Not long ago, I told Jim Plachy—manager of GBH’s Fervent Few subscriber community—that I wanted to be a fly on the wall while he brewery-hopped around Chicagoland. Not long later, I was standing outside of Maplewood Lounge with him, his wife, and another pal.
Of course, we didn’t anticipate a winter storm of this magnitude.
As the gang ran through every known method of body heat retention, I paused to capture the reality of the situation. Maplewood was at capacity and the current temperature was a gentle-but-numbing 15°F. On the other hand, there was a nice, warm taproom with more Hazy IPA’s, sticky Stouts, and booze of myriad varieties than any individual should pass up on a night like this one. And so we waited.
