Oak Park: Future Home of a Microbrewery?

Local beer drinkers, rejoice.

The popularity of Saturday's Microbrew and Food Review just might have paved the way for a microbrewer to open up shop in Oak Park. Village manager Tom Barwin said he had heard from several interested parties about the possibility of attracting  a new microbrewery.

"I am predicting that by next year's brewfest, we'll have a microbrewery somewhere in town," Barwin said.

The successs of the festival has village officials abuzz with possibilities, Barwin said, including potentially "tweaking and massaging" the village's long-established liquor laws, which typically limit the serving of alcohol to establishments that also sell food.

Saturday's festival, held in downtown Oak Park, drew about 1,800 people, 25 Midwestern brewers and vendors from several local restaurants, officials said.

Judy Torres, 26, took the CTA Green Line from Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood with a friend to attend, though the pair aren't even craft beer aficionados.

Instead, Torres and her friend said they hopped on the train for no other reason than the festival was nearby and a good reason to buy local.

"We didn't have to travel super far," she said. "It makes me want to come [to Oak Park] and support a local brewery."

As lines swelled with patrons waiting for a pour into their 7-ounce souvenir sampling glass, so too did the interest of a brewery setting up shop in Oak Park.

"Oak Park is the nicest of the suburbs," said Drew Juska, 26, who said he works in the bar business in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood. "It's not like a Schaumburg, where it's hard to get to."

But the interest wasn't limited to city dwellers.

Trustee Jan Pate was slicing through the crowd and checking out the offerings from the vendor booths.

"Clearly there's a market," she said. "Hopefully, enough interest will lead to an investor," Barwin said. "It's a very preliminary concept at this point."