The Beeronaut

Self-Isolated Chicago Beer Weekend, April 3-5

This is likely the first victim of the COVID-19 isolation: Craftworks, the parent company of Rock Bottom, Gordon Biersch, Old Chicago and other restaurant chains, laid off all of its 18,000 employees on March 31. The termination notices, sent by email, also cancelled their health insurance benefits. This was allowed under their bankruptcy proceeding: the company filed for Chapter 11 protection on March 3. The Rock Bottoms in Chicago, Bolingbrook, Naperville and Orland Park had closed down completely under the COVID-19 isolation order, rather than attempt to offer carry-out or delivery service. The chain might still attempt to emerge from bankruptcy at a later time. Westword

Meanwhile, I have managed to cripple some of the functions on this site all by myself. I have a separate blog at markmcdermott.com that I tried to update to the latest version of WordPress, and it broke. While trying to sort out the issue, I managed to separately break the setting that refers to my Google Calendar app that serves these listings. I managed to fix the links for the March 30-April 2 listings, and this one should be good to go. But, well, you really don’t need to look for articles about beer tastings in the past.

Among the events we’ll be missing this weekend is the Tinley Park Brew & Vine Festival.