Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
it's simple: the more beer brewed locally, the better it is. chicago used to be a big brewing city until milwaukee stole all of our thunder after the fire. anyone who wishes to brew beer of any brand in chicago is more than welcome.
lagunitas is already a fairly well known and well-liked brand in chicago. by brewing under the same name they don't have to start from scratch from an advertising/brand awareness perspective.
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Right this explains it a bit more.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...unitas-brewing
Why Lagunitas is opening a Chicago brewery ... and what it will mean for beer drinkers
April 10, 2012|By Josh Noel | Tribune Newspapers
On Feb. 24, Tony Magee, the founder and owner of quickly-growing Lagunitas Brewing, sent a photo to the world via Twitter that showed a brown-haired woman in a massive hangar-like space below the words, "What would YOU do with a space like this?"
The woman was Magee's sister, Karen Hamilton, who works in marketing for the brewery. And the space? It turns out Magee was working on bringing Lagunitas East to Chicago.
...
Lagunitas has signed a five-year lease on a former steel factory at 18th and Rockwell streets, in the Douglas Park neighborhood,
behind a film studio and sound stage. The lease includes multiple options that should keep the brewery there for at least 20 years, Magee said.
In beer drinking circles, the news was as huge as it was surprising; Lagunitas is one of the nation's fastest-growing breweries, with 2010 sales jumping 38 percent from the previous year, according to the most recent statistics from the Brewers Association. This year's sales are up 55 percent from last year, the brewery says.
...
Magee said he had been long concerned about both the amount of money and diesel emissions that the brewery expends while shipping to the 32 states where Lagunitas is available. In February, while driving to work, he was struck with an idea: instead of spending all that money to ship the beer thousands of miles, what about opening a second brewery in Chicago? ...
Magee said there was nowhere he wanted to be other than Chicago.
"It's frickin' Chicago, man," he said. "It's the crossroads of the country. There's only one Chicago. And I'm from there so I understand it."
...
.
The plan is for all Lagunitas beer distributed east of the Rocky Mountains will be made in Chicago. The brewery will easily be the largest in Chicago.
What will this mean for Chicago beer drinkers? A lot, probably.
Magee said he plans to open a tasting room in the center of the new brewery that will be surrounded by tall equipment. They'll likely offer tours and sell typical brewery swag
...
That said, the city and brewery already have a deep relationship; In recent years, Lagunitas has brewed several Chicago-only beers with input from the likes of Big Star, Publican and others.
.... Hamilton said Lagunitas will consider itself as much a Midwestern brewery — with the likes of Bell's, Founders and Goose Island — as a West Coast brewery.
"I've joked for years that we make a Midwest beer brewed in California," Hamilton said.
...."
In this link they state that they will add around 100 jobs.
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article...nds-to-Chicago
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Chicago is a different universe.
More updated info on the move.
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