Inexplicably, I haven’t written about Off Color since founders John Laffler and Dave Bleitner got it up and running as a production brewery last summer—I reviewed the Mischief pop-up bar in March 2013, then got an early taste of the hibiscus gose tapped at Northdown’s Lions, Tigers & Beers on June 5. Even my 2013 Best of Chicago write-up (“Best Brewery With a Bright Tank Named ‘Waffles’”) had to be finished before Off Color started shipping bottles.
Apex Predator saison is out in 12-ounce four-packs—the same format as DinoSmores, but priced at a comparatively reasonable eight or nine bucks. (I paid $16 for my four of DinoSmores.) And in some of the best drinking news of the spring, over the next couple weeks Off Color will roll out kegs of its Berliner weisse, a 3.8 percent beer named Fierce. (Well, it’s not technically a Berliner weisse, because it uses a saison yeast, but Laffler says he and Bleitner are still deciding what to call it.) If all goes to plan, it’ll be bottled in July.
- The weird thing isn’t the mouse in the dinosaur suit—it’s the cubic marshmallow. Illustration by Nikki Jarecki; graphic design by Tim Breen.
Off Color (and the first kegs of Fierce) will make a good showing during Chicago Craft Beer Week, which begins this Thursday. On Sat 5/17 it’ll be one of the featured breweries—alongside Solemn Oath, Metropolitan, and Against the Grain—at the Sportsman’s Club (948 N. Western). You can buy a ticket to get in at 4 PM, and it’s open to the public from 6 PM on.
