For generations of Goose Island employees, the Clybourn brewpub was that place that tied the company together. Even after the sale to AB, from which the pub was initially excluded, the Clybourn space served as the spiritual center. There was even an internal project explicitly designed to keep the two teams working together and collaborating as though they were one and the same. My sense at the time — I was working with the team on Grit & Grain, an attempt to detail the story of Bourbon County Stout once and for all — was that the Fulton St production company (owned outright by AB) didn’t want to lose touch with the place that defined who they were. Clybourn was the Goose of record that way. It carried weight. It served as the family photo album brought to life. And if you wanted to work at Goose Island, what better initiation than a pint at Clybourn?

“I drank my first Honkers here,” said Jesse Valenciana, Goose’s National Activation Manager. It wasn’t long after having one of his first craft beers in the Clybourn pub that Jesse went on to get a job at the brewery. “I couldn’t wait to tell my roommate that the brewery who made that Honkers Ale was the place where I just got a job.”