photo by Joe Tighe
We just started taking our Uppers & Downers series of coffee and beer events on the road, and our first stop was Hopewell Brewing Co. While it's a pretty close first step for the series (it's literally just up the street from our studio in Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood), it was a perfect representation of where we're going as a team.
This dinner brought together friends and neighbors from Lula Cafe, Hopewell, and Metric Coffee for a Monday Night Dinner that featured coffee as an ingredient woven into the fabric of both the beers and the cuisine. This kind of thoughtful approach results in things like coppa with coffee oil, walnut, and young mustard greens, served alongside an oak barrel-aged wild fermented Saison steeped on cascara. (That was just the first dish. We'll fully recap soon.)
For now, I just wanted to hat-tip the teams from all these small, local businesses that made such an event a thrill to be part of. The kitchen crew from Lula, one of my all-time favorite restaurants, is led by Jason Spaulding, and they produced a dinner in a brewery with no kitchen, then put in the incredible work of a full 60-seat service. The duo of Drako and Xavier from Metric Coffee (go see their new cafe space, please—thank me later) who pulled shots late into the evening after working to get our GS3 up and running for the first time. Our hosts and brewers, the team from Hopewell, who made some beautiful beers for the event working in collaboration with Metric to produce some lovely flavors, and made us all feel at home. And last but not least, my own team lead by Hillary Schuster who executed the design and experience with a perfectly light touch.
Come along with us! Next up is Durham, North Carolina for a case study in single origin coffee Saisons with Brewery Bhavana and Counter Culture on June 2nd. And then off to London for a 7-brewery event featuring experimental coffee beers from the UK on September 13th.
