CHICAGO VICINITY, ILLINOIS

Drawing a respectable conservative mainstream crowd was Lake In The Hills beautiful freestanding chateau-styled cement-stone-brick-designed mall-sited restaurant-bar chateau, GOVNOR’S PUBLIC HOUSE, operating as a brewpub since ’98 (and visited August ’06 but closed 2008). This spacious pub opens to a square shaped bar with plentiful left side dining available.

Weekend drink specials and good food (pizza, prime rib, and 5-way grilled cheese are mainstays) draw the crowd, as do delightful fruit-soured brews such as orange-bruised lemon-candied banana-bubblegum-clove-tinged O’Kelly’s Hefeweizen, hop-toasted fig-dried pecan-praline-bottomed Public House Pale Ale, and mouth-puckering citric-soured berry-sweet Raspberry Wheat.

Though astringent wheat-strawed corn-dried Leprechaun Light was strictly commercial and curacao orange-centered grapefruit-melon-receded Rubberband Red had chemical acidity, ultra-dry butterscotch-nipped vanilla-dipped Vanilla Cream Ale and raspberry ice tea motif, Veronica’s A.P.A., fared better. Black coffee-roasted cocoa-dried hop-toasted maple-finishing Shamrock Stout was inspiring. Best bet: Bannockburn Scottish Ale, a dry-hopped caramel malted medium body with red apple, orange peel, grapefruit rind, and pecan pie illusions.

Alas, by 2009, economic woes brought down Govnor’s, which may reopen as a sportsbar. No word if they’ll continue brewing.