Is a Schafly Brewpub Coming to Chicago? St. Louis Post Dispatch Beer Columnist Evan Benn held a live-chat with Schlafly CEO and co-founder Dan Kopman on Friday.
The nearly hour-and-a-half conversation covered a lot of ground including the early stages of the St. Louis brewery’s sour program, the expansion of its canned offerings and the possibility of opening up a brewpub in Chicago.
That’s right: A Schlafly brewpub right here in the Windy City.
“We are exploring the possbility [sic] of opening a small brewhouse, pub and store in Chciago [sic]. We are not close to making this a reality but it is a way in which we believe we could introduce Schlafly Beer to Chicago. We will keep you posted,” said Kopman.
Currently you can’t find Schlafly’s beers in Chicago, but you can just about everywhere around it including ALL of downstate IL and northwest Indiana.
In fact, you can see here in Schlafly’s distribution map that there beer pretty much stops at I-80.
photo courtesy Schlafly
And before you even ask, we did reach out to Schlafly to take part in our South of 80 event during Chicago Craft Beer Week without success.
Schlafly is not the first brewery to explore opening a brewpub in Chicago. Three Floyds flirted with the idea earlier this year and Lagunitas is opening a brewery and taproom in Chicago next year. Still, just the fact that they’re talking openly about the possibility of a Schalfly brewpub coming to Chicago has us hoping that we’ll get our hands on their beer sometime in the future — without a trip to St. Louis.