[My Manifesto on Revolution Brewing, Logan Square – one of the Chicago Brewpubs that started it all].

In February 2010, Dave and I randomly sauntered into a brewery on Milwaukee Avenue in Logan Square. It had just opened. 

I remember asking the bartender if the brewery was based on Communism – mostly because of the company name, but also the line of tap handles of carved wooden fists and beer names being swayed toward the common man.

Anti-Hero, Civil Unrest, Working Mom.

She explained that, no, it’s not based on Communism, but it’s a tribute to the revolution of the craft beer movement as a whole.

The idea of taking on big corporate beer and capitalist encirclement appealed to me. Or not so much dismantling bourgeoises companies like AB-Inbev, as much as providing a super legitimate alternative means of production. Grain milled, water boiled, bittering and aroma hops added, and yeast pitched on site.

Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

I thought it was so cool that something like this existed in my hometown. This was of course a decade before there would be a peak of a menagerie of 9,000 breweries countrywide.

As I sit here in a 2026 post-Covid universe, more breweries are closing than opening for the first time in years. Gen Z doesn’t drink. The state of the nation sucks.

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I held Mike Canada’s bachelor party dinner at Rev Brewpub the same year it opened in October. Pints of Cross of Gold and Rosa Hibiscus Ale plotted cross the table in a chess game as our group of comrades of the Proletariat dined.

For years and years, the glassware was my common staple of Rev Brewpub – nonspecialized and improperly used for basically every style. Some sort of iconic tall crystal with divots along the bottom of the glass. I loved those vessels, and they represented a form of home for me every time I jumped up to a bar seat.

I’ve only been upstairs to the second bar on one occasion, with my friend Tim Zion. The oak stave and barrel ring décor was mindblowing to a craft beer patron in the years 2010 or 2011.

Again, this was core ideology, well before one million other breweries would adopt the same exact architectural layout of repurposed oak barrels. I still appreciate it, but it’s nothing new. The OG Rev location was just on top of it from the get-go.

I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve walked there from what every area of the city I was living in. Some days it was a really long trek. I suppose I’d almost consider it a hobby. Burning massive amounts of calories walking there and back, offsetting that with indulgence of an hombre burger and two or three beers as I brunched hard on a solo tip.

I enjoyed sitting at that giant, square wooden bar alone. I’d always strike up conversations of dialectical materialism with people I’d meet there. I once sat near Richard Dean Anderson of MacGuyer fame. I drunkenly referred to him as Neil Patrick Harris before he stared at me blankly.

I’d sometimes leave with a growler of Rise or Repo Man (but only on visits where I wasn’t walking home).

As the new democracy of the bomber movement took shape I’d collect various bottles. No cans, no six packs. Just twenty-two ounces of Red Skull and Oktoberfest in amber glass. They really homed in on barrel aging their Eugune Porter for a while in a series they started calling Deep Woods. This was years before they gave up and went the obvious (and better) route of barrel aging stout and barleywine. ⁽¹⁾

Bean Gene, Blue Gene, Mean Gene.

They had variants of all types tapped at the Milwaukee Ave brewpub. 

Once I had one that was aged on peaches called Georgia Gene and I remember a peanut butter one called PB Gene.

In more recent years, I’ve brought my kids there. The cozy booths were ideal for twin rabblerousing and coloring with crayons and gorging French fries doused in house made ketchup.

My final visit was one of serendipity. The Men-in-Laws, my group of fellow males in the class struggle who have all married into the same family, set our quarterly regime meeting there for early December 2024. Within the window of us setting a date and actually meeting, Revolution announced the closure of the Logan Square brewpub. This one hit hard. The final date of its existence would be December 14^th, 2024.

As we, the cadre, gathered that night to probe and theorize, my friend Ryan Fox joined us. Ryan is the barrel master for Revolution Taproom on Kedzie. He’s an ex-colleague, model worker from way back in the day, and a stand-up, solid dude. I will say early on I didn’t picture him as future beer deity but as the turn of events would show, he surely is God.

He comp’t the entire meal for all the Men-in-Laws that glorious night.

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As I now see every local brewery toppling one by one in a horrible, unstoppable domino effect I can’t help but feel like my main sad-man hobby is being ripped out from under me.

Whiner, Alarmist, Illuminated.

Metropolitan, Empirical, Greenbush.

I don’t want to know what’s next.

Alas, Revolution Brewpub, Milwaukee Ave Marx the spot on the shrine as one of a small handful of places that sparked the popular front from the beginning.

The central character lacking conventional craft beer heroic attributes, Antihero shines through as the most balanced IPA in my opinion. In a true representation of the OG Brewpub where it was first created, it’s the perfect balance of bittering hops, pine-y aroma hops, sweetness from the malt, and alcohol burn from actions created by yeast.

In the age of stories where Big Beverage has purchased the little guys and come full circle to divesting, Antihero is my “go-to” west coast IPA. In a narrative where the bad guys and good guys have become less distinguishable, the flagship is sometimes my lighthouse of hope.

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(1) They went off the rails in a spectacular fashion with their Straight Jacket series as well as Deth’s Tar barrel aged stout and all its glorious variants.

I want to mention how much of a stretch the Deth’s Tar pun is, though. First off, the assumption is that the stout looks like tar. Okay, got it.

The pun on Star Wars’ Death Star is a bit nuanced to begin with in that regard. But really the guy’s name is pronounced “Deeth”. So, any hardline fan will refer to it as “Deeth’s Tar”, which isn’t really a pun any longer because it doesn’t make sense and is no fun. I refuse to call it “Deeth’s Tar”.

I’ll always call it “Deth’s Tar” (pronounced like Death Star) at the risk of sounding like I don’t know what’s going on. This is purely out of an admiration for the art of the pun and my love for Star Wars in general.