
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 but closed 2008). 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 orange-bruised lemon-candied banana-bubblegum-clove-tinged
O’Kelly’s Hefeweizen, hop-toasted fig-dried pecan-praline-bottomed
Public House Pale Ale and mouth-puckering citric-tart berry-sweet
Raspberry Wheat.
Though astringent wheat-strawed corn-dried
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 and raspberry ice tea motif,
Veronica’s A.P.A., fared better.
Black coffee-roasted cocoa-dried hop-toasted maple-finishing
Shamrock Stout was inspiring. Best bet:
Bannockburn Scottish Ale, a dry-hopped caramel malted medium body with red apple, orange peel, grapefruit rind, and pecan pie illusions.
Alas, by 2009, economic woes brought down Govnor's, which may reopen as a sportsbar. No word if they'll continue brewing.