The most obvious indication that there’s a taproom inside the Plant is that the P on the Peer sign atop the former Peer Foods meatpacking plant in Back of the Yards has been flipped to spell “beer.” Though Whiner Beer has been brewing inside the massive building since fall 2015, it still looks like an unlikely spot to have a drink, much less a tasting flight of craft beer. But walk in the front door and up a long ramp, and chalkboard signs direct you toward a spacious room filled with Edison bulbs, massive concrete columns, and wood tables with built-in planters.
The rest of the taps change regularly—and thanks to the $3 tasting portions available for all the beers, it’s possible to try everything in the taproom on one visit. In addition to the Fur Coat, the somewhat less sour Pretty Bird is a yeasty, funky, and entirely enjoyable barrel-aged saison. The two sweetest beers on the menu turned out to be among the least interesting: a saison called Fast Food was redolent of creamy bananas and bubble gum, pleasant enough at first but cloying after a few sips; Candy Darling, a barrel-fermented and barrel-aged wild ale with plums, had plenty of woody, smoky barrel flavors but also delivered a bit too much of the sweetness suggested by its name. The kettle-soured saison Soupe Du Jour, however, had a fascinatingly complex flavor, funky and less sharp than the Pretty Bird or Fur Coat, rounded out by yeasty notes and pineapple.
