Happy New Year With Frosting On Top
I’m not sure anyone ever has dreamt of a white New Year, but that’s what we got on Saturday. It fell short of the major storm the forecasters had predicted, but it provided our first wintry look, given that last week’s belated first snowfall of the season lasted on the ground for a Chicago minute.
The meteorologists’ forecast of a cold wave following the storm was spot on, alas. A good day to stay safe and warm inside if you can.
To toast what we can only hope will be a better year, the unnamed concoction below is one ounce of bourbon, one ounce of apple cider, and bitters, topped with prosecco (a take on Louisville’s famous Seelbach cocktail). To your health!
Cultivate Brewpub Has Deep (Forbidden) Roots
Cultivate by Forbidden Root is the beautiful and ambitious new gastro-brewpub on “Malt Row” in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood. Its the latest project for Robert Finkel, whose Forbidden Root brewery and restaurant in Chicago’s West Town neighborhood is a longtime mainstay of the city’s craft beer scene. (A third Forbidden Root location is in Columbus, Ohio.)
I paid a visit to Cultivate (4710 N. Ravenswood Ave., on the west side of the Metra tracks) just before Christmas. There are similarities to the West Town location, including the fanciful chalkboard beer lists.
But Cultivate is much larger, according to General Manager Brian Krajack, and includes a taproom that is separate from the main dining room and bar. Cultivate and head brewer Nick Williams are also going deeper on some traditional northern European styles — I sipped an exceptionally clean and crisp Free Town Danish rye lager while chatting with Brian — with beers aged in oak barrels coming soon. And the open kitchen is spacious enough to accommodate a stand-alone hearth.
The success of its first location at 1746 W. Chicago Ave. had Forbidden Root decision-makers pondering a second location in the city. But it only became a top priority when opportunity knocked, with the unexpected July 2020 closure of Band of Bohemia, a food-forward brewpub that had earned a Michelin star.
“This space lends to being able to do something, because of the hearth and the kitchen size. It's three times the size of our kitchen at Chicago Avenue, so we're able to do way more. And then having a larger event space like this was also huge for us to be able to do more as well.,” Brian said. “It was on our mind, probably would never have happened as fast as it did. All the pieces aligned and here we are today.”
While Band of Bohemia was focused on its culinary experience, Cultivate is designed as a German beer hall to promote a more relaxed and homey atmosphere. “We look for staff that really, really want to talk to people and make them feel welcome,” Brian said. “That's a big part of the way we are.”
Though a little off the beaten path (roughly eight miles from the downtown Loop), Cultivate should benefit from its location on Malt Row. That is the marketing name given to the cluster of breweries and one distillery (Koval) that over the past decade or so have moved into the unprepossessing industrial buildings on both sides of the tracks — making the area a magnet for craft beverage lovers.
Asked to describe the emphasis of Cultivate’s beer program, Brian said, “We're focusing on a little bit more rustic farmhouse takes, and odes to old craft beer. So we're able to do a lot of botanicals in that premise.” That means beers styled after French saison, German lager and Czech pils, with a certain emphasis on Scandinavian styles.
In addition to that Danish rye lager, Cultivate is featuring a couple of Norwegian-style kvieks that carry on Forbidden Root’s experimental approach to ingredients. One is brewed with marjoram, Meyer lemon and lemon thyme (Brian attributes the marjoram idea to Randy Mosher, a craft brew industry legend who holds the title of Alchemist at Forbidden Root). The other gets a little Southern U.S. twist from kudzu and chicory.
The brewhouse includes a large oaken vat called a foeder (pronounced food-er) that is kick-starting the barrel aging program. Oak barrels will rest in both the taproom and dining room, adding atmosphere.
Like many craftsters, Forbidden Root in recent years has steered away from what had been something of a competition among brewers, trying to outdo each other on high alcohol content and bitterness. Brian said lighter, more “sessionable” beers are in as people start spending quality time with friends they have missed during the long grind of the pandemic.
“I love seeing lower ABV (alcohol by volume) coming back. I love drinking them,” he said. “Don't get me wrong. I'm going to drink a barrel-aged stout all the time. I love all the stouts and all the high ABV stuff too. But I'm not having five in a night.”
When I first eyed Cultivate’s food menu, an item that caught my eye is Porchetta French Dip. Porchetta is a pork roast, rolled with seasonings, that is irresistible to many meat eaters, including Brian, who said he ate it almost every day during his honeymoon in Italy. He asked executive chef Carlos Cruz if he could create an Americanized concept by shaving porchetta for a sandwich served au jus, which Cruz accented with a fennel aioli. It currently ranks 2nd among the menu items, behind only the Forbidden Root burger.
I’m looking forward to further cultivating my relationship with this place as I start making the craft beer rounds a bit more frequently myself.