For more background on Great Central, see our Q&A with founders Conor McFerran and Dave Abram here.
The below press release announced that two Chicago-based breweries — Begyle and Like Minds — would be producing contract beers at Great Central, in addition to three breweries previously announced in this Crain’s piece — Chicago’s Maplewood, downstate’s Tangled Roots and Utah’s Moab Brewing. (The release also announces Maplewood as well.)
You may be wondering: Like Minds? Don’t they brew beer literally across the street from Great Central? And if Like Minds just opened up a Milwaukee brewery, and is now contracting through GCBC, what does that mean for the Like Minds space here in Chicago?
Worry not — Like Minds is staying put. We reached out to John Lavelle of Like Minds, who reports he’ll be using Great Central in a way we haven’t seen nor considered before — as a separate “clean facility” for their more straightforward line of beers, while their own brewing facility will be used for their wild, sour, barrel-aged releases.
“We actually just evaluated the risk of brewing clean beer in our facility and decided it was the way to go,” Lavelle told us in an email. “As of right now we’ve got 366 wine barrels in various stages of sour/wild fermentation. After seeing what’s been happening recently with infected brews we thought better of forcing the issue in our space.”
Lavelle also clarified that the Milwaukee location is mainly being used for wort production for souring and for prototyping beers for larger release, and the decision to contract was “more of a commitment to our sour program than anything else.”
“After seeing what’s been happening recently with infected brews we thought better of forcing the issue in our space.”John Lavelle, Like Minds
As for Begyle, we reached out to owner Kevin Cary for a little clarification on their plans. Begyle’s use of GCBC is a little more straightforward — a couple of their core line of beers, specifically Begyle Blonde and their Free Bird Pale Ale, will move to Great Central in order to open up more space for the fun stuff at their North Center facility.
“Right now 70% of our production, which is maxed out at our Cuyler facility goes to producing Free Bird, Blonde and Hophazardly for draft and 6-packs,” Cary told us.
“By moving some of our production to Great Central this will allow us to get back to some of the beers/styles we’ve brewed in the past as well as continue to add new beers without shorting our distributor partner on our core brands. This will also give our draft and off premise accounts access to more limited releases that we currently only sell in the taproom.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJnbsnMBoFw/?taken-by=gcbrewingco
Basically, if you like Begyle’s one-offs and barrel-aged options, this is only good news for you, as moving those two lines will give them the freedom to work with those more often. As for the Lincolnwood production facility they’ve reportedly been planning (which also appeared in the recent finale of the Joe Swanberg series “Easy”), Cary describes it as “still in the planning process.”
Contracting with GCBC, instead of leaping headfirst into their own production facility, “allows us to think more critically about the future of Begyle and how we grow, we have grown organically from day one, this is another step in that process,” Cary said. “We can cater our demand to the market here in Chicago, while still maintaining our retail/taproom presence in North Center.”
We’ll keep you up to speed on all new GCBC clients when we learn of them.
Press Release:
