CHICAGO VICINITY, ILLINOIS
Drawing a respectable conservative mainstream crowd was Lake In The Hills beautiful freestanding chateau-styled cement-stone-brick-designed mall-sited restaurant-bar chateau, GOVNOR’S PUBLIC HOUSE, operating as a brewpub since ’98 (and visited August ’06). This spacious pub opens to a square shaped bar with plentiful left side dining available. Weekend drink specials and good food (pizza, prime rib, and 5-way grilled cheese are mainstays) draw the crowd, as do delightful fruit-soured brews such as bruised orange-fronted lemon-candied banana-bubblegum-clove-tinged O’Kelly’s Hefeweizen, hop-toasted fig-pecan-aided Public House Pale Ale, and mouth-puckering citric-soured berry-sweet Raspberry Wheat. Though astringent corn-wheat-straw-addled Leprechaun Light was strictly commercial and curacao orange-centered grapefruit-melon-receded Rubberband Red had chemical acidity, ultra-dry butterscotch-nipped vanilla-dipped Vanilla Cream Ale, raspberry ice tea motif Veronica’s A.P.A., and roasted black coffee-inspired cocoa-dried hop-toasted maple-finishing Shamrock Stout fared well. Best bet: Bannockburn Scottish Ale, a dry-hopped caramel malted medium body with red apple, orange peel, grapefruit rind, and pecan pie illusions.
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