On my drive down to Chicago this week I was listening to a Brewing Network podcast. Two topics from the show stood out to me. The first was a discussion of the current generation of twenty-somethings who have never known a time when there wasn’t good beer. The craft brewing revolution began around the time that they were born and exploded when they were ten or eleven years old. They have never known a time when a trip to the store meant a choice between ten different light lagers, all basically the same beer in different labels. They cannot remember the days when “good beer” meant St. Pauli Girl, Becks, or Lowenbrau Dark. Many were not even born when Anchor Steam and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale came crashing onto the national scene, changing everything. The second topic that stuck in my head from the drive was a Forbes Magazine list of the top-ten beer bars in the country. Fairly high on the list was the Hop Leaf in Chicago. It had been probably ten years since I had visited the Hop Leaf so I resolved to stop in on this trip. While there, the two stories from the podcast came together.
Nestled on Clark Street in the bustling Andersonville neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side, The Hop Leaf is an intimate bar with a vaguely European ambiance. It was a tad loud for my taste in the main bar area, but otherwise comfortable. On this trip I discovered a back dining room that I never knew existed despite having spent a few nights drinking beer there while I still lived in Chicago. As you have to go through it to get to the bathroom, I don’t have a clue how I could have missed it. I made a mental note to come back on a night when I haven’t already eaten dinner to enjoy a pot of steamed mussels and frites. The bartender assured me that the Mussels-for-one pot contained “more mussels than you can count” for $11. The rest of the menu looked good too, with entrees ranging from $14 to $25.
But I had come for the beer. I counted 41 draft offerings and the bartender says the ever-changing bottle selection hovers around 250. Belgian beers are well represented here. They seemed to make up the bulk of 
the beer list and probably half of the draft selection. Pretty much every Belgian style is represented from light Wibiers to Belgian Pale Ales, Abbey Styles, and the sourest of the sours. But Belgians aren’t all they have and there is something here to please every beer palate. I started with the Amber Ale from Dark Horse Brewing. Expecting a simple American Amber, I got a Belgian instead. This tasty beer was like an American Amber with a Belgian twist. Caramel malt with an assertive spicy hop bitterness was underscored by banana and black pepper from a Belgian yeast strain. It was unexpected and delicious.
My next beer was Atomium Grand Cru. This strong wit style beer is brewed with barley, spelt, maize, rye, wheat, buckwheat, orange, and coriander. It is refreshing and fruity with a full body and dry finish that is enhanced by the spiciness of the rye. I capped the night with a glass of Boon Mariage Parfait Gueuze. This is sour beer the way it should be. Cidery, vinous, acidic, fruity, and funky. Notes of apricot, pear, tobacco, and farm animals. When the bartender came to take my order for another beer I told her that I had to stop because nothing they had on tap could match the beer that I had just consumed.
As I looked around the bar the two stories I had heard on the Brewing Network came back to me. Here I sat at the bar in the Hop Leaf, number whatever on the Forbes Magazine list, and I couldn’t help but notice the number of twenty-somethings, especially women, enjoying great beer. Watching people order, it was clear they either knew what they were ordering or were willing and eager to experience some new beer taste sensation. This is normal to them. This is beer to them. I take comfort in that.