Two Brothers Brewing Co.

This past Saturday afternoon, instead of doing yardwork outside the commissary or hanging out with the Hackknife family like I should be, I attended the second meeting of the newly-formed local beer enthusiast society, whose members consist of myself, my brother-in-law Dan, my cousin-in-law Bobby, and anyone else seeking enlightenment from hops and barley-based beverages. Our first get-together took us to the much-feted Three Floyds Brewery/Brewpub in Munster, IN last February and was deemed so successful by the attendees that we decided to make this event a semi-regular occurrence.

We kept our latest trip on the Illinois side of the border this time, traveling up to Warrenville, the home of Two Brothers Brewing Company. As with Three Floyds, Two Brothers is located in a nondescript area of a industrial park, making it somewhat challenging to find. Once there, however, the taps flowed and much enjoyment was, well, enjoyed. Leading our (free!) tour through the factory was restaurant GM Gabe, who may very well have a future career as a stand-up comedian someday. We received the full story of how the two brothers (Jim and Jason Ebel) got the business started and how it has evolved into the well-respected microbrew operation that it is today. Overall, I'd say the tour was more laid-back than the one we took at Three Floyds, with much humor, knowledge, and encouragement of beer consumption during the tour.

One attendee commented on how having a Two Brothers beer in Minnesota "changed his life", thus compelling him to visit the source. Although I'm not willing to go that far, I felt like the beers were very good, good enough for me to pick up a 24-bottle sample pack at Costco today (a crazy-ass good deal at $23.99, just like Gabe said) for drinking around the commissary after dinner service has concluded and the progeny are sound asleep. As I write this posting, I'm sipping a Bitter End pale ale, which is quite nice and mellow. I'm looking forward to cracking open a Cane and Ebel red rye ale (my personal favorite) and a Domaine Dupage French country ale at some later blogging date.