Short version today, because I am hungover.

The day started at West Lakeview Liquors, which is a very cool store indeed. Kristina, Devon and the team have built something impressive. The selection is close to sickening if you have come from a country where getting hold of an American IPA involves knowing somebody with a van. I cannot speak highly enough of the place or the people running it.

Then Piece, for pizza, which was excellent, and beer that was better than it needed to be. Their new IPA impressed me. I also had my first ever pint of Gumballhead, a hop head’s delight I will now be chasing for the rest of the trip.

After a drive down Lake Shore Drive doing the tourist thing, I went to the Map Room, and this is the part worth writing down.

It was one in, one out when I arrived, which tells you something. By then the time difference was properly landing on me and the caffeine had done as much as caffeine can. I started with Struiselensis, which I know is an odd choice in Chicago, but I had never had it and it was a superb sour refresher. Had there been a lambic or a gueuze on draught, I would have had that instead. Then Victory Prima Pils, which was outstanding. Then, to finish, cask. Yes, cask. Pride and Joy from Three Floyds, on a handpull, in Chicago. It is never in a million years a mild, whatever the label says, and it was hoppier than most hoppy bitters at home. But it was a genuinely good beer, and finding it there was the single most surprising thing that has happened on this trip.

Their draught list leans heavily on beers I know from the Bay Area, North Coast, Bear Republic, alongside a fair number of the Belgians I sell at home, which left me thoroughly spoilt for choice. The bottle list is crammed onto the back of the beer list and I never counted it properly. Two hundred, at a guess.

By the time I left, I had decided it is one of the best bars I have ever been in. The nearest description I can give an English reader is that it is the Toronado with windows. It was also astonishingly sweaty, but that is the humidity, not the bar.

Today I am mainly driving to New Glarus and a bottle store near there, then back to Chicago for Sam’s and Goose Island. I need to get a checkable shipping crate from Sam’s to move this beer to California and then home to the UK, which is the least glamorous and most necessary part of any trip like this.

Tomorrow is a road trip: Flossmoor, Three Floyds, then Livery. Tuesday is a no beer day. Wednesday, California.