Visited on: Wednesday 20th June 2018
Bob Thompson
Administratively Schiller Park is in a strange position. The land on which O’Hare airport was built was not in the City of Chicago. So it was made a part of the city.
As it would then have been an island a small corridor was ceded to the city for connecting road and rail links.
This brew-pub is just south of this and so has the city on either side but is actually in Schiller Park.
This brewery and tap room I was visiting with Linda was opened on 16th June 2017. It was the final brew-pub / tap room visit of our three week tour of Colorado and Chicago. We arrived by bus and the stop was very close to the industrial-type building that houses the brewery.
Inside we found a long main room with a similarly lengthy bar counter on the right. Lots of light flooded in through the many windows on the left.
Naturally there are many stools along the counter. On the side of the windows there are high tables and chairs and in the middle lower tables and chairs. There a number of paintings on the wall in a sort of comic book / Soviet propaganda style.
At the end of the room the brewery can be seen behind glass. It is of 30 barrels (bbls) capacity with fermenting tanks of the same capacity. This is more than the pub’s requirements as a lot is canned for retailers. They also have two Foeders, giant oak vats once used for wine and now for barrel ageing beers.
There was a choice of fourteen regular and specials as follows: Red Juice Cannon (9.8%), a New England IPA flavoured with Cabernet grapes and red grapefruit zest; Coffee Van Damme (6.5%), a Belgian ale with roast coffee.
Plus Pomegranate Margarita Gose (5.5%); a gose with added lime zest and sea salt; Double Barrel Buckshot (9.5%), a buckwheat ale; Bottle Rocket (8.0%), a Belgian style ale and Loosey Juicy (6.4%), a New England IPA.
The list continues with: Golden Shower (4.8%), an American blonde ale; Bee 33 (11.0%) a triple IPA with honey; Bear-ie White (4.8%), a pale wheat ale with Gummy Bears (ugh!); More Loosey, More Juicy (10.0%); a double New England IPA; We Want the Funk (6.5%), a Flanders red sour ale; Arrogant Frenchman (5.9%), a French farmhouse ale; Purple Juice Cannon (9.8%), a New England Double IPA with grapes added and Pistol Whip Pilsner (5.2%).
And that was just the main list, as there was a supplementary selection including two barrel-aged beers, which were: Midnight Sour aged in Chardonnay barrels (6.8%), a malty dark beer matured for eight months in the barrel and Double Buckwheat (10.5%), a buckwheat ale matured in Maple Bourbon barrels for nine months. There was also Steinbier (6.4%), a German Oktoberfest type beer.
This pub is popular and being in a district of restaurants, cinemas and a baseball park, has a considerable footfall. However we thought the selection of beers were far too experimental. We found it hard to decide what to have and in the end just settled on two. This is what we thought: Loosey Juicy used US and New Zealand hops and had a citrus / melon with a medium bitterness through to the finish; it was OK. Golden Shower was malty and not very bitter for a Blonde Ale; not liked very much.
It’s a pity that our last visit brew-pub was such a disappointment. However I have included it as it may change and after all said, it’s only a 5 to 10 minute taxi ride to the airport, so very convenient.
Important Information:
Short Fuse Brewing, 5000 North River Road, Schiller Park, Illinois 60176. Tel: 501 4708 893
Web: shortfusebrewing.com
Hours: Monday: Closed; Tuesday-Wednesday: 11.00-22.00;
Thursday-Saturday: 11.00-23.00; Sunday: 11.00-21.00
We caught the 303 Pace bus from the Transit Center at Rosemont CTA station on the Blue Line.
It’s the penultimate stop before O’Hare. This section of the 303 only runs between Monday and Friday.
It operates every half-hour till 18.00. From then to 22.00 it is hourly.
The destination is Forest Park which is the other terminus of the Blue Line after the city centre.
You need to alight and depart from the River Road & River Street bus stop. The pub is opposite.
