way through the city. With that said, one of the things we knew we had to do was a beer tour around town. So first things first: let's talk about our Chicago Beer Experience.
Chicago Beer Experience (@chicagobeerexp) is a tour company that takes groups of people (locals and tourists) around town on a beer crawl. We decided to take the Loop & South Loop Beer Tour, which took us to four different bars where we sampled 11 different beers while learning about Chicago's vice history - including gambling, saloons, crime bosses like Al Capone! - through stories told by our tour guide Phil. There is also a Lakeview & Lincoln Park Beer Tour, and a Bucktown & Wicker Park Bar Tour available. If you follow me on Snapchat, you would have caught this entire experience. But if you didn't, don't fret. I've recapped everything here for you. However, I won't be sharing my thoughts on all the beers, as I think it's more of a personal experience that you need to go try yourself ;)!
We started off our tour at Exchequer Restaurant & Pub, and got to try four beers. We learned a bit about how beer is brewed, and how to really 'taste' it. Did you know that if you take a sip of beer and 'chew' it, you would be areating the beer just like how people areate wine? Cool, eh!
 |
| Four Star pils (5.1%) - Goose Island, Chicago, IL |
 |
| Exchequer Amber (5.2%) - Stevens Point, Stevens Point, WI |
 |
| Daisy Cutter (5.2%) - Half Acre, Chicago, IL |
Our second stop was at Berghoff, which is actually the first restaurant in Chicago to ever get a liquor license! Here we got to taste four different beers as follows:
 |
| From left to right: DortWunder Lager (5.5% abv) - Berghoff, Stevens Point, WI Straight Up Hefewiezen (5.2%) - Berghoff, Stevens Point, WI Sir Dunkle Dark (5.5%) - Berghoff, Stevens Point, WI Rockin Bock (6.4%) - Berghoff, Stevens Point, WI |
The third stop was at Buddy Guy's Legends, where we got a full pint of either the Anti-Bero IPA (6.5% abv) or the Oberon (5.8%). I went with the Oberon, and am glad I did! I love beer but my stomach capacity fills up too quickly for my liking when I drink too much IPA. I had to save space for the last stop!
 |
| Oberon (5.8% abv) - Bells, Kalamazoo, MI |
-
And last but not least, we finished our tour off at Vice District Brewing Co. where we got to feast on Giordanas deep dish pizza while tasting the last 2 beers of our tour.
And last but not least, we finished our tour off at Vice District Brewing Co. where we got to feast on Giordanas deep dish pizza while tasting the last 2 beers of our tour.
 |
| Everleigh (6% abv) - Vice District, Chicago, IL Kitchen Sink #2 (5.9% abv) - Vice District, Chicago, IL |
Overall, S and I had a really great time on this tour! We definitely had a great Chicago Beer Experience tasting many different types of beers (that I typically would never order myself) while listening to Phil tell us story after story. If you don't like day drinking, they also have tours in the evening (5:30pm start time). I highly recommend doing this tour if you love beer, love listening to the tales of Chicago, and love meeting people who love the same thing as you!
*This beer experience was complimentary, however, please note that all my opinions made are my own.*
