Not So Evil Geniuses
After passing by their Fishtown location hundreds of times, we finally made it out to the Evil Genius Brewery to see what they had to offer. We had a chance to tour the facility with one of the founders and learned more about the backstory of how Evil Genius came to be. In a nutshell, they were just a couple of guys who loved brewing their own beer so much that they decided to pursue their passion and bring great beer to the world; showing us all that the American Dream is still very much attainable.
The Evil Genius space is pretty much comprised of three areas; The Tasting Room, The Brewery, and The Beer Garden. This may all seem like a very traditional setup so far, but we promise there is nothing boring about this place.
The tasting room dubbed “The Lab” is an inviting space with exposed brick walls, high ceilings and plenty of natural light that pours through the large skylights and windowed garage doors that open up during warm seasons. There is a lower level which is nicknamed “The Basement” and literally looks like your parents’ basement from the early 90’s complete with board games, a Sega Genesis that you can actually play, and dozens of VHS and cassette tapes. Nostalgia overload! Their brewery is immaculate with shiny tanks and the latest in modern brewing equipment. Everything was so clean that you would think it is all just for show, but in fact all the beer served in the tasting room is made on site and all the taps are fed directly from kegs in their refrigerated storage area. The Beer Garden is a large outdoor space with colorful tables and chairs, recreational areas for games, and chill zones where you can just hang out and enjoy your beer with a view of the El right above that adds to the hip urban setting.
Of course, we need to talk about the food. The menu, which is listed on old VHS movie cases, is an eclectic mix of light bar snacks and sandwiches that compliment the beer. One of the more unique items we tried was the Hoagie Dip Grilled Cheese (Yes, you read that right). We were immediately intrigued by the name of this sandwich and just overall curious to see what this looked like. The sandwich basically includes all the parts of a traditional Italian Hoagie remixed into grilled cheese form. So you get chopped up salami, capicola, peppered ham, lettuce, tomato and banana peppers grilled with an ultra melty Irish Wexford Cheddar. Pair that with any one of the Evil Genius beers with names like Wubba Lubba Dub Dub, Bears.Beets.Battlestar Galactica, and Bye Felicia, and you absolutely can not go wrong. It is nothing but good vibes over at Evil Genius Brewery.
