Prior to moving to the Twin Cities I lived in Chicago. I still make regular trips down and even spend two-months a year here doing theatre work. Even with all this time in the Windy City, I had never made it to the Map Room, a great beer bar on the North Side. Last night, having finished work early, I decided to remedy this situation. I’m glad I did.
When I arrived, the place was packed. It turns out that Tuesday is “International Night.” With a two drink minimum you can partake of the free international buffet, which last night consisted of a so-so selection of Persian dishes like shawarma and stewed eggplant with pita and rice from Noon-O-Kebab. It was nothing to get excited about, but it was free. I used to live around the corner from Noon-O-Kebab and know that they have great food. I think I must have gotten my buffet plate after it had been sitting for a while.
Once the buffet crowd left, the place opened up a bit and a more serious beer crowd took over. It’s nice to look down a bar and see everyone seated there with a glass of great beer in front of them. By complete chance, I happened to pull up a stool at the bar next to the owner. He told me that Tuesday is not the best night to come as there tends to be a lot of people who just come to slam their two beers and eat the free food. I have to agree that it was better after this crowd cleared out. Another treat for me in this visit was meeting manager Jay Jankowski, another Certified Cicerone. We had taken the test in Chicago on the same day and were the only two people from our testing group to pass. There are very few of us at this point, so it is nice to have the opportunity to meet and talk beer.
The beer list at the Map room is fantastic. They offer over 200 unique brands with 26 taps, cask offerings on hand pump, and a bottle list that never ends. They always use the correct glassware and I was impressed to see that they have a device to rinse the glass with cold water before pouring. It’s a nice touch. They have a wide selection of beers that are not available in Minnesota, so that is where I headed. I started with Well’s Bombardier, a light English bitter loaded with toffee and caramel malt backed with a light earthy bitterness. I have seen this beer in bottles at the Four Firkins, but I have never seen it draft in the Twin Cities. Next was a Christmas ale from DeKoninck. I had only last week had the DeKoninck Belgian Pale Ale for the first time. The Christmas ale is basically a lightly spiced version of the original. While this was tasty, I think I prefer the original. The spices seemed to cover up some of the nice bready malt and fruity character that I enjoyed in that beer.
From there I went for the Alpha King pale ale from Three Floyds in Munster, Indiana. First let me reveal a bias that I have about Three Floyds. Like Surly, I find that Three Floyds has a reputation that is out of line with the actual beers that they produce. This is not to say that either brewery makes bad beer. In fact, they make very good beer. It’s just to say that there is an excessive level of hype surrounding their beers. I mean, it’s just beer. That said, I found Alpha King to be too over-the-top grapefruit hops for my taste. I like balance in a beer and I really wasn’t getting nearly enough malt from this beer to support the extreme level of citrus hop flavor.
Finally, I took some Cicerone advice from Jankowski and had a Red Eye porter from Two Brothers. This was my favorite beer of the night. A strong Baltic style porter brewed with coffee, this was a full bodied brew with tons of chocolate, coffee, and roasted malt character. The Two Brothers beers are available in the Twin Cities. If you see a bottle of Red Eye I recommend picking it up.