A Night at Local Option

I met one of my buddies for a few beers at The Local Option after a pretty rough couple of days at work last week. After a couple of prior visits with some mixed impressions of the place, I've come around on it. 


That said, I'm pretty sure that it's not the place for everyone. It's loud, they rotate their taps all of the time, and have one of the most eclectic selections in the city. They also don't go out of their way to make you feel particularly welcome or special. Apparently the owner loves to come back to the bar and blare metal on the weekends.


But there's something about the place that you just have to respect. It takes balls to run a place like these guys do. They contract brew three or four of their own recipes at regionally local brewers and run a list of mostly beers you wouldn't have heard of elsewhere. 


I had their "Anthony of Bourdania", a Vienna Lager brewed at Against the Grain down in Kentucky. A little kitschy in name and concept unless they've actually met Tony, in which case it'd rock. For a contract beer, it was solid. Highly drinkable, well brewed, definitely to style. 


And then on to the reason I like this place. I had a Lost Abbey Devotion and a Jolly Pumpkin Madrugada Obscura as the night went on. I'm not going to delve into why each of them was awesome, which they were, but the fact that they always have beers like these on tap is even more awesome. Neither are on tap at more than a couple of other places in Chicago and they're both awesome beers from breweries which do great work.


So for the record, I'm just fine with blaring metal, reasonably disinterested service and pulling up beermenus.com on my phone instead of staring at a list of beers without prices or descriptions knowing that every time I come here I'm going to find a well-curated list and be guaranteed to find something new I love.