Renee Rolewicz

Welcome to the Weekly’s third annual Food Issue, our brightest and spiciest yet. Over the next twenty-four pages, you’ll encounter a veritable feast prepared by the Weekly’s intrepid and insatiable reporters. Like in years past, reviews and profiles—of a family’s habanero hot sauce line, pizza in Bronzeville, michelada and smoothies, new coffee shops and a newly closed coffee shop, and bars along Archer Avenue—abound. But for the whole story of the meal on your plate, look out for pieces that report on the broader context of food production, like the new wave of agricultural cooperatives cropping up across the South Side, the anti-slaughter organizing that activists have brought down to the old Stockyards, and the 2011 urban agriculture zoning amendment that legalized for-profit urban farms—and at the same time raised the barriers to starting, and finding an appropriate business license for, an urban farm in the city of Chicago. To top it off, a new contributor makes a compelling argument about how our conversation about a just food system fails to hit the mark—and that we should be talking about racism, segregation, and the minimum wage when we talk about food access on the South Side. As always, we wish we could feature even more of the nuanced flavors of the South and West Sides than we can fit in one issue. But we’re confident that what awaits you is a carefully crafted and satisfying nine-course meal—so tuck in!

Andrew Koski

After four years of selling their brews at liquor stores, bars, and, of course, Maria’s, Marz Community Brewing opened their long-awaited taproom last February. A year before that, Lo Rez opened its doors for business in Pilsen. Moody Tongue, also of Pilsen, launched the year before that. In fact, all of the South Side breweries sampled here opened within the last five years. In short, there’s something of a craft beer renaissance happening south of Roosevelt—from professionals in wood-and-steel-converted-factory taprooms, to homebrewers in their garages and kitchens. For the third time, a group of Weekly editors—from amateur ale drinkers to aspiring aficionados—sat down at our Experimental Station office to try just a few of the beers that the South Side has to offer. After compiling our comments (some snarky, some sincere) and tallying up our numeric score (absolutely nonscientific and completely subjective), we present to you the 2018 South Side Beer Review.