The Chicago Tribune reports that Lagunitas Brewery has finally signed on a property in an industrial district on the south side of Chicago, with plans for a 250-barrel brewery system from a German company which will make it the larger brewer in the city, and a tap room overlooking the plant. As reported last month, Lagunitas owner Tony Magee looked at sales of the California-based beer in the midwest and realized that transportation costs would basically finance a midwest plant for his popular craft beers— “fresher beer with less diesel in it,” as he tweeted at the time. He made it sound as if the Chicago plant was already a done deal, but the Tribune reports that the contract on the south side brewery (within a film studio complex where the Showtime series Boss, among others, is produced) has only now been finalized, and along the way it acquired another cool piece of news: although the brewery won’t be operational until late 2013, the plan is to have a taproom built and up and running by November. And the taproom will be on the mezzanine level, with windows overlooking the brewery and the kitchen. So you can literally watch the brewery being built from the taproom over the next year or so. If that doesn’t make it Chicago beer geek central, we don’t know what would. [Tribune]
