Half Acre, Engineering, and more Italian Beef

 Last week started off with a visit to Half Acre. We were able to go to their production facility which is absolutely beautiful. They have a 30bbl four vessel BrauKon system. The staff were awesome and you could tell everyone there loved their job.

 Here is their lab, which wins for best sign!

This was a true treat, we got to have couple hour old Daisy Cutter. It was still wet from the canning line and it was fantastic. As far as the rest of the week, we did not do anything of great interest beside our classwork. The lectures shifted from micro and bio to engineering. We covered bottle, can, and keg filling, pumps, pressures, problem solving, pasteurization, fluid flow, automation...you get the idea. It also has dawned on us that we are a few short weeks from being in Germany!

 Here are a few pics from my continued quest for the best Italian Beef. Above is Portillo's and it was good, but not as good as Joe Boston. The beef was just a little dry however the bread was really good. Impressive considering they are a chain.

We also had Al's, which was a nice change of pace because their sandwich was way different than most. The beef was more finely chopped and they put a good amount of peppers on it. I got it dipped as well, but the beef was still just a little dry. The peppers were probably the best peppers I have had and almost made up for the beef. The flavor was spot on, but just short of Joe Boston's.

This week we have more packaging and engineering, but I know most of us are already looking forward to Germany and the practical portion of the class. Me and the roommates are planning a couple adventures this week, so hopefully will have more pictures for my next post.

Catching up

Last week flew by and I did not post. Good thing I did very little over this weekend, so I can talk mostly about what we did last weekend.

Emilia and I hosted my roommates for a fun filled weekend in Milwaukee. This worked out well because I do not get to play tour guide very often in Milwaukee. On Friday night we stopped at the opening party at Blackfinn in Brookfield. Emilia is working there, so we popped in for dinner before heading home for some relaxing beers after the long week. Saturday morning we started out at Lakefront Brewery...

It was a great tour and our tour guide was hilarious. Pretty neat little brewmaster's box above the brewery. We all agreed that we need to have one of those in our future. From craft to macro we go as we headed over to Miller.

Hey look! Sausage in the shape of a Miller bottle, why not?

These are the brew kettles and lauter tuns at Miller. Wow. 

 

Old school beer tools down in the old cellars

The tour at Miller was pure marketing, but that did not stop us from having the best High Life I have ever tasted. Then we went over to the old Pabst Brewing building and the Best Place. We missed the tour, but we got to meet one of the owners of the new Pabst project, which is very exciting revival for Milwaukee.

Beard envy, except Ryan he just wants the beer

After that we grabbed a quick snack at Conejito's before going to the Great Lakes Distillery. Yes, this is all still one day. Great Lakes is a pretty small operation, but they are putting out some quality product. We got to taste some of the their recent bottlings that are not sold yet and they are quite good.

Here is their setup including their new pot still on the left. Apparently it is haunted with some type of Tiki curse, so they got a great deal on it. After the tour, we grabbed a quick beer at Sugar Maple while we discussed where to have dinner. We decided on my favorite Indian restaurant, Majaraja. I first was introduced to Majaraja by my cousin over 15 years ago and it still never gets old. After dinner we headed home for one last beer before crashing after the long day. The next morning, we got a late start, but after making breakfast for lunch we headed to the Harley Davidson Museum

 Found my bike! Bad to the bone

 After the museum, we went to the Milwaukee Ale House for lunch. This was the original location for what now is Milwaukee Brewing Co. Next time I will have to check out their production facility.

 I mentioned in my last post that I had a superior Italian Beef than Johnnie's. It was at Joe Boston's, which just happens to be right down the street from our apartment. Walking in you would not know it, but the italian beef was superb. The moist beef really set it apart, along with the fact that despite the reduced quantity of hot peppers, the flavor was excellent and just as flavorful as a sandwich overstuffed with peppers. We also tried the italian sausage, which was good but have to give the edge to Johnnie's italian sausage.

 American Styles tasting on Wednesday. Some heavy hitters in this line up and we walked to and from school with this in mind. We got our steps in for sure.

 Guinea pig for some test beer thanks to Marc. He is a brewer at Goose Island and was part of our class for the last two weeks while they do some renovations at the facility. As far as classes, this past week was really informative, but it was a lot of information. I do not feel great about the test. I really spent a lot of time studying things that were not tested on very much. I really learned a lot, so I am trying to focus on that rather than be focused on my score for this one. We finished off the week with a visit to Revolution.

I have been here a few times before, but this time we got a special tour from the managing partner, Josh Deth, aka "Chairman of the Party."

Here is the bottom of one of their new fermenters. They also put in a brand new brewhouse and a wet mill that will increase their production capacity by a ton. They clearly are the leaders of the local craft beer movement in Chicago, but there are many others that making some awesome beers. My roommates went to Off Color over this weekend and were blown away by their stuff. I have had a few of their beers, but I have to make it down there to check the brewery out. Tomorrow, we are going to Half Acre for a visit as well, so we will get that tour we were looking for after all!

ISO: Best Italian Beef, FT: Beer Knowledge

Going to split this update in two posts, this one will cover last week and my next one will cover the weekend. Last week was a long one with challenges inside the classroom and out. The content last week was difficult and I am glad that I at least had a base of biochem to build on. The test was harder than then previous two, but did ok on it despite some very debatable questions.

As usual, we spend the majority of our time studying. We did however make an effort to see some surrounding breweries and local food spots between class and hunkering down.

 This is supposedly one of the top Italian Beef joints in Chicago. It was in fact excellent, but we have plans to visit some others to see how it stacks up. Spoiler alert!! We went to another one today and it was better. If you have any recommendations please send them my way, ISO: Best Italian Beef, FT: Beer Knowledge. For those of you who are not immersed in the world of beer nerd-dom, ISO is internet beer geek speak for In Search Of, and FT is For Trade. These are used in the online beer forums to arrange trades of rare beer that you are looking for (ISO) and what you are willing to trade for it (FT)

 We stopped by Half Acre for a quick beer. We were looking to go on a tour, but they were not offering any that day. The bartender was not a very friendly individual and was unable to handle interaction with other humans in a reasonable manner, so we cut our visit short and found a neat little German bar on the way home.

 Apparently this place has been a German beer hot spot for over 60 years! Trying some good authentic German beers really got me excited about trying fresh German beers in less than a month!

 Another day we went to JJ Thai, which a Thai Street food place down the street from us. It is unlike any Thai I have ever had and it was fantastic.

 Some different flavor profiles from most Thai, very interesting and still has that nice spicy kick that I crave. It will be hard not to eat here again before we leave.

 After Thai, we stopped by a new brewery called Forbidden Root. They are an infusion/science themed pub. All of their beers have some type of infused herb, root or spice. Made for some really good interesting beers and for some 'not my flavorite' beers.

 Barrel Aged Heavy Petal...this one was good.

 On Wednesday, we had another sensory session. This one had more off flavors and some sometimes desirable characteristics from fermentation.

 One night, we stopped by Piece Pizza for dinner because the brewer is a Siebel grad and heard the pizza does not suck either. There were a bunch of awards everywhere, but the pizza did steal the show.

 Huge pizza! Ryan is very excited.

 On Wednesday we whipped up tacos to fuel a long night of studying.


The week was also an emotional one, as my grandma, Adela Mateo, passed away. Technically, she was my step-grandma because my Dad's Mother passed away before I was born, but like she always said "I love you just like you are one of my own." She was such a loving person and was a blessing to our family. I have so many wonderful memories from teaching me how to make a Cuban soffrito (base for many Cuban dishes), to picking me up from preschool, to spending the summer with me, my Grandpa and cousin in Malaga Spain, to playing cards as recently as January when we stayed up past 1:30am playing Continental (over 5 hours straight!) because she would not quit until she won. I feel very fortunate that I was able to run up to Milwaukee for services on Thursday evening, that really helped to process everything. I love you Adela, I miss you already.