[A thesis on how a local brewery helped change the way I view beer.]

In high school I drank what I was handed. A friend who worked at the Phillips 66 Station who would just walk out the back door with vodka that tasted like insect repellent. Maybe that strange twenty-four-year-old Latino gangbanger who for some reason supplied us with forty-ounce bottles of Old English malt liquor.

Icehouse or root beer schnapps or St. Ides.

Aftershock and Goldschlagers.

At some point in my mid-twenties, I took to Guinness and Sam Adams Boston Lager. This was mostly because they seemed more upscale than what people in my hometown would order. I found myself striving to find ways to not fit in there. ⁽¹⁾

Like a lot of people in my age bracket who got in to craft beer in roughly 2007 or 2008, the idea started with brown ales and red ales and Sierra Nevada. This quickly mutated after a personal discovery of Bourbon County Stout and Zombie Dust – ushering forth, bursting into an era of snifters and bombers and growlers, and morphing to pumped up International Bittering Units. Over-the-top Citra hops.

Stouts that tasted like fluffernutters and Oreos. Alarmingly long boil times. The excess of American consumerism liquified and fermented, poured into tulip glasses and served to hype-heads like me.

I didn’t care about lagers and Pilsners. I first tried a Metropolitan Dynamo Copper Lager on tap at a random Chicago bar after work. I didn’t understand it.

At that point in life, all I wanted was a high gravity cherry bomb of hops. What I was sensing was something along the lines of an American macro beer, albeit admittedly a lot higher quality.

By 2011 if you were on the pumped-up plane of craft beer it simply became a personality trait. An all-consuming hobby of collecting and dissecting delicious puzzles. Waiting in lines and conversing with strangers – most friendships in that era of vintage redolence were forged and/or strengthened through beers that could basically just be considered cocktails.

In essence, it’s permaculture for me. It’s evolved, and beer is self-correcting, but personally, there’s no end in sight. I deal with the calories in various ways, but on average beer culture is mostly my escape.

I’ve come to highly appreciate bottom fermented, clean lagers just as much, or in theory, even more. In the beginning, the upselling and passion from beer aficionados that I’ve known, like my friend Evan, a no-nonsense street tough, as well as credible strangers singing praises of lager triggered intrigue.

Although I approached the styles with trepidation, I sat down at Bar on Buena after a dental appointment (which was tradition every six months) and I ordered a Dovetail Lager. It unlatched the floating hearts and unlocked the inquisition to establish more things cold-fermented.

Homebrewing was the mechanism that got me attached to grain bills. Selecting base malt combinations of Munich and Maris Otter, along with the aromas from milling my own heirloom grains at Brew & Grow and at home in my garage. Decidedly I was hooked in.

Oktoberfest and Bock and Doppelbock slowly but surely inched their way up my list of avidity. Luxurious liquid bread of the Monks, and the appreciation of beers created by Metropolitan with recipes where no off flavors could hide. Parlance and prototype. Warm hugs from two-row Autumn sown barley and cooked sugars.

Sometimes fruits, but no syrups. No candy bars designed to mask mousey notes. The only adjuncts contributing might be wheat, rye, oatmeal and unmalted barley. Perhaps coffee if you look at Jitterator Doppelbock.

A traditional level of hops for bittering, and appropriate doses of hops for aroma. The processes Metro honed spoke volumes to the craft, and the fact that the owners studied at Seibel Institute in Germany did nothing but lend even more credibility.

Somehow, along the way, Metropolitan Brewing, for me, went from normalcy to becoming a profound obsession. Climbing up the charts with every visit to the taproom bar and with every full litre pour of Generator and Heliostat Zwickel and Magnetron Schwarzbier.

Their taproom became my very favorite beer bar in the entire city. Situated right on the river in Avondale off Rockwell Street, right next door to my favorite coffee roastery, Metropolis. Going there and having an Arc Welder Dunkel Rye while sitting on the back patio watching boaters drift by was transcendental.

Metaphysical on an occult-like river wave.  

The first time I visited, it was an empty brick building where I had to sort of guess where I was going. Massive walls of exposed masonry along an extended vacant corridor. Castlesque iron sliding doors with high ceilings and exposed ductwork gave it a cavernous feeling of wonderment.

The branding and artwork featuring cartoon robots gave Metro an affection all its own.

One day I went there with a few friends around 6 PM, hell bent on just drinking beer there until they closed up shop. That’s exactly what we did. You could order burgers from the original Kuma’s Corner located mere blocks away. That’s exactly what we did.

There’s just something about a High on Fire, medium temperature with roasted red pepper and some sort of sauce – grease and umami paired with a dry Humbucker Dortmunder, a beer collab with Kuma’s. If you’re ever curious about a taste of culinary heaven, I’ve unlocked the cheat code here in the Parchment of the New Covenant.

I once literally chose a therapist to work with because her office was one block away from Metro Avondale taproom. I can’t be sure exactly what that says about me, but my best assumption is that it points to good decision making. ⁽²⁾

The Radler

We visited The Radler on Milwaukee Ave, the final night it was open in 2019. The German restaurant and beer hall was a staple for Bavarian cuisine in a traditional communal setting. A massive grandfather clock and a vintage mural on barren brick behind the bar – previously painted over, and uncovered by accident when they were preparing to open in 2013.

We drank illustrious, giant glass mugs of Metropolitan Haϋs Helles, the house beer always on tap at The Radler. We ate housemade sausage and big soft pretzels brushed with barley malt butter with a side of blackberry jam. The Metropolitan Brewing staff was seated at the next table over from us. ⁽³⁾

…

The patio at the Metropolitan Avondale venue was the first taproom I ever brought my twin daughters to, at about two months old. During Covid, in August 2020, fully masked up like a bunch of freaks, I’d remove my mask for a few seconds at a time to enjoy sips of a full German beer stein of Afterburner Märzen.

Metropolitan Brewing closed its doors on December 17^th, 2023. I paid tribute in a final belly up to the bar on December 15^th. I had a small window of time, so I ordered the singular, most epochal thing on the menu – a Bourbon Barrel Aged Generator Doppelbock, which won a medal at FOBAB literally one month prior.

I closed out and grabbed a final six pack of Flywheel Pilsner. Like every other depressed beer chump, I gave the taproom robots my final valediction and farewell. I ordered some sort of barbecue sandwich from a food stand and ate it on my sad-dad drive home.

Taking every useless precaution to not spill barbecue sauce on my hoodie, which was already reserved for the tears, I thought about what would become of that pristine bastion and bulwark.

I’ve since read that the Metro branding was sold at auction. I wonder where it may end up. ⁽⁴⁾

Most importantly I ponder what the next endeavors are for the brewers and former owners of Metropolitan Brewing Company. The watchtower and lighthouse they’ve been for me, a former hype boi, floating on a sea of foam and haze and India Pale Ale, metal goat horns raised searching for new hope in my saga of lager.

…

1. No offense.

2. I will note – “no”, I did not go to Metro to drink before therapy. Mainly just during.

3. It was highly confusing that The Radler, after closing, became some sort of PG-13 strip club and oddly it kept the same name. I don’t even want to know the story. But that iteration of The Radler shuttered shortly after as well, thank god.

4. I saw on 6/24/24 that the branding and portfolio for Metro was purchased by Shortfuse Brewing in Schiller Park.