The Revolution Production Brewery Opening

I've been really, really excited about Revolution opening up their production brewery here in Chicago since I first found out they were in the planning phase of the project. It's a monster facility (for a small-ish brewery anyways) and it's only about two miles from my house.

So when the opportunity to buy tickets for their Grand Opening party at the brewery came up, especially since it was billed as having 30 of their beers on tap I quickly snatched a couple for the lady and I. A few of my college buddies and guys from Square Kegs (my club) also bought tickets, so I was pretty stoked leading up to the event.

The brewery itself is a pretty awesome space. It is, in fact, HUGE. They've got a serious brewhouse and a  pretty significant number of fermentors and tanks in, as well as part of their canning line. There's a ton of space for them to grow and it looks like it's going to crank once it comes on line.

And now for the downer. I'm not sure if my expectations for the event were out of whack, if I'm just getting a little crusty in my old age or if they just totally oversold the event. I was expecting to leave full and having a decent buzz on from tasting a handful of beers they don't normally have at the brewpub. This wasn't the case. The lady and I waited (no exaggeration) 45 minutes in one of the lines criss-crossing and snaking around the space outside of the brewery for one of the food trucks and gave up.

From what I could tell, there were only three to four pouring stations including the tap room and I didn't find any new or different beers. I assume they were in the tap room, which was totally packed. The beer lines took about ten to fifteen minutes for each pass, and they were $4 pours.

I love these guys and their beer. I'm going to chalk this one up to them being unprepared for such a large event in a new, unfamiliar space and having no idea as to the kind of demand they'd face for beer. But the event left both the little lady and I with a bad taste in our mouths (pun intentional.) I'll be back and I hope that they can get their shit together for future events...