Journal & Topics Media Group

Niles’ First Microbrewery Opens




Niles’ first microbrewery with a tasting room is open on Golf Road.

Une Année opened in Golf Glen Plaza, 9082 W. Golf Rd., in the first week of February producing two brands of beer: Une Année, which means “new year” in French, and Hubbard’s Cave, referring to a stretch of the Kennedy Expressway near the Loop that runs through a tunnel before it becomes the Dan Ryan Expressway.

Une Année offers sales of sealed bottles for home consumption from its “bottle shop” seven days a week. The microbrewery also has a tap room, open four days a week, where beer can be purchased for consumption on site.

The tap room is currently open from 2 to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday, noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday. Additional “bottle shop” hours are from 2 to 6 p.m. Monday through Wednesday. The 2,500 square foot tasting room offers 49 seats and total capacity for 69.

Une Année owner Jerry Nelson started brewing beer in his home in 1995. For the last several years he worked out of a brewery at Grand and Ashland avenues in Chicago.

Une Année has agreements with distributors to sell beer to bars, restaurants, liquor and grocery stores in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and Philadelphia.

When Nelson said he wanted to open a tasting room at the Chicago location, but found the regulatory process with Chicago prohibitively difficult, he decided to move his entire operation to Niles.

The opening of the village’s first microbrewery took some extra legislative steps from Niles trustees.

Licenses to brew beer are issued by the state and federal governments. Village officials said those licenses were transferred from the Chicago location, but when Nelson approached the village, Niles had no local liquor license classification for a microbrewery.

In June 2016, village trustees approved a special use permit to operate a tavern at the Golf Road location. The following September, trustees created a new type of liquor license allowing a microbrewery and tasting room to operate in the village. In November, Une Année was awarded that first-ever microbrewery and tasting room liquor license.

Une Année brews unfiltered beers, including unique sour beers, using a 15-barrel system. One barrel of beer is equal to 31 gallons.

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