Josh Noel has written about travel, beer and spirits for the Chicago Tribune since 2008 and occasionally writes about other subjects, such as homelessness, food, crime, baseball and history. He is a Chicago native who previously covered crime for The Advocate in Baton Rouge, La. He has contributed to the public radio program “This American Life” and reported the oral history of Wrigley Field for the 2014 book "Wrigley Field: An Oral and Narrative History of the Home of the Chicago Cubs."
Of the many beers Goose Island has released to fevered response during the past 26 years, its Bourbon County Brand Vanilla Stout, in 2010, has held a special mystique.
Of the many trends invented by the travel industry to pry dollars from our wallets — hello, staycation! — one of the most popular in recent years has been the "babymoon."
Since opening his DryHop brewpub in 2013, Greg Shuff has been clear that he intended to expand his business. The obvious route would have been adding a collection of DryHop pubs across the city, and perhaps one day bottling and canning DryHop beer at his own production brewery. That's a...
What it is: A forgotten style just a couple of years ago, gose has made quite a comeback in American brewing circles. It's a tart, low-alcohol ale that features the addition of salt (yes, salt), which introduces a brininess that is strangely satisfying. Gose beers trace back hundreds of years...
The most expensive beer ever to come out of a Chicago brewery will be released in the coming weeks, and, befitting its $120 price tag, Moody Tongue's Shaved Black Truffle Pilsner will be rolled out in a complex, multi-step process.
Tired of dealing with flight attendants? Well, they're just as tired of you and me.
Bars come and bars go. But the demise of Small Bar on Division Street stings a bit more than the average bar closing.
When it came time to brew its 1,000th batch of beer 22 years ago, the Goose Island brewpub on Clybourn Avenue wanted to do something special. So then-brewmaster Greg Hall made the darkest, booziest stout he could and let it sit in a bourbon barrel — a relatively rare practice at the time....