Beer flights grow in popularity at local breweries as draft lists expand

Ever-evolving bar and brewery draft lists often run deep.

That doesn’t mean anxiety about which drinks to try should follow suit.

Is uncertainty your plight? Try a flight, a selection of beers, wines, whiskeys, meads, or other cocktails intended for tasting in a group.

“It’s kind of a choose your own adventure in a lot of ways, right?” said Luke Goucher, co-owner of Obscurity Brewing in Elburn and Illinois Crafted Hospitality. “So, they can really get that full, immersive experience and drive them to either confirm what they thought they liked or maybe drive them to something they haven’t tried before at a lower price.”

Nick Miller, general manager of Pollyanna Brewing and Distilling Co. in St. Charles, often sees the latter sequence unfold.

He recently recalled a visitor who admittedly shied from West Coast IPAs. After sampling one as part of a create-your-own flight – Pollyanna also has a set flight with five-ounce pours of five flagship beers – the patron ordered a pint of West Coast IPA and continued chatting with the bartender.

“It definitely opens the door for deeper conversation and more back and forth about what other beers they’ve tried, what other styles they’ve tried from other breweries and how they compare,” Miller said. “Yeah, it’s a cool opportunity.”

If bars and breweries lend themselves to being social, a reciprocal menu item simply seems right.

Speaking of Pollyanna and West Coast IPAs, Miller finds ordering flights also promotes conversation about how various beers are named. Guests often ask about Pollyanna’s West Coast, called Lexical Gap. The story stems from Pollyanna’s head brewer.

“He knew he had to brew an IPA but there’s no word in the English language that could capture his distaste for brewing IPAs,” Miller said, “so there’s a gap in the lexicon.”

Not so with flights, which bring spirits together and whose alcohol-related definition indeed appears in the Merriam-Webster dictionary.

At Obscurity, which makes beer, cider and mead – a classic fermented beverage using water, honey, malt and yeast – visitors can order flights specific to those drinks or mix-and-match across styles.

Whiskey Bend in St. Charles, which offers more than 130 whiskeys under six headings, also provides options for flights.

The established Luxco flight includes pours of Yellowstone Select bourbon, Rebel 100 Proof bourbon, and Daviess County KSBW 96. Patrons also can choose three options from a list of 12 whiskeys to create their own flight.

To Goucher, “the other cool thing about” flights is “they’re social, they can be shared.

“Two people can order the flights, or you can share the flight. It allows you to talk about it and really be collaborative in the drinking experience.”

There’s also the chance to be scientific. Goucher sets a situation in which a flight order calls up a sequence of hoppy beers – say, a West Coast, juicy, and hazy IPA.

“Those beers are going to be completely different,” Goutcher said, “and it allows you to taste through those if you want to go that route, too. “To really understand which composition is your favorite and why and kind of really learn that with the bartender.”