In 2010, Goose’s young innovation brewer, Tom Korder, showed up to a Goose Island beer dinner at Tiny Lounge in place of Greg Hall, the brewery’s leader. Eric Hobbs, a sales and marketing lead at the time, was disappointed by the last-minute swap. This young, quiet brewer certainly wasn’t going to have the presence of the family heir to Goose. There’s no way he would light up a room full of craft beer fans. But Hobbs was soon converted. “In a packed room, Tom came in and gave as good, or better a beer dinner than I’d ever seen,” recalls Hobbs. "It was very conversational, it was fun, light hearted. He shared a tremendous amount of information and I was really impressed by this young brewer that came in unannounced and owned a room for two hours.”

Hobbs had been building a brewery in his mind for some time before Korder surprised him that night. He knew the business, the market, sales and distribution. But he didn’t know brewing — not first-hand beyond homebrewing at least. He’d been lucky enough to work for one of the country’s top craft producers, with labels like Bourbon County Stout and the “Sisters” line of barrel aged sours. Producing beers at that level seemed like an impossible dream. But the more he got to know Korder, the more the new brewery seemed inevitable.

“It’s not surprising that a Goose Island brewer would be thinking of opening his own brewery,” jokes Hobbs. "So I poked and prodded to see what kind of things Tom would be interested in, or any projects he was working on. All off the cuff. But then I asked him to go to lunch at Goose Clybourn and I put the idea in front of him. I needed a partner. I’d already presented it to a very interested investor, but I knew it’d only work if I had a partner. So I wanted to know what it would look like to Tom. I wanted it to be a collaboration. He came back with a plan for lower abv, sessionable Belgian beers, a wild program — it was all music to my ears."