Goose Island Tasting Room is the perfect place to start one of Chicago’s best brewery tours.

I had the good fortune to hang out at the brand spankin’ new Goose Island tasting room located at Fulton & Wood a few weeks back. Yes, the Fulton & Wood after which the awesome collection of one-off beers is named. Didn’t know those were streets? Shame on you. Anyway, the place is absolutely beautiful and oh so Chicago. I don’t mean there are Italian beefs lying around the room. I mean it’s packed with things made in Chicago.

UPDATE: Goose Island’s Fulton Street Brewery is officially open to the public!

Instead of slapping together a bar with some chairs and some dumb shit on the walls, they partnered with Chicago artists and contractors to build something truly local for the Goose Island Tasting Room. That should come as no surprise as they’ve gone to great lengths in the past couple years to ensure people know that GI is still a Chicago brewery.

Some of the people/companies used were Duke Builders & Design, Hatch Design & Fabrication, Right Way Signs (welcome sign), Flux Studios (tiles behind bar), Icon Modern (tables shown below), VSA and DMA.

The Goose Island Tasting Room serves as the jump off point for the new Fulton Brewery Tour, but there are plenty of reasons to come here just to drink. It features eight draft lines, a cask engine and a growler filling station. Those draft lines will the first place you can try most of their new beers, and the only place you can get some of the limited release options unless you’re best friends with BeerAdam.

Speaking of limited release: every third Friday is Black Friday, when they’ll pour a variant of Bourbon County Stout. They also have Sour Saturdays for limited release of one of their sour beers. Yeah, you can count me in.

The Goose Island Tasting Room hours are Thursday and Friday from 2:00pm – 8:00pm, and Saturday from Noon – 6:00pm.

Here are the details of the 45 minute tour before you get too distracted:

Throughout the 45 minute tour guests will sample beer and get an up close look at everything that goes into making Goose Island beer special, including:

Visit the ‘Innovation Room,’ where brewers have full creative license to brew, developing small batch beers that may only show up in our Tasting Room

Check out how Goose Island utilizes wild yeasts in the ‘Wild Fermentation Room,’ before seeing the bottling line and exterior fermentation tanks

Peek in the Barrel Aging Warehouse, where visitors will learn how Goose Island’s award-winning barrel aged beers, such as Bourbon County Stout are created

Stop by the new ‘Tap Deck’ which overlooks the Goose Island Brewing operations, allowing our visitors to see our great brewers at work

Guests must register for the brewery tours online; walk-ins are added to a wait-list based on availability.

The tours are scheduled for Thursday and Friday at 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. and Saturday at 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 p.m.

The tour costs $12 per person and includes a custom designed pint glass.

Goose Island Beer Company – A Right Way Sign Painting Project from Right Way Signs of Chicago on Vimeo.