THE DAILY HERALD’S ‘BEST BUSINESS’ 2020 HONOREE
Award-Winning craft Beer That’s True to Style, Rooted in History, and brewed with passion in a one-of-a-kind decoction brewhouse
Every week, hundreds of people drive to the end a road lined with warehouses and small factories to sample one of the Midwest’s most varied selections of award-winning Craft Beer while thousands more order a glass of Church Street at their favorite restaurant or take some home to enjoy after a long day trying to make the world a slightly better place. Our story doesn’t start here though… it all started with a homebrew kit.
Joe Gregor was never an easy person to buy presents for. One Christmas, his wife and four children pooled their gift buying efforts and bought him the supplies necessary to brew a five-gallon batch of IPA on his stove. Within a few months, he was making lagers on a burner in the backyard. Within a few years, he was leveraging his experience as a chemical engineer designing oil refineries around the world to create a decoction brewhouse designed to brew the light, refreshing lagers that he had fallen in love with while working in Southern Germany.
Decoction mashing is a fascinating centuries-old process designed to extract subtle flavors from grain by moving portions of the mash between two kettles heated to different temperatures. In the early 2010s, when IPAs were the predominate craft beer style, decoction mashing was seen by many as a redundant, unnecessary step, but with craft lagers growing in popularity, our unique brewhouse allows us to impart very subtle and nuanced flavors to our creations.
After more than ten years, a great deal has changed, but the 30-barrel decoction brewhouse is still the brewery’s beating heart. Church Street’s taproom, kitchen, indoor and outdoor event spaces, fermentation equipment, and packaging capabilities have all slowly grown up around the brewhouse to create one of Illinois’ best and most comprehensive craft beer experiences.
Church Street brews dozens of different beer traditional and cutting-edge styles a year, often in collaboration with one of the many other craft breweries that help make the Great Lakes one of the world’s premier regions for superlative craft beer. Joe’s wife, Lisa, now runs the business while his son Sean has taken over as head brewer after cutting his teeth making beer in Kentucky. Twenty-plus other dedicated employees, along with two of his other children work hard every day to ensure that everyone who’s able can enjoy a Righteously Good Beer at their place or ours.
Our meticulously-crafted beers have won dozens of major industry awards while our taproom and restaurants are some of the area’s best. We’ve hosted dozens of weddings and hundreds of events and parties in our welcoming and versatile event spaces. Best of all, craft lagers, long Church Street’s specialty, are surging in popularity and at any given time Church Street has six to twelve different lagers on tap in addition to its exciting lines of British pub ales, hazy IPAs, fruited sours, and barrel-aged beers.
We treat our customers like family and can’t wait to see you at our main brewery or brewpub.
