I met one of my dealers for lunch at Two Brothers Tap House on a recent trip into Chicago. I had tried to go to Two Brothers on a couple of other occasions - one time I couldn't find the place, then the next time I went during the day when they weren't open. They're open for lunch Friday thru Sunday and it was a Friday early afternoon when I met up with my dealer for lunch and a couple of beers.
Two Brothers Brewing Company is one of the older brewing companies in the greater Chicago area. Brothers (of course) Jim and Jason Ebel founded the brewery in 1996. But before that, the two brothers spent a lot of time in Europe where the fell in love with the diverse tastes in European beers. Coming back to the states, they soon found that they couldn't find the same quality of beers on a regular basis.
The Ebels decided to go into business together selling ingredients and equipment for home brewers and wine makers. The Brewer's Coop opened in Naperville in 1992. But their plan was to someday open a brewpub.
Pictured right - Jason (left) and Jim Ebel (right)
Jason went away to Colorado to get his feet wet, so to speak, in breweries there and Jim was accepted to the DePaul University College of Law. Jim kept The Brewer's Coop open with the help of family members, and when it got really busy Jason moved back to help out and to work in brewpubs in the area.
When the brothers would get together they'd invariably talk about different types of beers. It finally got so bad that their mother said that they had better just go out and open a brewpub because all the talk about beer was driving her crazy. The brothers took that as a sign and began to plan to open their brewery.
Jim and Jason figured that with limited financial backing and absolutely no background in the restaurant business that they'd open a production brewery instead. Jason was the brother who ended up going to brewing school and he enrolled in the master brewers program at Chicago's prestigious Siebel Institute of Technology. After Jason graduated in S.I.T. and Jim graduated from DePaul Law School, the two brothers came up with a business plan for their brewery.
After gathering modest financing from family members and a couple banks, the two brothers bought a 15 barrel system that was designed by Jason as a copy of the traditional 3-vessel breweries in Germany and made for them by a company in Vancouver, B.C. For much of the other equipment they needed for the brewery, most of it was donated. It turned out their grandfather was a retired dairy farmer who still had bulk milk tanks that were quickly turned into fermenting tanks. Cream tanks became aging tanks. Within months of getting up and going, the Two Brothers Brewing Company sold their first keg of beer in March of 1997.
Starting out as a draft only brewery, they were able to procure an 8-head bottling line in 1998 that would do up to 16 bottles per minute. Business grew quickly thanks to their own beer distribution company - Windy City Distributors - the brothers used to ship their craft beer (and others) to bars and liquor stores in Illinois and Wisconsin. They replaced their 8-head bottling line was an upscale 20-head machine that was able to do up to 150 bottles per minute. They moved into a new building - a 40,000 sq. foot facility in suburban Warrenville - in 2007. It didn't take them any more than five months before they figured out that that building was too small and they had to expand again. Multiple expansions and the sale of Windy City Distribution in 2012 have brought the brothers up to the present day as they continue to run the brewery as a family-owned entity.
When they moved to the Warrenville location, they moved their retail beer and wine making operation to the new facility. They eventually put in a brew pub - the Two Brother Tap House. In 2011, the brothers bought the historic Roundhouse in nearby Aurora, IL. The Roundhouse - which started out as a rail yard roundhouse in the mid-1800's - had sat empty for over 20 years before a group of investors that included former Chicago Bear Walter Payton bought the building and converted it to a brewpub, museum and open air pavilion. That place eventually went out of business after Payton's death and the Ebel's re-opened the Two Brothers Roundhouse as a combination brewery, artisan bakery/cafe (by day), a brewpub (at night) and as a banquet/reception facility. (Picture courtesy George Kite.)
(Earlier this year, the brothers opened a Two Brothers Tap House in Scottsdale, AZ on Scottsdale Road. They also formed their own distribution company - Arizona Beer and Cider - to distribute their beer, along with beer from other small breweries that weren't not available in Arizona until now. Today, Two Brothers beer is distributed in a dozen states, primarily in the Midwest and Southwest.)
As I said, I couldn't find the Two Brothers Tap House the first time I went there. It's tucked back in an industrial park near the intersection of Butterfield Road and Illinois Highway 59 in Warrenville. (see map) When I did finally find it - and found that the brewpub wasn't open during the day four Monday thru Thursday - there wasn't any significant signage on the building to show that there even was a brewpub on the property. There's a door nearly in the middle of the north side of the two story building with a simple sign that says "Tap House Main Entrance". That actually takes you into The Brewer's Coop. A right turn takes you into the Two Brothers Tap House.
The Tap House dining area has sort of a contemporary industrial look with earth-tone colors on the walls. On weekends, they'll have a musician or a small combo play music in the dining area. There's an outdoor patio on the far side of the dining area.
I found my dealer at the bar that's off to the left side of the dining area and he already had a Two Brothers Wobble IPA in front of him. I sat down next to him and a bartender dropped off a couple menus for us. I ordered up a Wobble IPA, as well, and we discussed some business for awhile before we finally figured out what to get for lunch.
It's an interesting menu at Two Brothers Tap House. Much of the food they serve are sourced locally from organic farms and many of the herbs they used in the kitchen are grown on the roof of the brewery. They have a number of appetizers that include a smoked salmon dip that sounded pretty damn good. They had salsa verde nachos that you could add pork, chicken or beef to for $2 bucks more. But my dealer had already ordered up a fried pickle appetizer before I got there featuring locally grown pickles dipped in a housemade beer batter featuring their Cane and Ebel (get it?) red rye ale and deep fried. They were actually very good.
I was looking at a couple things - the Tap House Burger featured organically grown beef from CDK Farms in extreme northwestern Illinois, ground, pattied and grilled, then topped with cheddar cheese, fresh roasted jalapeños and a red pepper mayo; and the Brewer's Reuben made with naturally-raised, slow-cooked beef brisket, topped with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, 1000 Island dressing and served on marble rye bread.
Then something caught my eye toward the bottom of the menu listed under "Tap House Specialties" - the fish tacos. The fish was sustainably-raised west coast Dover sole filets with soy-marinated cabbage, mixed shredded cheese, pico de gallo and a buttermilk ranch dressing on two flour tacos. As soon as our bartender came and asked if we were ready to order, I said, "I was going toward the reuben, but then I saw the fish tacos."
"We're pretty well known for our fish tacos," the bartender replied in an assured manner. My dealer said that he had his eyes on the fish tacos, as well, and ordered those, as well.
And we were happy we did. The dover sole filets were lightly battered - I'd rather that they just grilled them - but the batter wasn't obtrusive to the taste. The marinated cabbage was a nice touch and thankfully they don't put a lot of the mixed shredded cheese on the tacos that can overpower the overall taste of the fish and other toppings. The flour tortilla shells were sort of crispy, but held together well with each bite. The taste of the tacos was very good. I added some of the rice and some of the black beans - not the mushy black beans you get at most Americanized Mexican restaurants, but the real ones that have a little snap when you bite into them. That helped give the tacos a bit more of a complex taste.
I've never been a huge fans of Two Brothers beers. I mean, they're fine and everything. Some of the beers that I've had are sometimes a little too complex for my tastebuds. But I really enjoyed the Wobble IPA. In fact, I've since gone to Binny's and picked up a couple six packs of the Wobble to take home as I can't seem to find Two Brothers beer in the Iowa Quad Cities. It's a good beer.
Other than it's sort of tough to find and then when you get there you don't exactly know where the entrance to the Tap House really is, the fish tacos that I had at Two Brothers were above average. And I enjoyed the Wobble IPA enough to buy some at a Binny's later on. They have an interesting menu and a good variety of beers to choose from. Difficult to find, but worth the trip - that's Two Brothers Tap House in Warrenville.
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