Mikerphone Brewing | Elk Grove Village, IL
Beer Trip: Mikerphone Brewing in Elk Grove Village, Illinois
With a theme that rivals any brewery we’ve ever been to, Mikerphone Brewing is an incredibly memorable stop. Whether it’s records, music notes, album covers, or beers named after famous artists, this brewery is a music aficionado's dream.
Bright blue colors throughout featuring plenty of records - the ambiance here is palpable!
The Brewery
Mikerphone (founded by the Mike in Mikerphone!) is located just south of Chicago in an industrial area in the suburbs of Elk Grove Village. There is a nice-sized outdoor patio here, but the indoor space is where their theme truly shines! The inside area is split into two spaces - one with a few large tables, a bar, and several pinball machines, whereas the other side is the main space featuring many tables, couches, and a 10-person bar.
One side of the brewery featuring larger group tables, board games, and pinball machines
The bar side, featuring the events marquee and window views into the brewing area
The walls throughout are painted a bright blue with tons of different musical ties such as records, guitars, microphones for tap handles, and a large marquee board behind the bar showing upcoming events that looks like that of a concert venue. This place truly is one of the best themed breweries we’ve ever visited!
Lovely outdoor area with garage doors you could leave up on a nice day
Love that the name has ties to music and to its founder!
The Beer
Each beer style was served in a different type of glass, which was also a lot of fun!
There are tons of beer options at Mikerphone with 20+ choices on tap. If IPAs are your thing, then this is the place for you - half of their menu consists of this style. One might wonder how you can even have 10 different IPAs, but they’ve figured it out here - they took a double dry-hopped IPA recipe and simply changed out the hops in each batch. While we didn’t try this, it would be really fun to get a flight of them all and pinpoint the differences.
While IPAs take up half of the menu, the other half consists of several German and Czech brews like lagers, pilsners, and a Kolsch, as well as multiple Berliner Weisse choices. The other fun thing about the beer here is that most have names tied to something musical.
More logo and glassware variations
The brewer here does a great job of incorporating unique flavors into the beer, unlike many places we have experienced. When You Say Wisconsin… was the top beer of the trip, and one of the best beers we’ve had in 2022! This Berliner Weisse had a great cream flavor to it with the perfect combination of cherry and vanilla - 10/10, would recommend! The Doug E. Fresh Hop: Strata was actually the lone IPA we sampled and it provided a great citrus taste, yet was a bit hoppy.
Another unique offering was the Slick Pickle Rick - just like it sounds, this was a pickle beer brewed as a golden ale. They did a great job of bringing out the dill flavoring subtly to provide just the right amount of pickle flavor, which we have found to be difficult with the other pickle beers we’ve tried.
Food, Merch, & More
We visited during the evening hours, but were told that Mikerphone routinely partners with food trucks to fill your hunger. In addition to serving alcoholic beer, they also had several top notch nonalcoholic options (which at 6 months pregnant, was perfect for Morgan - she actually discovered a new favorite while here)!
There was plenty of merchandise available for purchase here including glassware, shirts, hats, dog bowls, and even their microphone tap handles. To top it all off, they also had nearly every beer on the menu available as a 4-pack to-go.
More shirts than you could imagine!
Sweet tap handles!
More views of the record wall
Chris took home plenty of merchandise from here, including a tap handle and plenty of take-home beer!
More merchandise, including the unique glassware!
