The Daily Parker

Welcome to stop #24 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: More Brewing, 126 S. Villa Ave., Villa Park
Train line: Union Pacific West, Villa Park
Time from Chicago: 36 minutes (Zone D)
Distance from station: 1.5 km

In the suburbs, sometimes "concepts" take precedence over everything else. This bustling, family-friendly brewpub "concept" fits perfectly with the suburban ethos. They opened during peak brewpub in August 2017, and they seem to be doing well.

Still, they brew their own beer, and they're within 1500 meters of a Metra stop, so to Villa Park I went. At least the walk there involved a rails-to-trails project that worked:

I tried three beers, all of them a bit hazy, as is my recollection of them.

First was the K.I.S.S. IPA (6.5%), a hazy hoppy citrusy clean beer, more like a NEIPA. The Mozie IPA (7%) was fruity, juicy, and tastes lighter than the ABV implies. And the Hush of the Night Milk Stout (7.5%) had definite coffee, toffee, and chocolate flavors, as a milk stout should—especially one made with Dark Matter coffee.

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? Yes, in the beer garden
Televisions? Unavoidable
Serves food? Full restaurant
Would hang out with a book? No
Would hang out with friends? No
Would go back? No

I'm trying to get my mind around a Conservative government announcing this a few minutes ago:

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has announced the government will pay the wages of British workers to keep them in jobs as the coronavirus outbreak escalates.

In an unprecedented step, Sunak said the state would pay grants covering up to 80% of the salary of workers kept on by companies, up to a total of £2,500 per month, just above the median income.

“We are starting a great national effort to protect jobs,” he said. “It’s on all of us.”

Sunak said there would be no limit on the funding available to pay people’s wages.

The government is also deferring the next quarter of VAT payments, which is the equivalent of injecting another £30bn into the economy and is designed to help companies stay afloat.

(Another thing that I just learned: Sterling has dropped 12% against the dollar in the past week, hitting £1 = $1.1641 a few minutes ago.)

Closer to home:

• Governor JB Pritzker is about to announce a "shelter-in-place" order for Illinois starting tomorrow. California announced a similar measure yesterday.
• The President snapped at a reporter when asked to say something to give Americans hope. (Well, it was an answer, anyway.)
• James Fallows says the man should just stop showing up to press conferences and let the experts talk.
• NPR explains the differences between SARS-CoV-2 and influenza.
• Bruce Schneier looks at ramped-up surveillance in the time of pandemic, and how to balance civil safety and civil rights.
• CityLab looks at what the pandemic has done to public transit.
• The Washington Post asked five writers, including John Scalzi, to speculate on what will change after the pandemic.

And finally, Mother Jones asks "How do you know if you're living through the death of an empire?"

Welcome to stop #23 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Stockholm's, 306 W State St., Geneva
Train line: Union Pacific West, Geneva
Time from Chicago: 67 minutes (Zone H)
Distance from station: 800 m

Penrose may have been the first pure-play brewery in Geneva, but Stockholm's, which opened on 5th July 2002, was the first place to brew beer there since prohibition. According to Mike Olesen, the owner, back in 2002 "it was hard to get people to try the beer," so he opened a restaurant instead of a tasting room.

He does flights of five for $9 and pints of some beers for $4. Plus they have excellent food. I munched on a French dip sandwich and fries while trying a cross-section of the current offerings.

Clockwise from the far left is the Pils (light, earthy nose, lots more flavor than I expect in a Pilsener), the Aegir's Ale (hint of sour from the cask conditioning with lots of malt—a proper English real ale), the Geneva Pale (really interesting, with caramel and malty flavors), the Brown Ale (intense, not too sweet, complex, lingering finish), and the Porter (subtle flavors, clean finishing, lighter than most porters I've had).

Beer garden? Yes
Dogs OK? No
Televisions? Two, unavoidable
Serves food? Full restaurant
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

I have tons of experience working from home, but historically I've balanced that by going out in the evenings. The pandemic has obviously cut that practice down to zero. Moreover, the village of Oak Park will start shelter-in-place measures tomorrow, so I expect Chicago to do the same in the next couple of days. The Oak Park order seems reasonable: stay home except for essentials like food and medicine, stay two meters away from other people, it's OK to walk your dog, and so on. Since I'm already doing all of those things, a Chicago order would only affect my friends who, for example, own book shops and can't work remotely for other reasons.

In other pandemic news:

• As of yesterday a record 41,000 Illinois residents filed for unemployment benefits in a 48-hour period.
• Two luxury hotels have closed in Chicago with others expected to follow.
• Bruce Schneier calls attention to a work-from-home security awareness kit and worries about how the pandemic will increase overall infosec vulnerability because people don't actually know how to secure their home offices.
• Josh Marshall worries we're flying totally blind, because we haven't collected vital data about the pandemic's spread.
• The pub where citizens took refuge in the Zombie apocalypse comedy Sean of the Dead has shut because of the pandemic. “We stayed open during a zombie plague, ISIS attacks on London, an alien invasion and the news that Genesis were reforming, but we’ve had to take expert advice and close our doors this time”, said landlord Simon Williams.
• Republican US Senator Richard Burr briefed "a small group of well-connected constituents" about COVID-19 three weeks ago, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR. Another Republican asshat, US Representative Don Young (R-AK), joked about the "beer virus" and suggested people continue going out as normal. (Even if I hadn't specified the party affiliations of these tools, you'd know which party, wouldn't you?)
• Former US Senator Al Franken calls Trump's response "the last straw."
• Peter Nicholas writes in the Atlantic that "this is how Donald Trump will be remembered."

Also, today is the 92nd anniversary of the debut of "Amos 'n' Andy" on Chicago's WMAQ radio.

Apollo Chorus assistant director Cody Michael Bradley has put out a series of "Quarantunes" to keep us musical through the social distancing phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Today's installment was the old Joe Dassin song "Les Champs-Élysées."

New lyrics immediately sprang to mind. Voilà:

Je m'baladais sur l'avenue, le coeur ouvert à l'inconnu
J'avais envie de dire bonjour à n'importe qui
Mais tous les gens, et tous les autres les interdits d'aller dehors
Donc on peut pas dire quelques mots pour deux semaines plus

Today's news:

President Trump claims he knew COVID-19 was a pandemic all along, even though he had a strangely ineffective way of showing it.

• COVID-19 has caused a food security crisis as entire industries lay off vulnerable workers.
• The University of Illinois has cancelled graduation, devastating thousands of seniors.
• The World Health Organisation recommends avoiding Ibuprofen to treat COVID-19 symptoms; use paracetamol instead.
• Bob Cesca in Slate asks, "Why do we keep electing Republicans? They're no good at this."
• China has expelled 13 journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, in retaliation for the US expelling Chinese reporters earlier.
• Most of the Spring Gala Season in Chicago has been cancelled. (The Apollo Chorus moved its fundraiser to July 17th, crossing our fingers that the worst will be over by then.)
• Joe Biden won the most delegates in three big states (including Illinois) yesterday, making him all but certain to be the Democratic nominee for president.

Finally, and not related even a little to COVID-19, Olga Khazan writes in the Atlantic about "the perks of being a weirdo."

Actually, things seem to have quieted down. Bars and restaurants in Illinois closed last night at 9pm, and my company has moved to mandatory work-from-home, so things could not be quieter for me. I'm also an introvert with a dog and gigabit Internet, meaning I have a need to leave my house several times a day and something to do inside. (I'm also working, and in fact cracked a difficult nut yesterday that made today very productive.)

Outside of my house:

• New Republic's Nick Martin asks, why should we be more productive right now?
• Illinois recorded its first COVID-19 death as cases doubled overnight.
• Amtrak has significantly reduced service nationwide. In Chicago, reports are that Metra will cut service tomorrow.
• Politico reports on a transition exercise held a few days before President Trump took office that presaged the current crisis. Only trouble is, 75% of the attendees have left the administration since the drill, and the president appears not to have retained anything from it.
• Julia Ioffe, writing for GQ, examines the SARS-CoV-2 testing crisis and how it happened.
• Illinois is holding its primary election today, dammit. Updates after polls close.

Finally, I was able to get everyone on board with a new date for Apollo After Hours. That only took five days...and 80 emails...

Welcome to stop #22 on the Brews and Choos project.

Brewery: Penrose Brewing, 509 Stevens Street, Geneva
Train line: Union Pacific West, Geneva
Time from Chicago: 67 minutes (Zone H)
Distance from station: 1.4 km

Geneva used to be the end of the line. It's two counties over from Chicago, and on the western edge of the world. But the historic district around the train station has tons of cute houses and two pretty good breweries (with another one coming soon).

Penrose opened on 9th March 2014, when a guy from Champaign and a guy from Geneva realized that Geneva's reverse-osmosis filtering makes the municipal water supply one of the purest in the region. Penrose is the first dedicated brewery in the city.

They produce "Belgian-inspired" ales, and I found them all pretty tasty:

I started with their Dryft Morraine IPA (6.3%), a bright, hoppy, Mosaic-filled very good beer with a crisp finish. Then the Taproom IPA (7.1%), not quite as bright but tasty enough, quite good. The Clear Eyes DIPA (8.7%) had an initial sweetness from the alcohol that I didn't expect, with almost juniper-like notes in fact. And finally, the Pancake Robots Imperial Stout (13%), a blast of flavors, including maple syrup and vanilla, that I absolutely loved.

Beer garden? No
Dogs OK? No
Televisions? No
Serves food? No, BYO or delivery
Would hang out with a book? Yes
Would hang out with friends? Yes
Would go back? Yes

Illinois governor JB Pritzker has closed all bars and restaurants (except for carry-out and delivery) from the close of business tonight until March 30th:

“There are no easy decisions left to make as we address this unprecedented crisis,” Pritzker said at a news conference Sunday afternoon. “Every choice now is hard, and it comes with real consequences for our residents. But as your governor I cannot let the gravity of these choices prevent us from taking the actions that the science and the experts say will keep people safe.”

Effective end of business Monday, bars and restaurants will be closed to dine-in customers, with options of delivery, drive-thru and pickup through March 30, the governor said. The state is working with bars and restaurants across the state to ensure they can keep kitchens safe enough to continue home food delivery.

The closure of bars and restaurants goes a step further than an earlier announcement by Chicago officials that the city would limit any establishments that serve liquor to 100 people, or half their regular capacity.

This quite obviously suspends the Brews & Choos project, at least until April. Fortunately I've already written the next four posts and I've got a fifth one ready to go. I'll just space them out a little bit more. So after tomorrow's post, expect to see a new one every three days instead of every two.

Some dingleberry from Tennessee thought he'd make easy money by stocking up on hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes. Now he's got a garage full of things Amazon won't let him sell. And he's whining about it to the New York Times:

On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.

Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from “little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods,” his brother said. “The major metro areas were cleaned out.”

Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, “it was crazy money.” To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.

The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, they’d lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.

Now, while millions of people across the country search in vain for hand sanitizer to protect themselves from the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Colvin is sitting on 17,700 bottles of the stuff with little idea where to sell them.

Let me suggest other things he can sit on.

Closer to home, my own foraging yesterday turned up odd gaps in supply chains. The Trader Joe's in Evanston ran out of dairy and frozen food; the Whole Foods closer to my house had lots of dairy, but no frozen food or dried beans. They had tons of bulk rice, though, so I wonder what people are eating their beans with. Other friends reported Jewel stores having no produce, and Mariano's having no working escalators, which I suppose is less a problem for the public than it sounds.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of Chicago has just announced a cap on bar and restaurant patronage at the lesser of half the establishment's capacity or 100. Why they didn't do this yesterday, before massive crowds went out to St Patrick's Day celebrations, astounds me.