Jay Dogen
Assistant brewer at Sketchbook Brewing in Skokie, IL
SketchbookBrewing.com

The last really good beer I drank was… out in Denver for the Great American Beer Festival. We swung by the Bierstadt Lagerhaus, a German-style, lager-only brewery, and we tried their Oktoberfest, pilsner and helles lager. We had liters of all three, and all were great. It was a good vibe, too, especially with a lot of industry folks in town. 

Bierstadt Lagerhaus

What fellow Illinois breweries and specific beers have impressed you lately? 

Mostly Art History Brewing and Goldfinger Brewing Company right now. Usually, to get lagers that accurate, you have to have a passport and be headed to Europe. What both of them do is so true to the original style. They kind of set the bar for everyone else, which is usually hard to do. 

Usually, to get lagers as accurate as Art History or Goldfinger, you have to have a passport and be headed to Europe. What both of them do is so true to the original style. They kind of set the bar for everyone else.

Art History makes an English dark mild ale in the winter as part of a limited series, where they use proper malts, hops and yeast from the Midlands region of England. My wife and I really enjoyed that. And their Dithering Bitter was good too. Very authentic. 

Goldfinger Brewing

What are you most proud of at Sketchbook? 

I’m proud of the latest batches we’ve been putting out. It’s been a lot of labor for sure, but the end result was something to be proud of. I’m really happy with our Catch Me If You Can winter warmer. I’m not usually a fan of spiced beer or holiday/Christmas ales, but I do believe this one is up there. It’s blended perfectly with just the right amount of spice for a brown ale. 

And Holiday Hops, which was canned in mid-December. We wanted to make sure the end result was exactly what we got: an easy-drinking, juicy IPA that doesn’t taste like an 8% beer. 

What do you have coming up that people should know about?

We did a collaboration IPA with Industry Ales called Kernel Krush that was a fun hazy IPA we worked hard on. It’s still being served at both Sketchbook locations in Evanston and Skokie and at Industry Ales in downtown Chicago.

Also, an American stout that we just brewed — which is a style that I haven’t been a part of before, so I’m learning about this subcategory from my co-workers as we go, which is fun.