Moody Tongue Brewing, home of one of the most beautiful and well-designed tasting rooms in Chicago, is leaving Pilsen. The brewery needed a larger space to brew more beer and has taken over the former Baderbrau brewery near McCormick Place in the South Loop. Baderbrau abruptly closed in June and its equipment was quickly auctioned off at 2515 S. Wabash Avenue.

There’s no official timetable to open in the South Loop, said Moody Tongue’s co-founder and CEO Jeremy Cohn. They stopped brewing in February in Pilsen and began moving equipment this month into the new space. The Pilsen tasting room will remain open indefinitely, Cohn said, though the Tribune reported it will close sometime this summer. The tasting room won the Jean Banchet award for Best Bar and that helped expand the brewery’s customer base. The owners are grateful for that, but the company’s focus remains with the wholesale production. They realized in 2017 that they needed more space to brew. They’re going from 9,500 square feet in Pilsen to 25,800 square feet in the South Loop. Their goal is to expand not only domestically but into markets like China, where they are already in.

“Obviously in this business it’s important to grow,” Cohn said.

Brewer/co-founder Jared Rouben has a culinary background and that’s helped brand Moody Tongue. He announced the opening of the Pilsen tasting room in 2016 from the Green City Farmers Market in Lincoln Park. That provided a thematic backdrop as Rouben uses many fruits procured from farmer’s markets in his beers like the Sliced Nectarine IPA. The Black Truffle Pilsner is another favorite showing Rouben’s culinary interests.

“They are difficult to procure, but that all depends on Mother Nature on whether we have a good truffle crop or not,” Rouben said. “I would love to create the beer again because I love that beer.”

Customers would climb the stairs to enter Baderbrau’s tasting room which served a full pub food menu. Moody Tongue keeps it simple at its tasting room serving beer, oysters, and chocolate cake. Armed with more kitchen space, Moody Tongue has the option of expanding its menu. More food would make sense, given Rouben’s culinary background, but he said don’t assume.

“That would be logical,” Rouben said. “Right now we just moved in, we’re going to unpack and take if from there.”

The designers are busy with transforming Baderbrau’s space which was more bombastic compared to the elegance of Moody Tongue. Customers will be reminded of Moody Tongue in Pilsen, but with more room, as Rouben said they’re looking forward to creating something new without sacrificing the intimacy of the smaller Pilsen tasting room.

“I was grateful and appreciative of being able to share that vision,” Rouben said. “It was an opportunity to share, and now it’s time to share new things.”

Stay tuned for updates as Moody Tongue makes its move.