The Best Craft Beer Bars in Chicago

Revolution is the largest craft brewery in Illinois and the Logan Square brewpub is where everything started. The Anti-Hero IPA remains one of the most reliable everyday craft beers available anywhere in the country, and the Deep Wood barrel-aged series — released in limited quantities through the brewpub — is worth planning your Chicago visit around. The kitchen is legitimately good. This is not a brewery restaurant where the food is incidental.

Order: Anti-Hero IPA or a Deep Wood series barrel-aged release

The Goose Island story is complicated by its acquisition history, but the original Clybourn brewpub still produces beers on-site that are unavailable at the larger production facility — and the Bourbon County Brand Stout, conceived in this building, remains one of the most important barrel-aged beers in American craft brewing history. Visit on a Friday and order whatever single-batch pilot beer is on the chalkboard alongside the BCBS.

Order: Bourbon County Brand Stout or the current brewpub-only pilot

Spiteful operates out of a narrow storefront in North Center and produces some of the most character-driven IPAs in Chicago. The GFY IPA is the flagship and earns its name — assertively bitter, clear West Coast style, and confident enough to make no apologies. The taproom fits about thirty people, which keeps it intimate and ensures the rotating guest taps get attention rather than being ignored in favour of the familiar handles.

Order: GFY IPA or the rotating seasonal

Forbidden Root brews with botanicals, herbs, and ingredients that most craft breweries would never consider putting in a kettle. The resulting beers are not gimmicks — the Lemon Grass Ginger Wheat and the Sublime Ginger Ale are genuinely excellent by any standard, not just "interesting for a beer with ginger in it." The West Town space is warm and designed for lingering. The cocktail programme is worth ordering alongside the beer if you are with a non-beer drinker.

Order: Northwoods Lager or the current botanical special release

Marz is the Bridgeport taproom that has spent ten years being exactly what a neighbourhood brewery should be: connected to its community, honest about its beer, and consistently better than expectations. The Jungle Boogie Pale Ale is the kind of accessible, flavourful beer that converts casual drinkers into craft beer regulars. The food programme — focused on Chicago's Mexican food traditions given the neighbourhood — is outstanding.

Order: Jungle Boogie Pale Ale or the Baja Radler in summer

Half Acre's Lincoln Square taproom is the most comfortable sitting-and-drinking space in Chicago. The Daisy Cutter Pale Ale — their flagship and still one of the best pale ales being made in the Midwest — is available alongside a rotating selection of small-batch releases that never feel forced. The outdoor beer garden fills up in summer and the indoor space is properly designed rather than a converted warehouse with furniture added as an afterthought.

Order: Daisy Cutter Pale Ale or the current small-batch IPA

Hopewell has built their reputation on doing unfashionable things well: clean lagers, precise pilsners, and restrained IPAs that do not shout for attention. The Lager — capitalised because they apparently feel that is sufficient description — is one of the best American-made lagers available in a taproom setting. The space on Milwaukee Avenue is airy and the crowd is a reliable mix of Logan Square regulars who take quality seriously without taking themselves too seriously.

Order: The Lager, full stop, or the Dilly Dally Pale Ale

Dovetail makes the kind of European-traditional beers — Hefeweizen, Rauchbier, Vienna Lager — that require patience and commitment to produce correctly, and they produce them correctly. The Rauchbier is the most technically accomplished smoked beer being made in Chicago, full stop. The taproom in Ravenswood feels like it belongs in Munich rather than the Midwest, and the long, unhurried pace of the afternoon service here is exactly right for the style of beer they are pouring.

Order: Rauchbier or the Hefeweizen

Begyle sits a few blocks from Dovetail and takes the opposite approach: accessible, hop-forward ales for Ravenswood's considerable population of outdoorsy young professionals who want good beer without the seminar. The Crash Landed Pale Ale is one of the easiest-drinking well-made pale ales in the city, and the pizza kitchen partnership — rotating food trucks or the permanent kitchen depending on the season — makes for a complete evening.

Order: Crash Landed Pale Ale or the rotating IPA

Whiner produces French-influenced farmhouse ales and sour beers from the Fulton Market district, and their taproom is a destination for anyone who has been disappointed by the generic sour ale programmes everywhere else in Chicago. The wines vinaigrette series — blended with Illinois wine grape juice — occupies a territory between beer and natural wine that is unlike anything else in the city. Come here specifically for the mixed-culture fermentation work.

Order: Le Tub Farmhouse Ale or the current sour programme release