Emmett's Ale House

I had written what I thought was a pretty funny intro to this post dealing with NASCAR, in the end I decided that NASCAR really has no place in this blog (no matter how cool I think it is), so I deleted what I had started. NASCAR will make a cameo in a post though (besides this one), so be prepared.

As mentioned in the above post (which as I write this hasn't even been created, weird huh), I visited two different breweries in the suburbs this weekend. Today I ate lunch at Emmett's Ale House in Downers Grove. It was your standard brewpub, good food, good beer, good atmosphere. If it matters (I think it does), I had a delicious buffalo burger with blue cheese and bacon, that is a tough combination to beat. If you haven't had a buffalo burger try one, I think they dominate traditional beef burgers (sorry dad, its true). Sorry for the digression...beer. They had a decent line up of I believe six beers at the time, of which I was able to sample five on their beer paddle (yes, it was actually a paddle with five beer samples on it). I was a fan of the Red Ale they had and it paired with my meal nicely.

The area they had their brewing equipment was very small, especially for having a two vessel brewing system and 3 fermenters. For the second time in a week I found a brewery who had a fermenter that was bigger than their mash/lauter/boil capacity. It was a 15 bbl system and one of their fermenters was a 45 bbl fermenter, so they have to brew three times to fill that fermenter (If you just wondered if I used a calculator to do that math, no, I am able to that sort of math even after a few pops). Maybe I mentioned this in the last post about Metropolitan, but that is a very interesting concept that I had never heard before. It will be something worthwhile to look at as I start to price different equipment and the overall business plan. Once again I got a few pics that are below. I didn't actually talk to the brewer or get to go inside the room, so these pictures are both from the windows in the pub.

2-Vessel Mash/Lauter Tun and Brew Kettle, 15 bbls

Fermenters, one on the left is 45 bbls, others are 15 bbls. Rail on the lower left is the steps to the brew kettle, very small brewery

If you think having pictures in the blog is high tech, just wait until the next post, you could be blown away.