Farm Dinner

This weekend Half Acre hopped on the bus with City Provisions and 40 other folks to visit River Valley Ranch, a Wisconsin mushroom farm, and eat a 5 course meal paired with Half Acre beers.

You can read about it here, thanks to Chuck Sudo.

The entire day / evening was a choice experience for us at Half Acre.  Eric, the owner of River Valley, has 36 beautiful acres where he grows mushrooms, corn, tomatoes, shallots, pumpkins, asparagus, onions and cabbage.

Having never seen a mushroom farm, it was wild to learn more about the process.  They grow them inside temperature controlled buildings in what basically looks like bunk beds for mushrooms.  They do everything, including harvesting, by hand.  

After checking out the farm we sat down for five courses of delicious food prepared by the folks at City Provisions, all served in a field.  Cleetus puts these meals together at farms all over the area -- I suggest checking one out.  Each course had Half Acre beer paired alongside, most had our beer actually incorporated into the recipe.  

We capped the night off with a bonfire.  You have to love bonfires.

Thanks to Romie for hooking us up with these photos that we promptly tagged.  It's always great to get out of the city and spread out a little.  Thanks to City Provisions and Eric from River Valley.  A great time was had.

Half Acre Beer Co

Chicago, IL

Construction buried the hunt..

Another week tramples by and we get closer to ending the long saga of construction that we’ve been dealing with sporadically over the last ten months. Today marks the most crazy it has ever been. There were guys in every corner of this place doing work. The biggest thing is that we’re basically removing the second floor in order to rebuild it about 4X the strength. On the east side we will do all of our milling and grain storage. Each pallet of grain weighs 2500lbs, so storing multiple pallets in one area above our heads could be dangerous without the proper reinforcement. The other side will serve as general storage. The retail area got a big sep further today when the new concrete was poured. We made a bunch of plumbing changes and upgraded the handicap accessibility. We also applied an acid to all the construction adhesive that was left over from the old signage and power washed the exterior. It looks a lot better without that gunk mucking up the joint. With all that said, I couldn’t get away to hide the capsule.
The hunt will return, fear not.

Half Acre Beer Co
Chicago, IL

No Ale Fest

Sorry folks, we will not be at Ale Fest this weekend at Soldier Field.  We have prior commitments to a farm dinner with City Provisions in Burlington, WI.  We will be pairing Half Acre Beers with the meal cooked on the farm with their harvested bounty.

Should be great - Maybe you'll be on the bus, too.

Half Acre Beer Co

Chicago, IL

Why The Half Acre?

We’ve been getting a lot of the same question lately, “Why is it called Half Acre?” It’s not something we address on the website, and we don’t layout an explanation to connect a specific meaning because we’d prefer people look at it in their own way.

We’re also not trying to be overly obtuse and have no reason to keep it under wraps, so….

In concept: The Half Acre is anywhere you can grab some peace and quiet, an opportunity to step back, a chance to sit and enjoy a beer and not do the other things that keep us occupied for so many of our waking hours.

How the concept came to be: I grew up in a very small town along the Delaware River by the name of Lambertville, NJ. This is where George Washington made his fateful crossing to shanghai the Red Coats and claim our independence. He camped right behind my family’s property. Across the bridge in Bucks County, PA, just slightly north, is an even smaller town named Devil’s Half Acre. Devil’s Half Acre is literally a half-acre of land with a bar on it. That’s it, that’s the town. It was built and illegally run when the canals along the Delaware River were being dug to give the men a place to go when done with work so they could drink some beer, relax and take stock before going home and being with family. A town for this exact purpose. It was dubbed Devil’s Half Acre because some men would stay too long, drink too much and fights would break out. Inevitably some men would be killed and buried on that same Half Acre of land. With all things, there is a line where a good thing morphs into something else.

We brought the Half Acre here, as for the Devil, well I suppose he’s here, too.

Enjoy the holiday weekend; take some time away from the daily course. This is what it’s about.

Half Acre Beer Co
Chicago, IL

Found..

The capsule was just found after a record long hunt.
It was found slightly north of Dakin on Seminary.

The Dakin reaction is the chemical reaction of phenolic aldehydes (or ketones) with hydrogen peroxide to form bisphenols and carboxylic acids.[1][2] The reaction is named after Henry Drysdale Dakin.

You are persistent hunters and we commend you.

Half Acre Beer Co
Chicago, IL

A record

The capsule still sits in it's hiding place. I guess we stumped you.

Half Acre
Chicago, IL

Hunt Is Here

A great day for a Half Acre Hunt.  

It's out there waiting for you.

Remember, call or text 773 351 5709 or email gabriel@halfacrebeer.com as soon as you've found it.  This is important.

This week's winner gets some freshly bottled Daisy Cutter Pale Ale to glug on these summer days.

Go out, hunt, Michael Jackson would've wanted you to.

And your clue:

"Tucked behind a building hugging pole piece just north of where science (a reaction) and religion intersect."

Good Luck,

Half Acre Beer Co

Chicago, IL