Map Room

Chicago, Illinois

With tasty hard-to-find craft beers and a cozy neighborhood corner bar setting, Map Room offers a welcome and easy-going respite from the pace of the city.

What it is:

A classic neighborhood corner bar is sometimes just what you need to offset the ever-changing landscape of taproom and brewery visits. That’s when I stop into the Map Room on the corner of Hoyne and Armitage in Chicago’s Bucktown neighborhood for some local drinking and global thinking. Serving neighbors and travelers for more than twenty years, the Map Room offers locally brewed beers on tap and an internationally focused bottle list.

Why it’s great:

The Map Room is an authentic beer bar with cool old-fashioned maps on the walls, tables decorated with foreign coins, and plenty of back issues of National Geographic to peruse. One feels transported upon entering the cozy space to a place where good beer and comfortable conversation is always on tap. I order a Begyle Oh Hey!, an easy-drinking English-style porter, and relax flipping through an article about Stonehenge. A study of the tap-and-bottle list highlights the Map Room’s focus on obscure microbrews and international selections. Take a journey through Belgium with a Saison d’erpe-mere from Glazen Toren or sip and savor a Firestone Walker Velvet Merlin on nitro. The quality of the beer and the easy-going feel of the bar will make you glad you did. —Sara Dumford Details Hours: 6:30 a.m.–2:00 a.m., Monday–friday; 7:30 a.m.–3:00 a.m., Saturday; 11:00 a.m.–2:00 a.m., Sunday Address: 1949 N Hoyne Ave., Chicago, IL Web: maproom.com