25 beers in three days
Oak barrels that once held bourbon, then rum, now hold craft beer.
About an hour after my flight touched down at O'Hare International Airport, and five blocks after I hopped off the El's Blue Line stop at Logan Square, Chicago embraced me with a warm hug in the form of a barrel-aged doppelbock - a mini goblet of sweet vanilla lusciousness with a boozy note of rum.
It was just a beer, yes, but no ordinary lager; more of an evolution into a higher form. White oak barrels that once held Kentucky bourbon, then Jamaica rum, had their third alcoholic incarnation here in aging this doppelbock for seven months. The result is a beer more complex than most, as additional flavors bleed from inside the staves - deeper woody notes that play to a beer's bass and an extended taste that finishes with a nip of hard liquor.
