All About Beer Demo Virtual test : Page 26

PULL UP A STOOL WITH Greg Hall Goose Island Brewing Co. Goose Island was the first brewpub I ever visited, not too long after you opened. Tell me how the brewery began and how you moved into the company. My father [John Hall] was in the paper packaging business, which was a good business, but about the least sexy business there is. And he was on the financial side, the least sexy part of the least sexy business. In the mid-eighties, the company he worked for was bought by a competitor. In his work life, he’d done quite a bit of traveling. Everywhere he went, he enjoyed the local beers. He always came back to Chicago where everybody drank beer, but where there wasn’t any local beer. It seemed to be a tremendous opportunity just waiting to happen. He went out on a limb, for a pretty conservative guy, and decided to open a brewery and a restaurant at the same time, without any experience in either one of them. Who took on the brewing? Victor Ecimovic became the first brewmaster when we opened in 1988. I was at the time a student at the University of Iowa. My father offered me a job for the summer as Victor’s assistant. Itwas glorious. Itwas the most fun I ever had. And the best part was that at the end of the day, we’d made a batch of beer, and we’d go off to the bar and not only be able to drink it, but have all these people say “Wow, you guys made this beer here in Chicago?” Itwas more exciting than anything I’d RICHMOND,  21st Amendment Brewery Abita Brewing Co. Anheuser-Busch Bard’s Tale Beer Co. Bavik Brouwerij Bitburger Brauerei Black Sheep Brewery Blue Mountain Brewery Blue Point Brewing Co. Bluegrass Brewing Co. Bosteels Brewery Boston Beer Co. Boulder Beer Co. Breckenridge Brewery Brewdog Brewery Brooklyn Brewery Carlow Brewing Co. Chimay Trappist Brewery Coopers Brewery Crispin Cider Co. D.L. Geary Brewing Co. Dogfish Head Craft Brewery DuPont Brewery Erie Brewing Co. Firestone Walker Brewing Co. Florida Beer Co. Fordham Brewing Full Sail Brewing Co. Gaffel Becker & Co. Gordon Biersch Heavy Seas Beer Heineken Brewery Hoegaarden Brewery Huyghe Brouwerij Jever Brewery Kaiser Brewery Kona Brewery König-Brauerei Köstritzer Schwarzbierbrauerei Lao Brewery Co. Legend Brewing Co. Lion Brewery Magic Hat Brewing Co. McSorley’s Brewery Michelob Brewing Co. Moctezuma Brewery Newcastle Breweries North Coast Brewing Co. Old Dominion Brewing Co. Original Sin Hard Cider RICHMOND, VIRGINIA 26 ALL ABOUT BEER VOL. 31, NO.4 SEPTEMBER 2010 THANK YOU!

Pull Up A Stool

With Greg Hall Goose Island Brewing Co. Goose Island was the first brewpub I ever visited, not too long after you opened. Tell me how the brewery began and how you moved into the company. My father [John Hall] was in the paper packaging business, which was a good business, but about the least sexy business there is. And he was on the financial side, the least sexy part of the least sexy business. In the mid-eighties, the company he worked for was bought by a competitor. In his work life, he'd done quite a bit of traveling. Everywhere he went, he enjoyed the local beers. He always came back to Chicago where everybody drank beer, but where there wasn't any local beer. It seemed to be a tremendous opportunity just waiting to happen. He went out on a limb, for a pretty conservative guy, and decided to open a brewery and a restaurant at the same time, without any experience in either one of them. Who took on the brewing? Victor Ecimovic became the first brewmaster when we opened in 1988. I was at the time a student at the University of Iowa. My father offered me a job for the summer as Victor's assistant. It was glorious. It was the most fun I ever had. And the best part was that at the end of the day, we'd made a batch of beer, and we'd go off to the bar and not only be able to drink it, but have all these people say "Wow, you guys made this beer here in Chicago?" It was more exciting than anything I'd done before. On top of that, I found out that everybody who was waiting tables at our brewpub had a liberal arts degree from a Big Ten university. Is that where you were headed? Yes, I was actually an English major at Iowa, with a creative writing bent. Now I write beer labels instead of short stories. They're very, very, very short stories. How is it working with your dad? Well, we often don't agree on things, but the nice thing is, with his financial background, he's most comfortable sitting behind a desk looking at spreadsheets all day. I would rather poke my eyes out and set them on fire than do that. Your brewery has changed in remarkable ways over they years. The first beer I had there was Honker's Ale–which I assume is still your flagship. But it's a long way from Honker's Ale to Matilda or Sofie. You had a very traditional brewpub start, but you've kept moving forward. One of the great things about a brewpub is that you don't have to go through TTB [government label approval] for every beer–nothing against TTB, of course. But you can make a new beer, put it on the chalkboard, and you've got a new brand. When I took over from Victor, we kept six beers on tap all the time with one of them rotating, I thought, there's really nothing stopping us from doing a lot more beer than that. Pretty soon, we were on a schedule doing about 40 different beers a year. It became our own little laboratory. You've drawn attention to the loss of traditional workingmen's bars around Chicago in recent years and what that means to communities. My sister works in a bar called the Chipp Inn, which is one of the diviest dives you'll ever imagine. We now have three of the four beers on tap, including Matilda, which is shocking. I'd say three-quarters of the clientele are drinking High Life or PBR, whatever's on special. Then some hipster or a working guy will come in and plop down seven to eight dollars for Matilda. Sometimes, I think some people in the brewing community get a little too passionate about one brewery versus another. It's all beer, and beer's good. Why bother talking about the things you don't like, when there are so many things to like?

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