In an ever-expanding craft beer field, uniqueness, and originality are highly-sought qualities. Chicago’s Forbidden Root Brewery certainly qualifies on all counts. Billed as Chicago’s first botanical brewery, Forbidden Root grew from an idea founder Robert Finkel had to create a true-brewed root beer to encompass the broader idea of botanic beers.
Throughout history, beer has been a beverage that was brewed with ingredients indigenous to the locale where it is brewed. Forbidden Root takes this idea of foraging for ingredients and brings it back to the brewing industry. The brewery utilizes such ingredients as bark, stems, flowers, herbs, spices, leaves, roots, and other foraged flavors as a regular part of their brewing process.
The guiding principle at Forbidden Root is to provide a new craft beer experience to beer lovers. Their beers are built around a concept or an idea that is vetted and built upon until a unique flavor profile is developed. Brewers then assemble the required botanicals – using fresh, local ingredients whenever possible – and go to work brewing a complex, layered beer that provides an authentically new experience with roots firmly in historic recipes.
The brewer’s current line-up includes three beers all brewed to refresh as well as challenge the drinker.
Sublime Ginger is, as the name implies, a ginger-infused wheat beer with an added kick of Key Lime juice to add a bit of tartness. Reviewers at BeerAdvocate.com give the brew a favorable rating with most noting that the hazy wheat brew is refreshing and pleasantly unique.
Money on My Rind takes advantage of the popular flavor combination of juniper berry and grapefruit. In addition, this brew is given a spicy constitution through the addition of grains of paradise. Created as a witbier, this refresher is well-reviewed on RateBeer.com and is a welcome addition for session drinking.
Wildflower Pale Ale or WPA, infuses the herbal qualities of elderflower, marigold, and sweet osmanthus flowers in to the citrusy character of hops. Users of the popular beer-rating app Untappd give this brew a solid rating and speak highly of the beer’s funky nature.
You can taste eachof Forbidden Root’s brews Thursday, January 12, 2017 at Coastal Wine Market & Tasting Room, 641 Crosswater Parkway Suite B, Ponte Vedra from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
