Cabin Fever
Taxidermy and Beer in Wicker Park

You feel it in your bones. It’s happening. That first bitter cold wind. That looming first snow.

Friends, sausage weather has arrived.

So just in the nick of time, we bring word that Bangers & Lace, the long-awaited Wicker Park beer saloon in the guise of a Wisconsin cabin in the guise of a European beer hall, finally opens tonight.

This is sort of like that Door County lodge Granddad took you to when you were a kid, only with less dust and more foie gras. There’s antique furniture, big leather couches and kind-of-cool, kind-of-scary stuffed raccoons staring down at you from high places.

Naturally, you’ll start at the bar. Thirty-two draft handles attached directly to the wall. Then 68 bottles next to them, including one fermented exactly like champagne. Yes, literally, the champagne of beers.

In other words, things can get a little esoteric, so flag down the on-staff “beer sommelier” to find your preferred hop-to-malt ratio (everyone has their number). But since there are only three cocktails on the menu, you could save a lot of time ordering The Brass. There’s bourbon in it. That’s all you need to know.

Then head to the back room, melt into a leather couch and snuggle up to fried pickles, bacon-wrapped kielbasa skewers and French garlic sausage corn dogs wrapped in brioche and gilded with foie gras.

The bratwurst of France.